Latest / Blocked and Reported / Episode 293: What Ever Happened To Net Neutrality? Part 1

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Episode 293: What Ever Happened To Net Neutrality? Part 1 · Blocked and Reported

0:09
SPEAKER_03: Jesse, how was Austin?
0:10
SPEAKER_02: Austin was great.
0:12
SPEAKER_03: Tacos?
0:12
SPEAKER_03: How many did you have?
0:13
SPEAKER_02: Tacos.
0:14
SPEAKER_02: I had three breakfast tacos on one occasion.
0:18
SPEAKER_03: You must be on a diet.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: Oh, and then we got really good.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: We got really good Tex-Mex.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: No, I'm not on a diet.
0:23
SPEAKER_02: I probably ate 8000 calories during one Tex-Mex meal.
0:27
It was just like one of those situations where you see a plate
0:29
before you and every
0:30
SPEAKER_02: item on it includes melted cheese.
0:32
That's the thing about vegetarians is like vegetarians are
0:35
known for their healthy
0:36
SPEAKER_03: eating,
0:37
SPEAKER_02: which is that's why I'm so healthy.
0:39
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, we had a great event with Katie.
0:43
SPEAKER_02: Say everyone who's at the event again.
0:44
SPEAKER_03: Connor Friedersdorf.
0:45
SPEAKER_03: Megan Friedersdorf.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: Megan McArdle.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: Megan McArdle.
0:48
SPEAKER_03: Lee Stein.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: Lee Stein.
0:49
SPEAKER_03: Kat Rosenfield.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: Kat Rosenfield.
0:51
SPEAKER_03: River Page.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: River Page.
0:52
SPEAKER_03: Jesse Single.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: Jesse Single.
0:54
SPEAKER_03: And I had a question.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: Nick Fuentes.
0:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry.
0:56
SPEAKER_03: I had a question.
0:58
SPEAKER_03: Phoebe Maltz-Vobey.
0:59
SPEAKER_03: I saw she was in Texas because of Instagram.
1:02
SPEAKER_03: She was not included in the event.
1:03
SPEAKER_03: Why did you eliminate Phoebe?
1:05
SPEAKER_03: No Canadians?
1:06
SPEAKER_02: No, no Jews.
1:07
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, that's fair.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: No, she couldn't.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: We tried to include her.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: She had to get back because she has like a- Children, family, all that.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: A family.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you've heard of it.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: Well,
1:16
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:16
it's probably a good thing that she didn't stay because I hear
1:19
they're detaining
1:20
SPEAKER_03: Canadians now.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: You can't deport me.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm here for heterodoxy.
1:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're going to Seacott.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
1:25
SPEAKER_02: the only downside of Austin,
1:27
SPEAKER_02: and it's a little bit gross,
1:29
SPEAKER_02: is that at the Airbnb a bunch of us stayed in,
1:31
SPEAKER_02: there was a hot tub.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: We all, there was something wrong.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: No, it's not like that.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: There was something wrong.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: All of us who were in the hot tub,
1:42
SPEAKER_02: all,
1:42
SPEAKER_02: I think four of us,
1:44
something with the chlorine was off because we all had like
1:46
some sort of skin stuff
1:48
SPEAKER_02: after we all had like itchy.
1:50
SPEAKER_03: You hope it was the chlorine.
1:52
i hope it was the chlorine it was it was very unpleasant uh but
1:55
yeah texas swimmers
1:57
itch famous for it uh austin was great i will say it gets a
2:01
little bit less weird
2:02
every time um i go there so i came up with the motto make
2:07
austin increasingly weird
2:08
again it's a little fit on a bumper sticker we'll catch on how
2:11
are you doing where
2:12
SPEAKER_02: are you
2:13
SPEAKER_03: So I am currently in North Carolina.
2:16
SPEAKER_03: We are, I have to admit, we are recording this episode early.
2:19
SPEAKER_03: Normally when we pre-record episodes,
2:21
we try to anticipate what has happened in the future so that we
2:24
can comment on
2:25
SPEAKER_03: something that hasn't happened yet and the people will know.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: And we have 100% success rate.
2:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we hire a psychic.
2:31
SPEAKER_02: Our election response one after Trump got elected the second time,
2:34
SPEAKER_02: we recorded that two years early just to be ready.
2:37
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, we're recording this one early for a couple reasons.
2:39
SPEAKER_03: The first reason is that there is a, so this is, today is January 24th.
2:45
There is a,
2:46
you might have heard of this,
2:47
Jesse,
2:48
the icepocalypse is on its way here.
2:50
SPEAKER_03: I am supposed to,
2:52
SPEAKER_03: I was actually supposed to be in Durham today for this event at Duke,
2:56
SPEAKER_03: which sold out.
2:57
SPEAKER_03: I'll have you know, it sold out.
2:58
SPEAKER_03: It was free, but it did sell out.
3:00
And and that has been canceled or it's been now moved online
3:04
because of the coming storm.
3:06
SPEAKER_03: And so I am in North Carolina.
3:07
I'm still in Asheville,
3:08
but I'm supposed to be leaving to drive across the country on
3:11
Wednesday.
3:12
SPEAKER_03: We will see if any of that happens.
3:14
SPEAKER_03: This could be the last episode of this podcast.
3:17
The entire eastern seaboard could lose power,
3:19
could lose Internet for weeks,
3:21
months,
3:21
years.
3:22
SPEAKER_03: We don't know.
3:23
SPEAKER_03: So it's been fun, I guess.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I hope you guys are okay.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what to say other than that.
3:31
SPEAKER_02: I hope you make it out.
3:32
Not just to continue the podcast,
3:33
but because I don't want you stuck there.
3:37
SPEAKER_03: I appreciate that.
3:37
SPEAKER_03: Well, this is a two-part episode.
3:40
So if we don't get to record the second part,
3:43
then people will never know what happened.
3:45
SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine?
3:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: Just having that hanging over them the rest of their lives?
3:48
Yeah,
3:49
especially because it's about something that they cannot
3:50
possibly Google.
3:51
SPEAKER_03: So today, Jesse, we are talking about net neutrality.
3:55
SPEAKER_03: And we've been talking about doing this episode for a long time.
3:58
SPEAKER_03: We're finally ready to do it.
3:59
SPEAKER_03: And this was a major story for several years, about a decade ago.
4:04
SPEAKER_03: And I was under the impression at the time that without net neutrality,
4:08
SPEAKER_03: the Internet would literally die.
4:11
SPEAKER_03: And then the issue just sort of disappeared.
4:14
SPEAKER_03: So today and next week,
4:15
SPEAKER_03: we're going to find out why we're going to find out what neutrality was,
4:18
SPEAKER_03: what it is,
4:19
SPEAKER_03: what happened.
4:19
SPEAKER_03: We're going to really go deep into this story.
4:22
SPEAKER_03: We do, however, have to start with some history.
4:25
And so the next like 10 minutes of this episode are going to be
4:29
slightly dry,
4:30
SPEAKER_03: but please just stick with us.
4:32
SPEAKER_03: The history is important and we will get to the good stuff.
4:35
SPEAKER_03: We will get to John Oliver, I promise you.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: I can't wait.
4:38
SPEAKER_03: All right, let's dive into it.
4:40
So this is a story about how the internet and public policy and
4:44
activism and the
4:45
media and the attention economy all crashed together in one
4:49
very messy battle,
4:50
SPEAKER_03: a battle that might not ever truly go away.
4:53
And I'm hoping to answer the question,
4:56
is net neutrality necessary for free and open internet?
4:59
SPEAKER_03: Do we need it?
5:00
SPEAKER_03: And did we ever?
5:01
SPEAKER_03: So Jesse...
5:02
SPEAKER_03: Before we get into it,
5:03
let me first ask you to think back to the net neutrality wars
5:06
of a decade or so
5:07
SPEAKER_03: ago.
5:08
SPEAKER_03: So based on your impression of net neutrality back in like 2014,
5:14
SPEAKER_03: 2015,
5:14
SPEAKER_03: how would you have defined it?
5:15
SPEAKER_02: Well,
5:16
the internet is a series of tubes and net neutrality is the
5:21
idea that the tubes
5:22
SPEAKER_02: should all be similarly lubricated so that the New York Times...
5:29
cannot does not have a right to have like video go through the
5:32
tubes faster than
5:33
some like indie porn site or whatever the idea like it was
5:36
about corporate power
5:37
basically like these big corporate actors could slow down
5:40
internet for some people
5:41
but keep it fast for themselves and their friends i guess
5:44
something like that
5:45
something like that i didn't so you're saying i didn't nail it
5:48
with the tubes do
5:49
SPEAKER_03: you watch a lot of john oliver
5:51
SPEAKER_02: I used to.
5:52
SPEAKER_03: We will get to John Oliver later.
5:54
But before we get to that,
5:55
we're going to start all the way back in the 1930s.
5:58
SPEAKER_03: Yes,
5:58
SPEAKER_03: this is a history lesson because to understand net neutrality,
6:02
it's important to know just a little bit about the history of
6:05
communication
6:06
SPEAKER_03: regulation first.
6:07
SPEAKER_03: So communication has a long history of federal regulations,
6:11
but there are two pieces of legislation that are important to
6:14
the net neutrality
6:15
SPEAKER_03: fight.
6:16
SPEAKER_03: The first is the Communications Act of 1934,
6:19
SPEAKER_03: and the second is the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
6:21
SPEAKER_03: I assume you are familiar?
6:24
SPEAKER_02: I have memorized both, but I'll let you summarize them instead.
6:27
SPEAKER_03: So generous.
6:28
So the Communications Act of 1934 created the Federal
6:32
Communications Commission,
6:34
SPEAKER_03: the FCC,
6:35
and they created it by consolidating these scattered regulatory
6:38
powers under one
6:39
SPEAKER_03: roof.
6:40
SPEAKER_03: So this new agency, the FCC...
6:42
SPEAKER_03: At the time,
6:43
it consisted of seven commissioners who were appointed by the
6:45
president and then
6:46
SPEAKER_03: confirmed by the Senate.
6:47
SPEAKER_03: In the 1980s, that number was reduced to five commissioners.
6:51
SPEAKER_03: That's what we have today.
6:53
But from the very beginning,
6:54
the rule was that the commission had to be bipartisan.
6:57
So at the beginning,
6:59
no more than four commissioners could be from the same party.
7:01
SPEAKER_03: Today, it's no more than three.
7:03
SPEAKER_03: And this new commission,
7:04
SPEAKER_03: the FCC,
7:05
SPEAKER_03: was tasked with overseeing radio,
7:07
SPEAKER_03: telegraph,
7:08
SPEAKER_03: undersea cables,
7:09
SPEAKER_03: and the telephone.
7:10
SPEAKER_03: This is, of course, well before the internet.
7:13
And at that point in history,
7:15
even the telephone was still pretty new technology.
