John Oliver Gets Fired Up Over Net Neutrality, Causes FCC's Site To Temporarily Crash (fortune.com) 153
Three years ago, late night comedian John Oliver propelled an arcane telecom topic into the national debate by spurring millions of ordinary Americans to file comments with the Federal Communications Commission in favor of "net neutrality." Among other things, that effort caused the FCC website to crash, which couldn't handle the "overwhelming" traffic. Now Oliver is back at it, and he is already causing the site some troubles. From a report on Fortune: On Sunday night, Oliver devoted a chunk of his Last Week Tonight show to condemning a plan by the FCC's new Chairman, Ajit Pai, to tear up current net neutrality rules, which forbid Internet providers from delivering some websites faster than others. In the clip, Oliver urges viewers to visit a website called "GoFCCYourself," which redirects users to a section of the FCC site where people can comment on the net neutrality proceeding, known as "Restoring Internet Freedom" in Pai's parlance. Viewers took up Oliver's offer in spades -- so much so that the FCC's servers appeared to be overwhelmed by the flood of traffic. The comment page is currently loading with delays and, according to reports from several outlets, the site went down altogether for a while. On Monday, Ashley Boyd, VP of Advocacy for Mozilla, also published a blog post to remind people that the next 10 days are critical for the internet's future. Much like Oliver, Mozilla is also making it easier for people to voice their opinion. The post adds: Add your name to our letter, and we'll deliver your message straight to the FCC. You can also record an impassioned voicemail using Mozilla's call tool. So far, Internet users have recorded more than 50 hours of audio for the FCC's ears.
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Go here: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/searc... [fcc.gov]
Click this: "+ Express"
Live by the FCC - die by the FCC (Score:2, Insightful)
This is what you get when you DICTATE legislation and policy through regulatory bodies like this -If you politicize the bodies to get your way don't be surprised when another side gets in and changes the rules to the politics they want.
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The FCC is part of the executive branch of government what you call the administration, so you are blaming the administration of being political?
I have heard the Pope might be catholic too, maybe that would also be a worthy cause for you?
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Congress already dictates regulatory policy. The FCC and other such bodies only have what powers congress gives
Re:This please (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It's already a problem.
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You'd have to be crazy to trust one of those guys [topteny.com].
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Which party was it that elected an actor and reality show star as president, and another actor as governor?
Just because someone uses humor as a vehicle does not mean they are Bozo the Clown.
Comedians are running the country now? (Score:3)
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Wrong. Corporations run the country. Comedians just work for them.
Re:Comedians are running the country now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. Corporations run the country. Comedians just work for them.
This comedian was simply suggesting people exercise their right to comment before rules go into force. You know, democracy, rulemaking [wikipedia.org]. Look it up.
It's actually quite good, just nobody knows about it, except lawyers and lobbyists, I suppose because either people sleep through their high-school civics class, or your state doesn't bother even having a civics class in the curriculum because, you know, wasteful government spending teaching kids their rights as citizens and how to participate in their government. How do most kids even know they have a right to an attorney if arrested? Saw it on TV somewhere.
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Well you've elected him...
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So you admit you don't listen to him but you're convinced he has nothing of value to say. That's called confirmation bias.
Re:Comedians are running the country now? (Score:5, Informative)
Clearly, edx93 is fucking idiot and slanders Oliver with no evidence. In contrast, John Oliver is very thorough in his citations/evidence when discussing a topic. Who is one to believe is more correct?
Re:Comedians are running the country now? (Score:5, Interesting)
BINGO! Everyone I got Bingo!
Appeal To Authority
Extraordinary claim without evidence
Assuming everyone else is biased other than thyself.
Refusing to provide evidence when asked claiming he didn't have time to finish a conversation he started.
Managing to get some people with the same political alignment as yourself to mod you up.
Claiming you're actually independent in the end.
It's like a perfect shit-posting bingo.
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You need to rearrange that to spell 'MERCA
Managing to get some people with the same political alignment as yourself to mod you up.
Extraordinary claim without evidence
Refusing to provide evidence when asked claiming he didn't have time to finish a conversation he started
Claiming you're actually independent in the end.
Assuming everyone else is biased other than thyself.
There, fixed it for you.
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That's like being angry because someone shot someone else... and ignoring the part where that someone else assaulted the person who shot them.
Be angry at the instigator. Why does it matter how imperfect the defender is?
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Too bad edx93 was the instigator. [slashdot.org] Perhaps you forgot to click "parent" that one last time.
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Because I have a low tolerance to bullshit. I have an even lower tolerance to someone who's unable to follow a conversation but insists on commenting anyway, so now I'm angry at you too. It's 7:30am. Thanks for ruining the morning.
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You made the claim and have nothing to back it up. You can't even come up with an issue that you found his coverage of to be misleading. Not one anecdote or data point. Nothing. Nobody is asking for a dissertation, just some sign that you're not full of it. And you choose to go straight to "you won't even listen to what I have to say, so I'm just going to stop at completely unsubstantiated assertions and declare moral superiority." We've heard that one all too often from people who deal in nothing but lies.