7:17
SPEAKER_03: You know,
7:17
SPEAKER_03: I'm sure you remember this from your eighth grade history class,
7:20
but the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell or
7:23
Alicia Gray in 1876.
7:25
SPEAKER_03: They actually filed the patent on the same day, but Bell won that war.
7:29
And he later founded the Bell Company,
7:31
which managed local telephone service across the US.
7:35
But within the decade,
7:36
people started wanting to make long distance calls.
7:39
SPEAKER_03: They wanted to call, I don't know,
7:40
SPEAKER_03: Aunt Mammy back in Oklahoma.
7:43
SPEAKER_03: They wanted to talk long distance.
7:45
SPEAKER_03: And so the Bell Company created AT&T.
7:47
SPEAKER_03: That was the American telephone and telegraph company.
7:50
SPEAKER_03: Then by the 1930s, phones had been widely adopted.
7:54
SPEAKER_03: And so telephone regulation became central to the FCC's mission.
7:58
SPEAKER_03: And the 1934 Communication Act that I just mentioned,
8:01
SPEAKER_03: that established AT&T as a government-sanctioned monopoly.
8:04
SPEAKER_03: And this persisted for a couple of decades.
8:06
SPEAKER_03: The monopoly began to crack in the mid 20th century.
8:09
SPEAKER_03: There were some high profile antitrust cases.
8:11
SPEAKER_03: And by 1984,
8:13
the old AT&T monopoly was broken into seven regional Bell
8:18
operating companies
8:18
SPEAKER_03: called Baby Bells.
8:19
SPEAKER_03: Yes, it does sound like a cheese.
8:21
SPEAKER_03: So that'd be like Bell South, Bell Atlantic, etc.
8:23
SPEAKER_03: And a much smaller AT&T.
8:25
SPEAKER_03: So that's the early history.
8:26
And the reason it is important to the net neutrality fights
8:29
that would come many
8:30
SPEAKER_03: decades later is that the 1934 Act not only created the FCC,
8:34
it also gave the FCC the power to regulate what are called
8:38
common carriers,
8:39
which in this context refers to telecom companies that provide
8:43
essential services.
8:45
SPEAKER_03: So like today, that's AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile.
8:48
SPEAKER_03: They're all common carriers.
8:50
SPEAKER_03: What you think of as telephone companies are common carriers.
8:53
SPEAKER_03: They are actually utilities.
8:55
And the heart of the net neutrality debate is whether or not
8:58
internet service
8:58
SPEAKER_03: providers – so that would be like Comcast,
9:01
SPEAKER_03: Xfinity,
9:02
SPEAKER_03: Charter,
9:02
SPEAKER_03: Spectrum,
9:03
Frontier – whether ISPs should also be considered common
9:07
carriers like phone
9:08
SPEAKER_03: companies –
9:09
and therefore subject to additional government regulations like
9:12
any other utility.
9:14
And I will fully admit,
9:15
I did not understand this until I really started digging into
9:18
it.
9:18
I thought net neutrality was about pipes and lubrication and
9:21
fast lanes and slow
9:22
SPEAKER_03: lanes,
9:23
SPEAKER_03: and it sort of is,
9:24
SPEAKER_03: but that's a really small part of it.
9:25
SPEAKER_03: So are you with me so far?
9:27
SPEAKER_02: I am very much with you.
9:28
So the other piece of telecom history that you need to
9:30
understand before we get to
9:31
SPEAKER_03: the 21st century is the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
9:35
SPEAKER_03: So this was an amendment to the 1934 Communications Act.
9:39
SPEAKER_03: And it's one of the most important laws in modern US telecom history.
9:44
SPEAKER_03: And it was basically the opposite of the old rules.
9:47
SPEAKER_03: So the 1934 Act established a monopoly,
9:50
SPEAKER_03: AT&T,
9:51
SPEAKER_03: and the 1996 Act was meant to decrease regulation,
9:55
SPEAKER_03: increase competition,
9:56
SPEAKER_03: and break up those regional baby bell monopolies.
9:59
SPEAKER_03: They wanted to let the phone market flourish.
10:02
SPEAKER_03: But this wasn't just about phones at that point.
10:04
SPEAKER_03: It was also about the internet,
10:06
SPEAKER_03: Because by 1996,
10:06
the internet has emerged as a household good that at the time
10:10
was accessed through
10:11
SPEAKER_03: phone lines.
10:12
SPEAKER_03: So our younger listeners won't remember this.
10:14
But back in the 90s,
10:15
to get online,
10:16
you literally had to dial a phone number from your computer.
10:19
SPEAKER_03: Your computer would then shriek at you.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: Like literally a demon in your room.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: Kill me!
10:26
SPEAKER_02: Like it would tell you to kill it and you'd have to be like,
10:28
SPEAKER_02: no,
10:28
SPEAKER_02: give me internet and then I'll kill you.
10:30
SPEAKER_03: You'd have to stab it, yeah.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: Then you'd have to stab it and then the internet would work.
10:32
SPEAKER_03: It was such an unfortunate sound.
10:34
SPEAKER_03: And then when the internet finally answered the phone,
10:37
SPEAKER_03: you would very,
10:38
very slowly like feed your Neopets or browse your friends'
10:41
Geocities pages or
10:43
SPEAKER_03: whatever until your mom yelled at you to stop hogging the phone line.
10:46
SPEAKER_03: No,
10:46
SPEAKER_02: or until someone in the house picked up the phone,
10:50
SPEAKER_02: which would literally kick you offline in some cases.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: So,
10:52
So it's hard to imagine now,
10:54
but tech policy of the mid 90s was surprisingly bipartisan.
10:58
SPEAKER_03: So this was when the Internet was emerging as this consumer good.
11:02
SPEAKER_03: At the time,
11:03
both the neoliberal Clinton administration and Congress decided
11:06
that the private
11:07
SPEAKER_03: sector should lead on the Internet.
11:09
SPEAKER_03: And of course,
11:10
now we live in the present and we can see that this decision in
11:13
many ways was a big
11:15
SPEAKER_03: success.
11:15
SPEAKER_03: Like the U.S.
11:16
SPEAKER_03: led the world in developing Internet technology for decades.
11:19
SPEAKER_03: American companies invented the first popular web browser,
11:22
SPEAKER_03: social media,
11:23
SPEAKER_03: email,
11:24
SPEAKER_03: streaming,
11:24
SPEAKER_03: online video,
11:25
SPEAKER_03: the modern day smartphone,
11:26
SPEAKER_03: the podcast.
11:27
We're arguably leading the world in AI,
11:29
although China might win that war.
11:31
SPEAKER_03: But of course, there's been a cost to this, right?
11:33
SPEAKER_03: So on the one hand, consumer technology is amazing.
11:36
I never have to read magazine headlines for entertainment while
11:39
standing in line at
11:40
SPEAKER_03: the grocery store again.
11:41
SPEAKER_03: Love that for us.
11:42
SPEAKER_03: But on the other hand,
11:44
SPEAKER_03: at this very moment,
11:45
some octogenarian is wiring the last of her savings to a
11:48
Nigerian scammer who sent
11:50
SPEAKER_03: her a deepfake of her grandson claiming to be kidnapped.
11:52
SPEAKER_03: You know, there are there have been tradeoffs to this.
11:54
SPEAKER_02: So the sort of early debate over Internet regulation,
11:58
SPEAKER_02: what did that look like at a time when the Internet was like way,
12:01
SPEAKER_02: way smaller and less important than it is today?
12:04
SPEAKER_03: So like I said,
12:05
SPEAKER_03: Congress and the president at the time,
12:06
SPEAKER_03: Bill Clinton,
12:06
SPEAKER_03: they were sort of in lockstep on this.
12:08
SPEAKER_03: But there were some skeptics.
12:09
SPEAKER_03: So Ralph Nader is probably the most famous one.
12:12
SPEAKER_03: He was concerned about corporate power and consumer rights.
12:15
SPEAKER_03: He was like our for our younger listeners.
12:17
SPEAKER_03: He was like our unelected Bernie of the day.
12:19
SPEAKER_03: You think that's accurate?
12:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that.
12:22
SPEAKER_02: Well, but with like a tiny, tiny fraction of the charisma.
12:26
SPEAKER_03: True,
12:26
but possibly more consequential if you believe that he spoiled
12:30
the 2000 election
12:31
SPEAKER_03: for George Bush.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:32
SPEAKER_03: So there was Ralph Nader.
12:33
SPEAKER_03: There was also Jerry Falwell Jr.
12:35
SPEAKER_03: He was a televangelist.
12:37
SPEAKER_03: He thought that without government oversight,
12:39
SPEAKER_03: the internet would spread pornography and indecency.
12:42
SPEAKER_03: I don't know where he got that idea.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: No, really.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: He was way off.
12:46
SPEAKER_02: It turned out that didn't happen at all.
12:48
SPEAKER_03: There was also Lawrence Lessig, the legal scholar.
12:51
SPEAKER_03: So he was an early advocate for Internet freedom and open access.
12:54
And he raised concerns about how commercial interests might
12:57
stifle innovation.
12:59
SPEAKER_03: He's going to come up again.
13:00
SPEAKER_03: But big picture, the whole debate boiled down to a simple question.
13:04
SPEAKER_03: Should ISPs,
13:05
SPEAKER_03: internet service providers,
13:07
SPEAKER_03: which at the time,
13:08
SPEAKER_03: you know,
13:08
SPEAKER_03: AOL,
13:09
SPEAKER_03: Earthlink,
13:09
SPEAKER_03: CompuServe,
13:10
SPEAKER_03: companies that barely exist anymore,
13:12
should those ISPs be treated like basic telephone companies
13:16
with strict government
13:17
SPEAKER_03: oversight?
13:18
Or should they be lightly regulated and given the freedom to
13:21
run their businesses
13:22
SPEAKER_03: as they sell fit?
13:23
SPEAKER_03: And in the 90s, the latter camp won.
13:26
SPEAKER_03: Rather than being regulated as common carriers,
13:28
SPEAKER_03: broadband would be regulated as what was called information services.
13:31
SPEAKER_03: So let the market rule.
13:33
SPEAKER_02: And where does net neutrality sort of enter the picture?
13:37
SPEAKER_03: Okay,
13:37
SPEAKER_03: so the term network neutrality was coined in 2003 by Tim Wu,
13:42
SPEAKER_03: also a legal scholar now at Harvard.
13:44
He would later become one of the strongest advocates for net
13:47
neutrality in the
13:48
SPEAKER_03: Biden White House.
13:49
SPEAKER_03: Later that same year,
13:50
SPEAKER_03: in 2003,
13:51
SPEAKER_03: Tim Wu and Lawrence Lessig,
13:52
SPEAKER_03: I mentioned him a second ago,
13:54
SPEAKER_03: he's very influential,
13:55
SPEAKER_03: does a lot of advocacy and copyright law on the open internet.
13:57
SPEAKER_03: He also founded Creative Commons.
13:59
The two of them formally presented a letter to the FCC that
14:03
contained the term
14:04
SPEAKER_03: network neutrality,
14:05
SPEAKER_03: but they didn't really define what it meant.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: Well, how do we define it now?
14:08
So it's one of those terms that has had different meanings
14:12
throughout time and
14:12
SPEAKER_03: depending on who is using it.
14:14
SPEAKER_03: But it basically means that ISPs,
14:17
SPEAKER_03: internet service providers,
14:19
SPEAKER_03: should treat all internet traffic equally without blocking,
14:23
slowing down or giving special treatment to any particular
14:26
websites or types of
14:27
SPEAKER_03: content.
14:28
SPEAKER_03: So in theory,
14:29
it protects small time websites or disfavored websites like you
14:33
brought up indie
14:34
SPEAKER_03: porn creators.
14:35
SPEAKER_03: That would be one.
14:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
14:37
It prevents them from getting throttled while big time websites
14:40
with connections to
14:41
SPEAKER_03: Comcast or whoever would get essentially a fast lane.
14:45
So it's about fairness and openness so smaller creators and
14:48
startups would get the
14:49
SPEAKER_03: same access and treatment as giant companies.
14:53
SPEAKER_03: And the fear was that without net neutrality,
14:56
SPEAKER_03: the big companies would stifle innovation,
14:59
SPEAKER_03: there'd be this tiered system for the internet,
15:01
and this fear became very pervasive in pockets of American
15:05
culture in no small part
15:07
SPEAKER_03: thanks to one very smug British comedian,
15:10
SPEAKER_03: but we will come back to him.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: Ricky Gervais.
15:13
One thing that I just find interesting about these early days
15:15
of the debate is
15:16
SPEAKER_02: like,
15:16
I don't think anyone could have quite understood the extent to
15:19
which like,
15:20
SPEAKER_02: quote unquote,
15:20
independent creators are completely intertwined with these
15:24
giant companies like
15:25
SPEAKER_02: TikTok,
15:25
SPEAKER_02: YouTube.
15:26
SPEAKER_03: Right.
15:26
SPEAKER_03: I mean, some of them are giant companies, right?
15:29
Like,
15:30
like in the beginning,
15:31
YouTube,
15:32
you know,
15:33
small independent startup.
15:34
Now the biggest one owned by Google,
15:36
one of the biggest companies in the world.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: Well,
15:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
15:38
SPEAKER_02: like,
15:38
SPEAKER_02: it could be,
15:39
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure there's some technically artists and creators who,
15:42
SPEAKER_02: like,
15:42
SPEAKER_02: have their own website or do their own thing,
15:44
but basically all of them are completely reliant on juggernaut
15:47
Goliath companies,
15:48
SPEAKER_02: as are even we.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: Right.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we're on Substack.
15:51
SPEAKER_03: We don't have our own.
15:52
SPEAKER_02: Well,
15:52
SPEAKER_02: not just Substack,
15:53
SPEAKER_02: but,
15:53
SPEAKER_02: like,
15:54
most of the people who listen to this not via Substack do so
15:56
through Apple Podcasts
15:58
SPEAKER_02: or Spotify.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's like, yeah.
15:59
Okay,
16:00
so but at the time these issues were first brought up,
16:04
was this like actually a problem?
16:06
SPEAKER_03: Not really, but Tim Wu was looking forward.
16:07
And so he framed net neutrality as a means to preserve
16:11
competition,
16:11
right?
16:12
SPEAKER_03: So Goliath couldn't strangle David in the future.
16:14
SPEAKER_03: And regulators took notice of Wu's work.
16:17
SPEAKER_03: So in 2005,
16:19
SPEAKER_03: this was during the second George W.
16:21
SPEAKER_03: Bush administration,
16:22
SPEAKER_03: then FCC chairman Kevin Martin,
16:24
SPEAKER_03: who
16:24
SPEAKER_03: He was a Republican.
16:26
He adopted a voluntary policy statement that was a near copy of
16:30
what Wu had been advocating for.
16:32
And I'm going to generalize a bit because there are definitely
16:35
exceptions to this.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: But in general,
16:37
net neutrality has always been somewhat partisan with
16:41
progressives like Wu and
16:42
SPEAKER_03: Lawrence Lessig championing it and Republicans pushing back.
16:46
SPEAKER_03: So progressives want more regulation,
16:48
SPEAKER_03: conservatives want less,
16:49
SPEAKER_03: or at least that's how it used to be before Trump upended everything.
16:52
SPEAKER_03: So Martin, he was a Republican.
16:54
SPEAKER_03: He was an outlier among his party.
16:56
And the more common conservative or libertarian position is
16:59
that this regulation
17:00
SPEAKER_03: just isn't necessary.
17:02
SPEAKER_03: Net neutrality is a solution in search of a problem.
17:05
SPEAKER_03: That's a phrase that you will hear a lot in anti-net neutrality circles.
17:10
And the people in those circles generally argue that throttling
17:13
or blocking just
17:14
SPEAKER_03: isn't something that happens.
17:16
SPEAKER_03: ISPs don't do this.
17:17
It would be against their interest to throttle or block sites
17:20
or otherwise violate
17:22
SPEAKER_03: the principles of net neutrality because consumers would hate it.
17:25
SPEAKER_03: So it's not that the principles of net neutrality don't have value.
17:28
It's that you don't need the government to enforce the rules
17:32
because they're
17:32
SPEAKER_03: enforcing them on their own.
17:34
SPEAKER_03: Does that make sense?
17:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, basically the incentives are for ISPs to not engage in this stuff.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: So why do we need to regulate?
17:40
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
17:41
SPEAKER_03: But there was one famous case where an ISP was doing just that.
17:45
SPEAKER_03: So Jesse, were you a big BitTorrent guy back in the day?
17:48
SPEAKER_02: I've torrented from time to time,
17:49
SPEAKER_02: although I probably last did so 20,
17:51
SPEAKER_02: Jesus,
17:52
SPEAKER_02: 20 years ago,
17:53
SPEAKER_02: 15 years ago.
17:54
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so explain what that is.
17:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so there was this golden era of pirating content.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: Napster at its peak, you could download basically anything.
18:04
BitTorrent was a system where I think it was slightly different
18:08
technology because
18:08
SPEAKER_02: I believe you would download like bits and pieces from different people.
18:13
So I remember like if there was a game that was really popular
18:16
to be pirated,
18:18
a thousand different people would be contributing to your
18:20
download at once and it
18:20
SPEAKER_02: would happen really quickly.
18:21
quickly i think that's how it worked yeah so bit torrent is
18:24
actually a like a
18:26
peer-to-peer technology yeah in itself it's a way of moving
18:29
data so music or video
18:31
games or whatever from place to place or from user to user so
18:34
like napster and
18:35
linewire they were not based on on bit torrent technology there
18:39
were sites like the
18:39
SPEAKER_03: pirate bay i was a big the pirate bay guy and the pirate bay was like a
18:43
Yeah,
18:44
it was like a like a database of places where you could where
18:48
you could bit torrent.
18:49
SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure if that's the correct verb.
18:51
SPEAKER_03: But back in the day,
18:52
SPEAKER_03: you know,
18:53
SPEAKER_03: if you wanted music,
18:54
SPEAKER_03: you had to either pay for it,
18:55
get one of your friends to burn you a CD or listen to the radio
18:58
for your favorite
18:59
SPEAKER_03: song to come on,
19:00
SPEAKER_03: at which point,
19:00
SPEAKER_03: you know,
19:01
you had to do this mad dash to hit the record button on your
19:03
tape player before you
19:04
SPEAKER_03: missed too much of the intro.
19:05
SPEAKER_03: Kids today, they don't realize this, but music wasn't always free.
19:09
SPEAKER_03: So when I was in college,
19:11
SPEAKER_03: I would spend hours very,
19:13
very slowly downloading Ani DeFranco and whole songs from
19:17
BitTorrent sites or other
19:18
SPEAKER_03: peer-to-peer networks.
19:19
SPEAKER_03: It was painstaking labor,
19:21
SPEAKER_03: plus it was illegal,
19:22
and there started to be news stories about people being sued
19:25
for using these sites.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: Did you ever get one of the letters from the... No, did you get one?
19:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think when I was at Brandeis...
19:34
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: I forget what I forget what happened.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: I think I probably had to pay a few bucks.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: They wouldn't just like sue you.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: They would just like,
19:39
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
19:40
SPEAKER_02: I think it was much more common for them to send letters and be like,
19:43
SPEAKER_02: if you don't pay us,
19:43
SPEAKER_02: we'll sue you.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: There were a couple big, big lawsuits.
19:47
So yeah,
19:48
there were actually 1000s of lawsuits against people who shared
19:51
music.
19:52
And by the way,
19:52
sometimes people shared music without even being aware of it.
19:56
SPEAKER_03: Like if you were downloading something, you were also uploading it.
19:59
SPEAKER_03: Does that make sense?
20:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it depended on your settings and stuff.
20:02
But I think people didn't realize often that,
20:04
yes,
20:04
that the pipes flowed both ways,
20:06
as it were.
20:07
SPEAKER_03: Right.
20:07
And the Recording Industry Association of America,
20:10
they absolutely despised this.
20:12
SPEAKER_03: And they wanted to scare people.
20:14
So they would send out demand letters like yours,
20:16
or they would actually sue people.
20:18
So like a single mother was fined over $200,000 for sharing
20:20
just 24 songs.
20:20
SPEAKER_03: Right.
20:23
SPEAKER_02: I hope they were good.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: It was just really bad music.
20:27
SPEAKER_03: It was all Limp Bizkit.
20:29
Plus the founders of some of those file sharing sites were
20:32
actually arrested,
20:33
SPEAKER_03: like the founders of the Pirate Bay.
20:34
SPEAKER_03: They were arrested and tried in Sweden,
20:36
SPEAKER_03: and they were all sentenced to a year in prison,
20:38
SPEAKER_03: although it's Swedish prison,
20:39
SPEAKER_03: so it's like you have to work in Ikea for a year.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: One of them actually fled and was later captured in Cambodia,
20:45
SPEAKER_03: but that's a story for a different day.
20:47
SPEAKER_03: Anyway,
20:48
SPEAKER_03: in the early 2000s,
20:50
SPEAKER_03: Comcast began throttling these peer-to-peer technologies,
20:53
SPEAKER_03: like these BitTorrent technologies,
20:55
which explains why it would take you three hours to download
20:57
less than Jake.
20:59
SPEAKER_03: ISPs really hated these services,
21:01
not just because of the legal headaches from their users
21:03
illegally downloading
21:05
SPEAKER_03: content,
21:05
SPEAKER_03: but because these networks use massive bandwidth,
21:08
SPEAKER_03: which cost the ISPs a lot of money and strained their infrastructure.