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You're also a top-poster, which demonstrates that you're also independent of the ability to think. You are completely illogical. You are stupid and ignorant, and indeed too stupid and ignorant to realize that you are.
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Considering the number of Emmy's they just won, along with a bunch other awards, it doesn't appear like his show is going anywhere anytime soon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
You're just butthurt that John Oliver is damn good at shedding light on serious and sometimes controversial topics.
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He recorded a 20-minute video about the subject with evidence and references ... you just posted a vague accusation of perceived bias... who to believe?
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This is Slashdot, even if by your own admission you are not very familiar with the issues of net neutrality, most other people here are. John Oliver is right on this topic.
Less Comedian, More Satirist (Score:5, Insightful)
Satire has for quite some time been a useful tool to highlight institutional problems and call people to action.
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I find them hilarious and much more, relevant, due mainly to their incisive political commentary. Without that, they'd be nothing more than an amusing diversion and I don't have much time for that nonsense.
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abso-fucking-lutely. Why are you so surprised?
Their presentations are very much fact based. I figure I'm about 1000 orders of magnitude better informed listening to the Colbert Report and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver than I would be watching Faux "News". Faux "News" after all won a lawsuit by claiming, apparently successfully, that they are entertainment and not news.
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They could hardly do worse work than the politicians.
and there would be the benefit that comedians would at least be funny occasionally when being ignorant, the politicians just seem to be able to project the image of energetic stupidity.
Re:maybe he needs to look in a mirror? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure you understand how the Internet works. I'll explain it to you, in case you want to learn. I'm an optimist.
Caches are a symbiotic relationship between the content provider and the ISP. By streaming high-demand content more locally the load on the ISPs Internet Drains and Peering Links is dramatically reduced. Drains are typical billed per byte, so having 10s of thousands of customers each streaming the latest GoT episode can get expensive. Peering is not billed, but it still requires a serious investment in transport from the ISPs residential users back to the nearest IXP like 350 Cermak in Chicago or 56 Marietta in Dallas. Caching moves that high demand content out to the local offices so the episode only has to be downloaded once across the transport. Google does it, Netflix does it, and any ISP that isn't trying to push their own video offering embraces these caches because it reduces the load on their network without them having to invest in more transport. Anyone can do this, even the little guy by going through a 3rd party such as Akamai which sells this functionality as a service. The content isn't prioritized across the actual access network. It's not given higher CoS or dedicated infrastructure. It's just moved closer to save money and improve customer experience.
Youtube doesn't own dark fiber. Google does own dark fiber, although it's not dark because they're actually using it. This is because Google's volume of traffic is so high that it's cost effective for them to build their own transport network. This doesn't link to every ISP in the planet, it only links to major IXPs and NAPs. ISPs also come to these locations to peer and buy transit.
I can also put content up on Youtube. I'm not sure what you think this has to do with anything.
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56 Marietta is in Atlanta. 1950 Stemmons is in Dallas. On my first pot of coffee.
Re:maybe he needs to look in a mirror? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google does it, Netflix does it, and any ISP that isn't trying to push their own video offering embraces these caches because it reduces the load on their network without them having to invest in more transport.
And this is where the problem lies. Netflix offered to host their "cache" called a Content Delivery Network (CDN) [netflix.com] on Comcast's network which would benefit both companies as far as bandwidth was concerned. Comcast refused to let them unless they paid Comcast to put their equipment on Comcast's network. Comcast was also throttling Netflix traffic on their network. Why? Comcast On Demand. Once Netflix paid the ransom traffic suddenly normalized. An ISP should not be allowed to also offer content or internet service should be regulated. This doesn't fall under free market because Comcast is using government granted right of ways for its cabling that smaller ISPs do not have.
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This doesn't fall under free market because Comcast is using government granted right of ways for its cabling that smaller ISPs do not have.
And this is why I don't support net neutrality. It's fixing the wrong problem.
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That's like saying you're not in favor of seat belts because we need more guardrails.
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I agree! (Score:5, Funny)
I agree wholeheartedly. If we start putting reality TV stars in positions of power, our country is truly screwed.
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Which is why I never supported Trump, preferring Ted Cruz or Scott Walker or Rand Paul or even Gary Johnson. But serious people can't get elected to national office in a country where comedians and celebrities are the thought leaders.
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Like Reagan?
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But serious people can't get elected to national office in a country where comedians and celebrities are the thought leaders.
Why wasn't this modded up just for this sentence alone?
/. despises Trump but doesn't mod this insightful?!
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The stuff that the Thought Leaders tell us to.
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Next up on Slashdot: Kim Kardashian offers her wisdom on cyber security. If Hollywood douchebags are on your side, maybe you should reconsider your positions.