21:12
So Comcast starts testing this throttling technology around
21:16
2005,
21:17
but this was a secret.
21:18
SPEAKER_03: They didn't announce that they were doing this.
21:20
SPEAKER_03: Then,
21:20
SPEAKER_03: two years later,
21:21
the AP released this big investigation reporting that Comcast
21:25
was slowing down file
21:27
SPEAKER_03: sharing applications without disclosing the practice to customers.
21:31
SPEAKER_02: And was that legal for them to do that?
21:32
SPEAKER_03: Yes,
21:33
SPEAKER_03: because when FCC chairman Kevin Martin,
21:35
SPEAKER_03: I mentioned a moment ago,
21:36
SPEAKER_03: the Bush FCC chairman,
21:39
SPEAKER_03: when he adopted Tim Wu's principles of net neutrality,
21:42
SPEAKER_03: you know,
21:42
SPEAKER_03: all internet traffic will be treated equally,
21:44
SPEAKER_03: no throttling,
21:45
SPEAKER_03: etc.
21:46
SPEAKER_03: Compliance was voluntary.
21:47
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
21:47
SPEAKER_03: Now,
21:47
SPEAKER_03: at the time,
21:48
SPEAKER_03: Comcast denied that they were doing this,
21:50
SPEAKER_03: but internet advocacy groups pounced on them,
21:53
and they filed a complaint with the FCC claiming that Comcast
21:56
had violated network
21:57
SPEAKER_03: neutrality principles.
21:59
SPEAKER_03: And so the FCC issued an order censoring Comcast,
22:03
and that moment really started the nearly 20-year regulatory
22:06
battle over net
22:07
SPEAKER_03: neutrality.
22:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:08
So these rules were voluntary,
22:10
but they could lead you to be censured by the FCC?
22:14
SPEAKER_02: I'm confused by that.
22:15
SPEAKER_03: Yes, it is confusing.
22:16
So the FCC argued that because they had general authority to
22:21
regulate broadband
22:22
SPEAKER_03: practices,
22:23
SPEAKER_03: they could censure the company.
22:24
SPEAKER_03: But Comcast was like, no, you can't do that.
22:27
SPEAKER_03: And they took the FCC to court.
22:29
SPEAKER_03: Now,
22:29
SPEAKER_03: at the time,
22:30
Comcast was mainly worried about the FCC upending the company's
22:34
terms of service
22:35
because Comcast offered tiers of service and they banned
22:38
residential customers from
22:40
SPEAKER_03: running servers.
22:41
So running BitTorrent effectively made residential customers
22:44
into servers,
22:45
SPEAKER_03: which was not allowed under the lowest service tier.
22:49
Of course,
22:50
customers could upgrade to a higher tier of service,
22:52
but that was expensive.
22:53
SPEAKER_03: So that was their main issue.
22:54
They wanted to be able to charge customers higher prices
22:57
depending on the service.
22:58
SPEAKER_03: So Comcast files their suit in August 2008.
23:02
SPEAKER_03: Obama takes office the following January,
23:04
SPEAKER_03: and he appointed a new FCC chairman,
23:06
SPEAKER_03: Julius Janikowski.
23:08
And Janikowski made it known that preserving a free and open
23:12
internet would be one
23:13
SPEAKER_03: of the commission's primary goals under his watch.
23:15
And so he set out to formally codify the principles of net
23:18
neutrality into the FCC's rules.
23:21
SPEAKER_03: But then in 2010, the court released its decision in that case.
23:24
And because broadband had been classified under the 1996
23:28
Telecommunications Act as
23:30
SPEAKER_03: a lightly regulated information services rather than as a common carrier,
23:34
the court found that the FCC lacked the authority to regulate
23:38
the ISP's network
23:40
SPEAKER_03: management practices the way it tried to.
23:42
SPEAKER_03: So Comcast won.
23:43
And that ruling had major policy implications because it
23:46
effectively upended the
23:48
SPEAKER_03: FCC's early efforts to codify net neutrality.
23:51
SPEAKER_03: So does this make sense, Jesse?
23:52
SPEAKER_03: Let's just check in.
23:53
SPEAKER_03: It's a lot of information.
23:54
It is a lot of information,
23:55
but my pipes are well lubricated,
23:57
so I understand so far,
23:59
yes.
24:00
SPEAKER_03: Okay, do you want to just sum it up for me?
24:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: Let's just let's just all let's just.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: OK,
24:05
SPEAKER_02: the last part about the upending,
24:07
what was upending was saying the courts being like the FCC
24:12
cannot regulate the ISPs
24:14
SPEAKER_02: in this way.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: The ISPs can actually make their own calls about this stuff.
24:18
SPEAKER_03: And this is because they are not common carriers.
24:21
SPEAKER_03: They are not they are not utilities.
24:23
SPEAKER_03: They are classified as information services.
24:26
SPEAKER_03: Gotcha.
24:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:28
SPEAKER_03: Okay,
24:28
SPEAKER_03: so a few months after that judgment was announced,
24:31
SPEAKER_03: the FCC released the 2010 Open Internet Order.
24:35
SPEAKER_03: There were three main rules to this order.
24:37
First,
24:38
ISPs had to be transparent,
24:40
which Comcast had not been when throttling BitTorrents.
24:42
SPEAKER_03: So they had to disclose their practices to consumers.
24:44
SPEAKER_03: Second, no blocking.
24:46
SPEAKER_03: Any lawful content had to be accessible.
24:49
SPEAKER_03: And third, no fast lanes.
24:51
So they could not throttle unfavored services or sites or apps
24:54
and speed up favored ones.
24:55
Wait,
24:56
so they don't have the authority to manage ISP or regulate
24:59
ISPs,
25:00
but they're making new.
25:01
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
25:02
SPEAKER_02: We keep going.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: Like,
25:03
it looks like it's this constant tug of war where the FCC is
25:05
saying we have this
25:06
SPEAKER_02: power and the ISPs are like,
25:07
SPEAKER_02: screw you.
25:08
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
25:08
SPEAKER_03: And the courts are also like the ISPs are right.
25:10
SPEAKER_03: Yes, you got it.
25:11
SPEAKER_03: So there were lots of complicated legal maneuvering here,
25:14
but basically the FCC pointed to a rule from the 1996
25:18
Telecommunications Act that
25:20
SPEAKER_03: says that the FCC should help more people get internet access.
25:24
SPEAKER_03: So the FCC argued that net neutrality is a part of that.
25:28
But these arguments were kind of legally dubious and Verizon
25:31
immediately filed suit
25:32
SPEAKER_03: against the FCC.
25:34
And by the way,
25:34
this is a little bit confusing because we think of Verizon as a
25:37
phone company.
25:38
So as a phone company,
25:40
Verizon is a common carrier,
25:42
but they're also a broadband company.
25:44
SPEAKER_03: As a broadband company, they are not.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: They swing both ways.
25:47
SPEAKER_03: They swing both ways.
25:48
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
25:48
SPEAKER_03: They're bisexual.
25:49
SPEAKER_02: An open-minded billion dollar, okay.
25:52
So all of this happened before the term net neutrality really
25:55
entered the public consciousness.
25:57
But this period was crucial for what was to come a couple years
26:01
later because
26:02
SPEAKER_03: during this period,
26:03
internet advocacy groups really transformed net neutrality from
26:07
this obscure
26:08
telecommunications policy that no one outside of DC or Comcast
26:11
HQ knew about into a
26:13
SPEAKER_03: rallying cry for digital rights.
26:15
SPEAKER_03: Because when Comcast was unmasked as throttling BitTorrent,
26:18
SPEAKER_03: This was seen as evidence that Tim Wu was right.
26:21
SPEAKER_03: Big business was throttling the people.
26:23
SPEAKER_03: So he predicted this.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: And this became like a big advocacy movement.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: Who were the advocates other than Tim Wu?
26:30
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so one big one was a group called Free Press.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: The Free Press?
26:34
SPEAKER_02: Barry what?
26:35
SPEAKER_03: Not to be confused with the Free Press.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: There's actually a note on the contact form of their website that says,
26:40
SPEAKER_03: if you are attempting to contact the Free Press,
26:43
SPEAKER_03: we are not affiliated with that Substack publication.
26:45
SPEAKER_03: It seems a little, I think there's some shade there.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: Substack publication.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: We are a Substack podcast.
26:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
26:51
SPEAKER_03: So they were founded in 2003 as part of a broader media reform movement.
26:56
SPEAKER_03: That group also established Save the Internet.
26:58
SPEAKER_03: This was another advocacy group.
27:00
And they organized a conference on media reform that brought
27:02
together activists
27:04
SPEAKER_03: concerned about media consolidation and corporate control of information.
27:07
SPEAKER_03: So they were basically anti-big business folks.
27:10
SPEAKER_03: And as life moved online, so did these organizers.
27:13
And progressive organizers in particular really adopted the
27:16
internet as a mechanism
27:18
SPEAKER_03: to rally the troops.
27:19
SPEAKER_03: And they were good at it.
27:20
SPEAKER_03: And it's sort of interesting that today we tend to think of the right as
27:23
SPEAKER_03: particularly good at mobilizing online.
27:25
SPEAKER_03: You know, the left can't mean all that.
27:27
SPEAKER_03: But that was certainly not true 15 years ago.
27:29
SPEAKER_03: The internet was the realm of progressives.
27:32
SPEAKER_03: MoveOn.org.
27:33
SPEAKER_03: Yes, MoveOn.
27:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:35
SPEAKER_03: And around the same time,
27:36
there was another battle over who or what would control the
27:38
internet that really
27:39
SPEAKER_03: demonstrated this.
27:40
SPEAKER_03: So, Jesse, do you remember SOPA and PIPA?
27:43
SPEAKER_02: No.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: Is this SOPA and PIPA?
27:45
SPEAKER_02: Is this related to the indie porn websites?
27:47
SPEAKER_03: Are you thinking of FERPA and POOPA?
27:49
SPEAKER_02: FERPA and POOPA.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: What's POOPA?
27:52
SPEAKER_02: Never mind.
27:53
SPEAKER_03: You don't know about POOPA?
27:54
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I know FOOPA.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: Do you say POOPA or FOOPA?
27:56
SPEAKER_02: FOOPA, I know.
27:57
SPEAKER_03: FERPA and POOPA.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: Fat, upper...
27:59
pubic hair okay just yes uh so but i do not remember these
28:03
terms pussy area okay so
28:05
i was i was trying to use family friendly language because i
28:07
know there's a lot of
28:08
kids listening to this net neutrality history podcast oh yeah
28:11
they are super
28:11
interested okay so sopa and pippa were twin were twin bills
28:16
formerly called these
28:17
SPEAKER_02: that's the hottest kind of bills twin bills
28:19
SPEAKER_03: The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act.
28:23
SPEAKER_03: And these were bills that were backed by the recording industry,
28:25
SPEAKER_03: by Hollywood,
28:27
SPEAKER_03: by industries that didn't want their shit pirated and spread online.
28:30
SPEAKER_03: So like the Motion Picture Association,
28:32
SPEAKER_03: they were a big supporter,
28:33
SPEAKER_03: as were large publishing houses.
28:35
But activists and some big tech companies were worried that the
28:38
bills went too far
28:39
in enforcing copyright infringement laws and that this would
28:43
infringe on online
28:44
SPEAKER_03: freedom of speech.
28:45
SPEAKER_03: So in January 2012,
28:46
the advocacy group Fight for the Future helped to organize a
28:51
series of coordinated
28:52
SPEAKER_03: protests against these bills.
28:53
SPEAKER_03: And they recruited not just internet activists,
28:56
SPEAKER_03: but companies like Google,
28:58
SPEAKER_03: Reddit,
28:58
SPEAKER_03: Mozilla,
28:58
SPEAKER_03: Flickr,
28:59
SPEAKER_03: And they were all campaigning against this.
29:01
SPEAKER_03: And as part of these anti SOPA and PIPA protests,
29:04
SPEAKER_03: some of these websites shut down for the day or partially shut down.
29:08
SPEAKER_03: Do you remember this at all?
29:09
SPEAKER_02: Very vaguely.
29:10
SPEAKER_02: And it's funny,
29:11
SPEAKER_02: because at the time,
29:12
SPEAKER_02: if you'd asked me,
29:14
SPEAKER_02: but at the time,
29:15
SPEAKER_02: I would have told you this was a super important internet rights thing,
29:18
SPEAKER_02: despite not knowing anything about it.
29:20
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
29:21
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
29:22
SPEAKER_03: So they had this day of action.
29:23
SPEAKER_03: It was January 18, 2012.
29:25
Wikipedia replaced all its articles with a black screen and a
29:29
message urging
29:30
SPEAKER_03: readers to contact Congress.
29:32
SPEAKER_03: Reddit went completely dark for 12 hours.
29:34
SPEAKER_03: They put up an anti-SOPA message on the homepage.
29:37
SPEAKER_03: Boing, boing.
29:38
SPEAKER_03: Remember boing, boing.
29:39
SPEAKER_03: They took the site down.
29:40
SPEAKER_03: They took the site offline entirely.
29:42
I'm sure at least one person noticed Google placed a black
29:45
censorship bar over its
29:46
SPEAKER_03: logo and linked to a petition that got over 7 million signatures.
29:50
So Craigslist,
29:51
Minecraft,
29:51
the Cheeseburger Network,
29:53
they all took some sort of public statement.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: Wait, like of I Can Has Cheeseburger?
29:56
SPEAKER_03: Yes, which was at the time.
29:58
SPEAKER_03: That was back then.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: That was one of our biggest news sources was I Can Has Cheeseburger.
30:02
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
30:02
SPEAKER_03: So they all took some sort of public stand against this, and it worked.
30:06
SPEAKER_03: Millions of people called their Congress members.
30:08
Lawmakers started withdrawing support,
30:10
and SOPA and PIPA were killed shortly after this.
30:14
And this demonstrated that online organizing could be this
30:18
powerful force in moving
30:20
SPEAKER_03: public opinion and even changing policy.
30:22
SPEAKER_03: And at the time,
30:24
the mood was optimistic that the internet could be harnessed
30:27
for progressive
30:28
SPEAKER_03: change.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: This was also around the time of the Arab Spring, right?
30:30
SPEAKER_02: So there was a lot of like,
30:31
SPEAKER_02: oh,
30:31
SPEAKER_02: because we tweeted from Tahrir Square,
30:36
SPEAKER_02: there's going to be democracy in the Middle East,
30:38
SPEAKER_02: which turned out to be true.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: There's now – democracy has flowered in the region.
30:42
SPEAKER_03: I feel so dumb when I think about that optimism,
30:45
SPEAKER_03: optimism that I also shared,
30:48
SPEAKER_03: but it really felt – I mean,
30:49
SPEAKER_02: optimism in general is just very dumb.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: It's a truly debunked belief system.
30:54
SPEAKER_03: Occupy.
30:54
SPEAKER_03: Occupy Wall Street.
30:55
SPEAKER_03: I was like, we got it, guys.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: Occupy that shit.
30:59
SPEAKER_03: Are they still on Wall Street?
31:00
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: Every time I go there,
31:03
SPEAKER_02: the only thing I notice,
31:05
SPEAKER_02: there's that statue of the girl standing up to the bowl,
31:09
SPEAKER_02: which reliably has 25 tourists posing with it and taking photos of it.
31:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:13
I mean,
31:14
this was a time when people thought Google was a benevolent
31:16
company.
31:17
SPEAKER_03: Don't be evil, right?
31:18
SPEAKER_03: And I should say...
31:20
SPEAKER_03: This optimism about technology's democratic potential wasn't new.
31:24
SPEAKER_03: It had deep roots in the countercultural origins of the internet itself.
31:28
SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, the internet did emerge from military technology.
31:32
SPEAKER_03: It was funded by DARPA.
31:34
SPEAKER_03: But from the beginning,
31:36
the internet was shaped by idealists who imagined it as this
31:39
decentralized space
31:40
for the free exchange of information outside of traditional
31:43
hierarchies and
31:44
SPEAKER_03: corporate gatekeepers.
31:45
SPEAKER_03: And so by 2012,
31:47
SPEAKER_03: Organizers were successfully harnessing the internet for their causes,
31:50
SPEAKER_03: and one of those in the coming years would become net neutrality.
31:54
Okay,
31:54
so by this point in our story,
31:56
net neutrality was still not a household name.
31:58
SPEAKER_03: But again, there were activist groups organizing around it.
32:01
So in addition to free press,
32:03
there was the Open Society Foundation,
32:05
that's George Soros' thing.
32:07
SPEAKER_03: There was also the Knight Foundation,
32:08
SPEAKER_03: the MacArthur Foundation,
32:09
SPEAKER_03: the Mozilla Foundation,
32:10
SPEAKER_03: and the Ford Foundation.
32:11
SPEAKER_03: The Ford Foundation in particular was a major donor.
32:14
So they dropped $46 million in support of pro net neutrality
32:17
organizations.
32:18
But it wasn't until 2014 that the larger public would really
32:22
become aware of net neutrality.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: So what happened then?
32:24
SPEAKER_03: A lot happened in 2014.
32:26
SPEAKER_03: Before we get to that,
32:26
you have to understand what was going on in the legal battle
32:29
over net neutrality.
32:30
SPEAKER_03: So by this point,
32:31
the FCC has attempted to codify the principles of net
32:34
neutrality using that 2010
32:35
SPEAKER_03: open internet order.
32:38
SPEAKER_03: I mentioned that a moment ago.
32:39
SPEAKER_03: There were three basic rules.
32:40
SPEAKER_03: Again, transparency, no blocking, no...
32:45
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: This was 2010.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: You could say that.
32:47
SPEAKER_03: No and reasonable discrimination.
32:49
SPEAKER_03: So there can't be a fast lane or slow lane.
32:51
SPEAKER_03: And again, they were immediately sued by Verizon.
32:53
SPEAKER_03: So that's working its way through the courts.
32:55
SPEAKER_03: Meanwhile,
32:56
all these activist groups I just mentioned are rallying around
32:59
this cause,
33:00
SPEAKER_03: trying to get the public to care about what,
33:02
SPEAKER_03: you know,
33:02
SPEAKER_03: this thing that had really been a niche issue.
33:05
SPEAKER_03: So activists knew they had to make people care,
33:07
SPEAKER_03: like they'd made people care about SOPA and PIPA.
33:10
SPEAKER_03: And they did this by expanding the coalition.
33:13
So there's a book called Net Neutrality in the Battle for the
33:15
Open Internet.
33:16
SPEAKER_03: It's by an academic named Danny Kimball,
33:18
SPEAKER_03: and he writes in the book that the organizers brought in musicians,
33:22
SPEAKER_03: Harry Potter fans,
33:23
SPEAKER_03: realtors,
33:24
SPEAKER_03: women's group,
33:25
SPEAKER_03: labor unions,
33:26
SPEAKER_03: indigenous communities,
33:27
SPEAKER_03: black and Latino activists on this issue.
33:29
SPEAKER_03: Quote,
33:30
SPEAKER_03: no matter what differences in perspective,
33:32
SPEAKER_03: background,
33:32
SPEAKER_03: interests,
33:32
SPEAKER_03: or tactics each of these groups had,
33:34
SPEAKER_03: they were united against the telecommunications industry.
33:37
SPEAKER_03: And united four net neutrality rules.
33:39
SPEAKER_03: This diverse coalition was able to come together around two points,
33:43
SPEAKER_03: a common enemy and a common goal.
33:45
SPEAKER_03: And that common enemy was Big Cable.
33:47
SPEAKER_02: And so what was the actual goal of the organizers?
33:50
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so I'm going to explain this.
33:52
SPEAKER_03: But first, we have to do a little background.
33:53
SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry.
33:54
SPEAKER_03: It's very, this is a very complicated issue.
33:56
SPEAKER_03: Something that doesn't,
33:57
SPEAKER_03: I don't know,
33:58
SPEAKER_03: it doesn't like really sum up very well in like a 20 minute,
34:01
SPEAKER_03: I don't know,
34:01
SPEAKER_03: HBO episode.
34:02
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, in January 2014, the DC District Court ruled on Verizon v. FCC.
34:08
SPEAKER_03: This was both a win and a loss for the FCC.
34:11
So remember,
34:12
they'd implemented those three rules for ISPs,
34:14
which Verizon sued over.
34:15
Those rules again,
34:16
be transparent,
34:17
don't slower block websites,
34:18
treat all traffic equally.
34:20
SPEAKER_03: And the court's decision was mixed.
34:22
SPEAKER_03: So the court said that the FCC could still enforce the transparency rule
34:26
But it couldn't stop ISPs from throttling or force them to
34:30
treat all traffic the same.
34:32
And the ruling hinged on this very wonky shit about how
34:35
broadband is legally classified.
34:37
So remember in the beginning how I told you that telephone
34:40
companies were strictly
34:41
SPEAKER_03: regulated as common carriers and broadband providers were not?
34:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:45
SPEAKER_03: So basically,
34:46
SPEAKER_03: the court said that if the FCC wanted to enforce net neutrality,
34:50
ISPs needed to be reclassified as common carriers like
34:54
telephone companies,
34:55
SPEAKER_03: which for ISPs like Verizon,
34:58
SPEAKER_03: Comcast,
34:58
SPEAKER_03: etc.,
34:59
SPEAKER_03: this is basically their worst nightmare for many reasons.
35:02
But in particular,
35:04
they feared that the government would impose price controls.
35:07
SPEAKER_03: So for ISPs, this was about way more than net neutrality.
35:10
It was about moving from being lightly regulated to being
35:13
heavily regulated,
35:14
SPEAKER_03: which they did not want.
35:15
SPEAKER_03: So to answer your question,
35:17
this is what the net neutrality activists and organizers were
35:19
fighting for.
35:20
SPEAKER_03: They wanted ISPs to be reclassified as common carriers,
35:25
which would then enable the FCC to legally codify the
35:28
principles of net neutrality.
35:30
SPEAKER_03: Do you follow?
35:30
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I do follow, yes.
35:32
SPEAKER_03: Do you really follow?
35:33
SPEAKER_02: They wanted the ISPs to be classified as common care.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:37
SPEAKER_03: You got it.
35:38
SPEAKER_03: You got it.
35:38
So this fight also coincided with Comcast's attempted buyout of
35:42
Time Warner Cable.
35:43
SPEAKER_03: That was announced in February 2014.
35:45
SPEAKER_03: So for net neutrality advocates,
35:48
that merger represented both an existential threat and a
35:51
powerful organizing tool.
35:53
SPEAKER_03: That
35:53
SPEAKER_02: That's almost quaint, given where we are today.
35:56
Comcast buying out Time Warner Cable just looks like one
35:59
lemonade stand run by
36:01
children buying out a slight – I know these were very powerful
36:04
companies then and
36:05
SPEAKER_02: now,
36:05
SPEAKER_02: but compared to – again,
36:06
SPEAKER_02: compared to today.
36:07
SPEAKER_03: Right.
36:07
SPEAKER_03: But this is what they've been warning about, right?
36:09
SPEAKER_03: Like if Comcast,
36:10
SPEAKER_03: which at the time was the nation's largest cable company,
36:14
SPEAKER_02: if they absorb – And universally beloved.
36:15
Anyone who's interacted with Comcast knows that their customer
36:18
service is so good
36:20
SPEAKER_02: that gives them power.
36:20
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
36:21
SPEAKER_03: If they absorb the second largest competitor,
36:24
SPEAKER_03: this would create this monolith,
36:26
SPEAKER_03: this entity with,
36:27
SPEAKER_03: you know,
36:27
an unprecedented ability to manipulate internet traffic and to
36:31
discriminate against
36:31
SPEAKER_03: content creators if they felt like it.
36:33
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, before a lot of this debate had been abstract, right?
36:36
SPEAKER_03: Theoretical, what might happen in the future.
36:39
But this merger proposal made it real because Comcast would
36:42
control the internet
36:43
SPEAKER_03: for nearly a third of American broadband users.
36:47
SPEAKER_03: So this was a big deal.
36:48
SPEAKER_03: Literally, the price was over 45 billion dollars.
36:50
SPEAKER_02: Right.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: And OK, so jokes aside, this is a big deal.
36:54
SPEAKER_03: How much did Elon pay for Twitter?
36:55
SPEAKER_03: Wasn't it about that?
36:56
SPEAKER_02: $44 billion.
36:58
So less than 10 years later,
36:59
Twitter alone was worth more than buying all of Time Warner
37:03
Cable.
37:03
SPEAKER_02: It's fucking insane.
37:05
SPEAKER_03: To be fair, it was a great purchase on his part.
37:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:07
SPEAKER_03: He's really made his money back.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: And it has had nothing but positive effects on society.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: So just win, win, win, win, win.
37:13
SPEAKER_03: You know, I love the elevation of Cat Turd.
37:15
SPEAKER_03: I think this is fantastic.
37:16
SPEAKER_02: That's Professor Cat Turd.
37:17
SPEAKER_03: So in May 2014.
37:18
SPEAKER_03: Actually, wouldn't that?
37:19
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
37:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry.
37:20
SPEAKER_02: Just not to derail us.
37:22
SPEAKER_02: Let's say Trump threatens Princeton,
37:26
SPEAKER_02: for example,
37:27
SPEAKER_02: with major sanctions and the withholding of federal funds,
37:31
SPEAKER_02: unless it makes Cat turn an honorary professor.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: Who blinks first?
37:34
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm not sure at this point.
37:35
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
37:36
SPEAKER_03: We have to get his GRE scores.
37:39
SPEAKER_03: So in May 2014,
37:40
there was a meeting at the FCC to decide whether or not to open
37:44
proposed net
37:45
SPEAKER_03: neutrality rules to public comment.
37:47
SPEAKER_03: So this was just a procedural vote.
37:49
SPEAKER_03: Will we allow the public to weigh in on this issue?
37:52
SPEAKER_03: Net neutrality advocates were obviously in favor of this.
37:54
SPEAKER_03: And a full week before the meeting,
37:56
activists started camping out outside the FCC headquarters like
38:00
they were getting
38:01
SPEAKER_03: the next Harry Potter book at Barnes & Noble in 2003.
38:04
And during the meeting,
38:05
dozens of protesters were outside banging on drums.
38:07
SPEAKER_03: And then inside the meeting,
38:08
five protesters from a group calling themselves Occupy the FCC
38:12
were escorted out
38:13
SPEAKER_03: because they kept yelling at the commissioners.
38:15
SPEAKER_03: Now,
38:15
SPEAKER_03: once again,
38:16
SPEAKER_03: Republicans were generally against this,
38:18
SPEAKER_03: both the performance art and net neutrality.
38:20
SPEAKER_03: They didn't think it was necessary,
38:22
SPEAKER_03: the comment period or net neutrality itself,
38:24
SPEAKER_03: but they were outnumbered on the commission three to two,
38:27
SPEAKER_03: and the majority FCC members voted to open the docket for public comment.
38:32
SPEAKER_03: Just three weeks later,
38:32
SPEAKER_03: on June 1st,
38:34
SPEAKER_03: 2014,
38:35
SPEAKER_03: one Mr.
38:36
SPEAKER_03: John Oliver decided to weigh in,
38:40
SPEAKER_03: and that decision changed everything.
38:42
SPEAKER_02: All right, Katie, should we do just a very brief abridged housekeeping?
38:45
SPEAKER_02: Let's do it.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: BlockedReportedPodcast at gmail.com, BlockedReported.org.
38:50
You can become a premium subscriber to support our work and
38:53
rate and review us on
38:54
SPEAKER_02: Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to,
38:57
SPEAKER_02: wherever the pipes shoot all over you.
38:59
SPEAKER_03: You got to make it gross, don't you?
39:00
SPEAKER_02: Why?
39:00
SPEAKER_02: Why are you laughing?
39:01
SPEAKER_02: That's how the internet works.
39:03
SPEAKER_02: Should we get back to it, Katie?
39:04
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
39:04
SPEAKER_03: So it's early June 2014, and John Oliver... Daddy.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: I call him daddy.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: Not weird.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: He's my daddy.
39:11
SPEAKER_03: Do you think he is someone's daddy?
39:13
SPEAKER_02: Well, yes.
39:13
SPEAKER_03: He seems like a gay uncle.
39:14
SPEAKER_03: I think I could see John Oliver being... Oh, he has a hot wife.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: The hot Republican wife, right?
39:19
SPEAKER_03: Yes, Republican wife.
39:20
SPEAKER_03: Yes, we're going to need to stop and Google this really quick.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: John Oliver wife...
39:26
SPEAKER_03: Oh, Kate Norley.
39:27
SPEAKER_03: So far out of his league.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: He looks like he rented her.
39:30
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's not.
39:31
SPEAKER_03: You know what the thing is about women?
39:33
SPEAKER_03: Women like a funny man.
39:34
SPEAKER_03: It makes no sense.
39:35
SPEAKER_02: I was going to say.
39:36
SPEAKER_03: They're blind.
39:37
SPEAKER_03: They're blind.
39:37
SPEAKER_03: He's 5'8".
39:38
SPEAKER_03: He's 47 years old.
39:40
SPEAKER_03: And he looks like a fucking elf.
39:42
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't 47.
39:42
SPEAKER_02: First of all, he's only 47.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: That's not depressing.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: But he also wasn't 47 when they got married.
39:47
SPEAKER_02: He was early 30s.
39:50
SPEAKER_02: Probably.
39:51
SPEAKER_03: But he probably looked exactly the same.
39:53
SPEAKER_03: His wife looks like she belongs on Fox News.
39:57
SPEAKER_02: There is.
39:58
Look,
39:59
on this podcast,
40:00
we believe the sexes are completely the same in every way.
40:03
SPEAKER_02: That being said, the hold steady line.
40:06
SPEAKER_02: Guys go for looks.
40:08
SPEAKER_02: Girls go for status.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: There is some truth to that.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: Do you think he has status?
40:11
SPEAKER_02: Does John Oliver have status?
40:13
No.
40:13
SPEAKER_02: No, he has no status.
40:15
SPEAKER_02: He's a total loser and a burnout with no career.
40:18
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
40:18
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, so he decides.
40:20
SPEAKER_03: So what did daddy do?
40:21
SPEAKER_03: He decides that he's going to get involved in the net neutrality wars.
40:24
SPEAKER_03: And he decides this.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: Oh, bully.
40:27
Right when the FCC is deciding whether or not to reclassify
40:31
ISPs as common carriers
40:32
SPEAKER_03: and pave the way for net neutrality.
40:35
SPEAKER_03: And Jesse, we have a lot of international listeners.
40:37
SPEAKER_03: We're a very global podcast.
40:39
SPEAKER_03: And our international listeners,
40:40
they might not have had the pleasure of watching Last Week
40:43
Tonight with John
40:44
SPEAKER_03: Oliver.
40:45
It's not a normal late night talk show with like a host who
40:48
does jokes or bits or a
40:49
SPEAKER_03: monologue up top.
40:50
And then you have a celebrity who's there to promote a new show
40:53
or a movie or show
40:54
SPEAKER_03: off their legs.
40:55
SPEAKER_03: John Oliver's show is different.
40:57
So Jesse,
40:57
for anyone who has not had the pleasure,
41:00
can you describe the format?
41:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:01
SPEAKER_02: I watched John Oliver for a long time.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: And John Oliver, it's sort of a late night show with a mission.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: And they often do these, you know, effectively investigative segments.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: Not full like 60 minutes, but they will.
41:14
SPEAKER_02: I got called by one of the researchers once.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: I think it was about supplements.
41:19
SPEAKER_02: This was before I was problematic.
41:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I know which episode you did not get called for the researcher on.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: Right.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: Well, don't worry.
41:27
SPEAKER_02: I am so full of resentment.
41:29
SPEAKER_02: I will definitely bring that up shortly.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, John Oliver, the format, who came up with the name Clafter?
41:35
SPEAKER_02: Like clapping with laughter?
41:36
SPEAKER_02: Like, ha ha ha, that's all right.
41:38
SPEAKER_03: That might have been Louis C.K.
41:39
SPEAKER_02: Might have been, I don't, was it?
41:41
SPEAKER_03: Maybe not.
41:42
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't sound like, anyway, he.
41:44
SPEAKER_03: I think it was me.
41:45
SPEAKER_03: I think I did that.
41:45
SPEAKER_02: I don't think you did that.
41:46
SPEAKER_03: It was me or Louis C.K., one of us.
41:48
SPEAKER_03: Was it Hitler?
41:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:50
SPEAKER_02: I think it was Hitler.
41:50
SPEAKER_03: Maybe it was Jeff Maurer.
41:52
SPEAKER_02: Maurer?
41:52
SPEAKER_02: It actually could have been Maurer.
41:53
SPEAKER_02: Did you say Maurer?
41:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Maurer.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: Maurer.
41:56
SPEAKER_02: Maurer.
41:56
SPEAKER_03: Whatever.
41:57
SPEAKER_03: Maybe it was Jeff.
41:58
SPEAKER_03: Jeff, chime in.
41:59
SPEAKER_03: Did you come up with Klopter?
42:00
SPEAKER_02: I always want to tell straightforward stories.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: You always derail us.
42:04
SPEAKER_02: John Oliver, it's this format of just incredible, smug,
42:09
SPEAKER_02: Quote, unquote, investigation.
42:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure some of the investigations are good.
42:13
SPEAKER_02: I watched.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: I was a big fan.
42:15
SPEAKER_02: John Oliver is a very, very funny Brit.
42:17
SPEAKER_02: Started on The Daily Show.
42:18
He also had a really good podcast called The Bugle back in the
42:21
day I listened to.
42:21
SPEAKER_03: I loved The Bugle.
42:23
SPEAKER_03: And then his co-host sister was kind of mean to me.
42:26
SPEAKER_02: Explain.
42:27
SPEAKER_03: So his cohost of the Beagle, the show was very funny.
42:29
SPEAKER_03: So it was, it was, it was, uh, not the Beagle.
42:32
SPEAKER_02: I know you're obsessed with dogs, the Beagle.
42:34
SPEAKER_03: It was John Oliver and Andy Saltzman.
42:36
SPEAKER_03: He has a sister named Helen Saltzman.
42:39
SPEAKER_03: And she came to see,
42:40
she had a language podcast and she came to Seattle some years
42:43
ago when I was
42:44
SPEAKER_03: working at the stranger and she was doing an episode on the word queer.
42:47
So I like met her on a Saturday when she interviewed me and I
42:50
talked about how much
42:51
SPEAKER_03: I hated this term because all it likes had no meaning and
42:55
SPEAKER_03: And all it did was tell you that,
42:57
SPEAKER_03: like,
42:57
SPEAKER_03: if you met a guy who said he was queer,
42:58
SPEAKER_03: that could mean that he likes to choke women.
43:00
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's just it's like it's meaningless.
43:03
And she I like I complained about straight people appropriating
43:07
this term and she
43:08
SPEAKER_03: cut me out of the podcast and then blocked me on Twitter.
43:12
SPEAKER_03: So therefore, I don't like John Oliver.
43:14
SPEAKER_03: This is guilt by association.
43:16
SPEAKER_03: It's six degrees of fuck you.
43:18
SPEAKER_02: Look, I'm sure some of Oliver's stuff has been good.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: Jeff Maurer,
43:21
SPEAKER_02: my buddy who I've done some stuff with,
43:24
he has written about his time writing for him and he has
43:27
critiqued Oliver.
43:28
SPEAKER_02: You can look that up.
43:28
SPEAKER_02: But when Oliver did this...
43:31
big episode on youth gender medicine stuff i just i almost lost
43:35
my fucking mind it
43:36
was so bad and we we did an episode i led um him and uh john
43:42
stewart like basically
43:43
within i think a week of each other maybe it was even the same
43:45
week both did these
43:46
like unbelievably poorly done segments on this issue i one of
43:51
the only issues i
43:52
know a lot about and um oliver butchered it and i it was sort
43:55
of hard for me to
43:56
SPEAKER_02: ever you
43:57
SPEAKER_02: Like the warning signs were there.
43:59
Anyone this smug who treats the world as like there's the
44:03
correct view and then
44:04
SPEAKER_02: there's those fucking morons who don't agree with us.
44:07
SPEAKER_02: That's usually not a good sign.
44:08
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I would not these days.
44:10
It would be very hard for me to trust Oliver on any subject I
44:13
didn't know about because –
44:14
SPEAKER_03: Yes, but in 2014, we were also dumb.
44:17
SPEAKER_02: God, he was daddy.
44:18
SPEAKER_02: He was daddy.
44:19
And so he takes these complex issues and he simplifies them in
44:24
a way that your
44:25
SPEAKER_03: average Sunday night HBO watcher can understand.
44:28
SPEAKER_03: But the problem is he's often wrong.
44:31
SPEAKER_03: He's the Michael Hobbs of late night.
44:33
SPEAKER_03: Like he convinces you that...
44:36
SPEAKER_03: that he and therefore you know the truth about an issue,
44:40
SPEAKER_03: but oftentimes he's simplifying it in a way that it's overly simplistic.
44:43
SPEAKER_03: He leaves out a lot of nuance.
44:45
And it seems as though the researchers and the writers
44:48
oftentimes have an agenda,
44:50
SPEAKER_03: one they might not even be aware of,
44:52
SPEAKER_03: and they will cherry-pick evidence to suit that agenda.
44:55
SPEAKER_03: And this isn't uncommon at all in media,
44:58
SPEAKER_03: but it means it's not exactly a trustworthy source of information.
45:01
And in this net neutrality episode,
45:04
there are a few things that Oliver just got plain wrong.
45:08
SPEAKER_03: So let's listen to a clip.
45:09
Ending net neutrality would allow big companies to buy their
45:13
way into the fast
45:14
SPEAKER_01: lane,
45:14
SPEAKER_01: leaving everyone else in the slow lane.
45:16
Although telecom companies would prefer that you put it in a
45:20
slightly different way.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: When you say fast lane and slow lane,
45:23
SPEAKER_00: it's a good illustration,
45:25
but what you really should be talking about is a fast lane for
45:28
everybody and a
45:29
SPEAKER_00: hyperspeed lane for others.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: Bullshit!
45:35
SPEAKER_03: OK,
45:35
SPEAKER_03: so his first sentence there,
45:37
ending net neutrality would allow big companies to buy their
45:41
way into the fast
45:42
SPEAKER_03: lane,
45:42
SPEAKER_03: leaving everyone else in the slow lane.
45:44
SPEAKER_03: So the problem with that, Jesse, is that it was backwards.
45:47
SPEAKER_03: The debate at the FCC wasn't whether or not to end net neutrality.
45:51
It was whether or not to implement it in a way that could
45:54
survive legal challenges.
45:55
SPEAKER_03: Because as I'm sure you recall from 10 minutes ago,
45:58
SPEAKER_03: in Verizon v.
45:59
SPEAKER_03: FCC,
45:59
the courts had ruled that the FCC did not have the authority to
46:03
enforce net
46:03
SPEAKER_03: neutrality,
46:04
which was why activists were trying to get broadband
46:07
reclassified as a common carrier.
46:09
SPEAKER_02: That's like a pretty basic thing to get wrong.
46:12
SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's very basic.
46:14
SPEAKER_03: It was not about ending net neutrality.
46:16
SPEAKER_03: It was about implementing net neutrality.
46:18
And this shows a basic level of ignorance from Oliver and his
46:22
writing staff.
46:22
SPEAKER_03: Sorry, Jeff.
46:23
SPEAKER_02: I blame Jeff.
46:24
SPEAKER_02: I was going to say, this sounds like a Jeff photo.
46:27
SPEAKER_03: What's more,
46:29
even though the de facto state at the time was that net
46:31
neutrality was not the law
46:32
SPEAKER_03: of the land,
46:33
you didn't see customer complaints about ISPs throttling the
46:37
internet or blocking
46:39
SPEAKER_03: access to disfavored websites,
46:41
which is exactly why the anti-net neutrality advocates said
46:45
this is a solution in
46:46
SPEAKER_03: search of a problem.
46:47
SPEAKER_03: And I should say, Oliver was not alone in framing the debate like this.
46:51
Everywhere you looked,
46:52
the story was,
46:53
the FCC is going to end net neutrality.
46:57
SPEAKER_03: So here's just one example.
46:59
SPEAKER_03: Josh Harkinson in Mother Jones,
47:00
SPEAKER_03: he wrote,
47:01
SPEAKER_03: the FCC was proposing to replace net neutrality,
47:04
SPEAKER_03: the egalitarian internet that we all know,
47:07
with a pay-to-play platform designed to favor the biggest and
47:11
richest players.
47:12
SPEAKER_03: Now, do you see what's the problem with that, Jesse?
47:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
47:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I get and I'm sure we'll get to this.
47:17
SPEAKER_02: It is an inaccurate framing, it sounds like.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: I guess the question is,
47:21
it could be they were pointing to a thing that was still worth
47:24
being worried about.
47:25
SPEAKER_02: Like it could still be if they make certain changes, it could get that.
47:29
SPEAKER_02: But it's very disingenuous to frame it as like,
47:31
SPEAKER_02: this is the current thing and they're trying to end it.
47:33
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
47:34
SPEAKER_03: So there's a tech journalist named Tim B.
47:36
SPEAKER_03: Lee,
47:36
SPEAKER_03: not to be confused with Tim Berners-Lee,
47:38
SPEAKER_03: who invented the web browser.
47:39
SPEAKER_03: Close, though.
47:40
And he told me,
47:42
this was a brilliant,
47:43
if misleading,
47:44
way to gain widespread attention.
47:45
It's much easier to rally public outrage if you convince people
47:49
that the FCC is
47:50
SPEAKER_03: taking away something you already have.
47:52
SPEAKER_03: We didn't have net neutrality.
47:54
SPEAKER_03: They weren't taking it away.
47:55
SPEAKER_03: They were talking about implementing it.
47:57
SPEAKER_03: So let's listen to another clip from Oliver.
47:59
Telecom companies will say they would never slow down a
48:02
website's speed in order to
48:04
SPEAKER_01: get more money out of them.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: But let me tell you a little story.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: Recently, Comcast was negotiating with Netflix.
48:11
SPEAKER_01: This graph shows Netflix download speeds on various providers.
48:15
That black line plummeting downwards was their speed on Comcast
48:19
during the negotiation.
48:20
SPEAKER_01: See if you can guess when Netflix agreed to Comcast demands.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you a hint.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: It's right there.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: That has all the ingredients of a mob shakedown.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: Netflix, nice show about life in a lady's prison.
48:35
Such a shame if there was going to be something happen to your
48:38
connection there.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: So frustrating that would be.
48:42
SPEAKER_03: All right, Jesse.
48:43
SPEAKER_03: So Oliver had this graph on the screen.
48:45
SPEAKER_03: I want you to describe it for me.
48:46
SPEAKER_02: Right.
48:46
SPEAKER_02: So this is a graph of the speed for Netflix customers.
48:50
SPEAKER_02: And it goes down late in 2013.
48:51
SPEAKER_02: And then in January 2014, spikes back up.
48:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so Oliver is claiming that Comcast throttled Netflix's
49:01
SPEAKER_03: Customer speed is a negotiation tactic.
49:04
SPEAKER_03: Now, that negotiation had nothing to do with net neutrality.
49:07
This dispute was about something called peering,
49:09
which is how networks exchange traffic.
49:11
SPEAKER_03: Basically,
49:12
they were fighting over who would fit the bill to upgrade the
49:14
points where Netflix
49:16
SPEAKER_03: and Comcast meet and exchange data.
49:18
SPEAKER_03: These are called interconnection points.
49:20
And the point being that,
49:23
and far beyond for me to defend Comcast,
49:26
but streaming...
49:28
SPEAKER_02: platforms just use up a huge amount of bandwidth.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: So I'm taking that's what this argument came down to.
49:32
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
49:33
SPEAKER_03: And Oliver and Netflix itself,
49:35
they claim that Comcast intentionally slowed their speeds to
49:39
pressure the company.
49:40
SPEAKER_03: But there's no conclusive evidence of this.
49:43
SPEAKER_03: And it's just as likely that a
49:46
SPEAKER_03: The slowdown was due to congestion at those interconnection points.
49:50
SPEAKER_03: So just straight up heavy traffic rather than deliberate throttling.
49:53
SPEAKER_03: Or B,
49:54
that Netflix itself was dropping its speed for Comcast
49:57
customers as part of their
49:58
SPEAKER_03: own negotiating tactics.
50:00
SPEAKER_02: And how can we...
50:01
SPEAKER_02: Well,
50:01
SPEAKER_02: first of all,
50:02
it's interesting to think back to 2014 when Netflix is just
50:05
this innocent little
50:05
SPEAKER_02: mom and pop company going up against Comcast.
50:08
SPEAKER_02: They're the startup.
50:10
SPEAKER_02: Netflix was already pretty big, but nothing like today.
50:12
SPEAKER_02: But...
50:14
SPEAKER_02: How do we do we have any sense of like what the truth is here,
50:17
whether you're saying it could just be just as likely Netflix
50:21
was doing the
50:22
SPEAKER_02: throttling?
50:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
50:22
So this is an extremely technical issue that I'm too dumb to
50:25
explain and you're too
50:26
SPEAKER_03: dumb to understand.
50:27
SPEAKER_03: And there's no smoking gun here.
50:28
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
50:29
SPEAKER_03: You're welcome.
50:30
But what we do have are independent measurements from engineers
50:33
that showed that
50:34
SPEAKER_03: the slowdown occurred.
50:35
where Netflix's traffic entered Comcast Network,
50:39
not the other way around.
50:40
SPEAKER_03: And Netflix subsequently admitted to using this tactic in other disputes,
50:44
SPEAKER_03: albeit not during the Comcast negotiations.
50:47
SPEAKER_03: And by the way,
50:48
SPEAKER_03: even if net neutrality had been the law of the land at the time,
50:51
SPEAKER_03: which was not,
50:52
Netflix itself would never have been required to adhere to
50:54
those principles because
50:55
SPEAKER_03: they aren't an internet service provider,
50:57
SPEAKER_03: they're a content provider.
50:58
SPEAKER_03: And I'm not claiming that Oliver got everything wrong in this episode.
51:01
SPEAKER_03: He didn't.
51:02
SPEAKER_03: I'm sure he didn't.
51:03
SPEAKER_03: And honestly,
51:04
he can be commended for making this dry technical issue
51:07
interesting and easy to
51:08
SPEAKER_03: digest.
51:09
But again,
51:10
he simplifies the issue in a way that actually misleads people.
51:14
SPEAKER_03: He did what he usually does.
51:16
SPEAKER_03: He made it seem like this was an easy story with clear villains,
51:19
and that would be cable companies and then FCC chairman Tom
51:23
Wheeler and clear
51:24
SPEAKER_03: heroes.
51:25
SPEAKER_03: And that would be net neutrality advocates and
51:27
SPEAKER_03: And it's just not that simple.
51:28
SPEAKER_03: And like you said,
51:29
SPEAKER_03: like,
51:30
SPEAKER_03: it is sort of funny that when this aired,
51:33
SPEAKER_03: Netflix was seen as the David to Comcast Goliath.
51:36
SPEAKER_03: Today, their market cap is like three times out of Comcast.
51:39
SPEAKER_03: No one thinks of Netflix as a little guy anymore.
51:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, although to be fair, it was different back then.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: But yes, it's funny.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was.
51:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
51:45
SPEAKER_03: So in another part of the show,
51:47
Oliver showed a chart that ranked internet speeds by nation
51:51
with the US coming in
51:52
SPEAKER_03: at 31st place.
51:53
SPEAKER_03: And he pointed out that Comcast and Time Warner had the lowest customer
51:58
SPEAKER_03: satisfaction ratings of almost any corporation in America.
52:01
SPEAKER_03: And I've been a customer of both.
52:03
SPEAKER_03: I believe it.
52:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, same.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: They suck.
52:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
52:05
I once had to return a Time Warner modem in person an hour from
52:08
where I lived
52:09
SPEAKER_03: because they wouldn't accept it by mail.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: That's insane.
52:12
SPEAKER_03: But Oliver's message...
52:14
seemed to be that net neutrality would speed up broadband and
52:19
improve customer service.
52:21
SPEAKER_03: And that was never true.
52:22
Net neutrality was about stopping ISPs from picking winners and
52:26
losers when it came
52:27
SPEAKER_03: to internet content.
52:28
SPEAKER_03: That's it.
52:29
SPEAKER_03: It was never going to make service faster.
52:31
SPEAKER_03: It was never going to make these companies suck less.
52:34
SPEAKER_03: But Oliver muddled the issue.
52:36
SPEAKER_03: So it seemed like these issues were connected and they just weren't.
52:39
SPEAKER_02: Why is our broadband so low by sort of developer world standards anyway?
52:45
SPEAKER_03: So there are a few reasons for this.
52:46
And some of it does have to do with corporate consolidation and
52:49
monopolies.
52:49
SPEAKER_03: That's real.
52:50
SPEAKER_03: There are very few mom and pop internet providers anymore.
52:54
SPEAKER_03: Although I happen to have one.
52:55
SPEAKER_03: His name is Jeff.
52:56
SPEAKER_03: Do you want to see his website?
52:57
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
52:58
SPEAKER_03: Click on that link.
52:59
SPEAKER_02: It's just like a very bare bones...
53:01
minimalist website and then it's a picture of an office with an
53:05
empty like a low
53:05
resolution photo of an office yes and then the if you go to the
53:10
menu bar you get
53:11
three options home contact and services you can't you can't do
53:16
auto pay it's like
53:17
it is extremely bare bones but it's actually kind of awesome
53:21
but this is rare this
53:21
is the first time in my life i've had like an actual
53:23
independent isp and not one of
53:25
SPEAKER_03: the big guys yeah
53:26
SPEAKER_03: So that's part of it.
53:27
Corporate behemoths tend to be more concerned with stock price
53:30
and customer satisfaction.
53:32
SPEAKER_03: But another key factor here is simply that the US is really big.
53:36
SPEAKER_03: We have a low density country with huge rural regions.
53:39
And when global internet speed rankings are done by country,
53:42
they're based on national averages.
53:44
SPEAKER_03: And in 2014,
53:46
those averages got pulled down by the many areas that still had
53:49
very slow DSL or
53:51
SPEAKER_03: almost no broadband at all.
53:53
SPEAKER_03: So our size and infrastructure gaps played a big role in this ranking.
53:56
But that's fundamentally a size and infrastructure issue,
53:59
not a net neutrality issue.
54:00
And the countries that at the time did have the fastest
54:03
internet speeds were like
54:03
SPEAKER_03: South Korea,
54:04
SPEAKER_03: Japan,
54:04
SPEAKER_03: Sweden,
54:05
SPEAKER_03: Hong Kong,
54:05
SPEAKER_03: Singapore,
54:06
countries with more urban density where they'd already invested
54:09
in broadband
54:10
SPEAKER_03: upgrades like fiber.
54:11
And you can for sure argue that making broadband a utility like
54:14
net neutrality
54:15
SPEAKER_03: advocates wanted,
54:16
SPEAKER_03: that might have improved customer service.
54:18
SPEAKER_03: But I'm skeptical because...
54:20
SPEAKER_03: You know, telephone companies are utilities.
54:22
SPEAKER_03: Electric companies are utilities.
54:24
SPEAKER_03: There's not many companies I hate more than Verizon and Duke Energy.
54:28
SPEAKER_03: Plus, if you look at current internet speed rankings, the U.S.
54:31
SPEAKER_03: now comes in at around number seven.
54:33
SPEAKER_03: And that's got nothing to do with net neutrality.
54:35
SPEAKER_03: It's because more places have fiber.
54:36
I think you called Hong Kong a country,
54:39
which could launch some sort of...
54:41
SPEAKER_02: Difficult situation, but we'll just ignore that.
54:44
SPEAKER_03: If Xi Jinping is listening to this, correction, correction issue.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: Just sort of like common sense wise,
54:49
SPEAKER_02: like especially before we were as wired up as we are now,
54:52
it never would have made sense to compare us to like much
54:56
smaller countries.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: More Asian countries.
54:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, South Korea is not small.
55:01
SPEAKER_02: They're just better at math, Jesse.
55:03
SPEAKER_02: They have better infrastructure.
55:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
55:05
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, Oliver ended his segment with a call to action.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking to you, Ron Paul fan 2016.
55:12
SPEAKER_01: And you, One Direction Forever.
55:15
SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking to you, One Direction Sucks Balls.
55:20
SPEAKER_01: We need you to get out there and for once in your lives,
55:23
SPEAKER_01: focus your indiscriminate rage in a useful direction.
55:27
SPEAKER_01: Seize your moments, my lovely trolls.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: Turn on Caps Rock and fly my pretties.
55:36
So he invited his viewers to go to FCC.gov slash comment and
55:40
make their voices
55:41
SPEAKER_03: heard to tell the FCC not to end yet neutrality,
55:45
SPEAKER_03: which of course was not in place,
55:46
SPEAKER_03: but whatever.
55:47
SPEAKER_03: And they did in spades.
55:49
SPEAKER_03: But we're going to save the aftermath of this episode for next week.
55:52
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
55:53
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Katie.
55:53
SPEAKER_02: I cannot wait to see what daddy does next.
55:57
SPEAKER_02: This has been blocked or imported.
55:58
SPEAKER_02: As always, we are produced with help from Jessica, the 80s baby.
56:00
SPEAKER_02: Bye.
56:05
Thank you.