Yes, all actors are vapid simpletons, incapable of cogent thought:
For example: Dolph Lundgren [wikipedia.org]:
Lundgren received a degree in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in the early 1980s and a master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney in 1982.
Lundgren was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983.
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On top of that, Cum Cardassian is totally *not* an actor.
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And moderators that don't understand sarcasm, mod posts troll - frelling /. (sigh)
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The GP probably likes serial killers, so that's not going to sway him. Tell him that Leftists also breathe oxygen. Now we're getting somewhere.
Trump's FCC pick.... (Score:2)
Slashdoted! (Score:1)
I really missed this. It's so difficult to find a decent BADLY DEPLOYED site these days...
Yay!
Update: The redirect page has been blanked (Score:5, Informative)
Update 2: "+ Express" link is now non-functional (Score:4, Informative)
The link above provides you with another link to here [fcc.gov] where you should be able to click "+ Express" but the link doesn't seem to work.
To leave a comment you need to go here, [fcc.gov] put 17-108 in the first field and then fill out the rest.
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Perhaps your browser needs refreshing; or you were there at a busy time.
And now Slashdot ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And now Slashdot ... (Score:5, Insightful)
We've long since passed the age where Slashdot had any significant effect on web traffic.
It's alright (Score:1)
Once the bill passes they can pay internet providers to throttle traffic to the site to prevent future crashes.
Write you Congresman (Score:1)
The title almost stopped my heart. (Score:4, Insightful)
John Oliver Gets Fired Over Net Neutrality ...
One word makes all the difference!
Relevant video: (Score:5, Informative)
You can watch the segment on youtube here. [youtube.com]
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Unless you are in Canada
And in the end, nothing will come of it (Score:4, Insightful)
It's lovely that people are making their voices heard (literally), but in the end it's too little too late. The people with money want more of it, and you gave up what shreds of rights when you voted a Cheeto into office.
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If only ISPs could do QoS (Score:3)
See, if only ISPs could implement proper quality of service, the site wouldn't have gone down.
Re:If only ISPs could do QoS (Score:5, Informative)
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Except that is basically not any of that. Zero rating was never really prevented by NN as implemented. The carriers found ways around it anyway. AT&T, VZ, and Comcast all can and were buying up media properties to zero-rate.
A company should be able to offer whatever service it wants, and that includes zero-rating stuff if they think its a selling point. The problem is and always was the lack of free-market in internet service in general. The solution should not be to regulate what carriers have to
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Exclusivity agreements, while obnoxious are not all of the problem. CA has legislated away exclusivity agreements, yet the problem still exists.
The real issue is that providing telecoms services to houses is a natural monopoly. The only way to solve it is to require the last mile networks be available at cost to alternative providers. That's what happened in the UK and there is more competition there.
The USA briefly required last mile access be available to competitive providers, but the dollars from teleco
Not going to do anything (Score:2, Informative)
Politicians in charge do not want an open and free internet.
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unfortunately true.
100s of millions of comments could come in, all favoring network neutrality, and the current head of fcc won't give a damn; because his job when appointed to the chairmanship by mister orange monkey himself, was to do exactly this.
Stop blaming politicians for voters (Score:1)
Here's my favorite Trump quote [twitter.com] (a tweet), issued in response to the Women's March on Washington: "[I] was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn't these people vote?"
That applies here too. If the Internet were so important, than surely people would have voted against Republicans in November, so that Congress could move on treating Internet access as a utility. They didn't. If anything, people voted to make the Internet more expensive and limited. So why pester the FCC about this? You a
Re:Stop blaming politicians for voters (Score:4, Insightful)
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Attempting to retroactively change the rules after you lost doesn't work either. Try changing them going forward if you can get enough people to agree with you. Stopping a regional monopoly on lawmaking was one consequence and benefit of a federation of states.
Anyone get this to work? (Score:2)
Entering 17-108 or Proceeding 17-108 on the form does nothing, it gets blanked out when I try to get to the review page. Is there a secret? It was certainly a pain to figure out how to get to that form.
Re:Anyone get this to work? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, you have to fill out the csv template they give.
It's pretty fucking clear they want as few people as possible to be able to comment, by making technologically prohibitive to do so. It's fucking scummy as shit.
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Yeah, you have to fill out the csv template they give.
It's pretty fucking clear they want as few people as possible to be able to comment, by making technologically prohibitive to do so. It's fucking scummy as shit.
The site has reverted to the previous (slightly less scummy) behavior. The gofccyourself.com URL redirection works again, and the form accepts data normally.
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IP providers restricted the traffic to FCC? (Score:2)
Perhaps IP providers restricted the traffic to FCC site that made it crash...no? :-)
so disappointing (Score:1)
So I'm reading "John Oliver gets fired...."
And I think 'Yeah!", because honestly, he's just shrill and unfunny, and his British accent on US televsion doesn't work in making him sound smart. If he and Samantha Bee had children, they would be the most deadpan unfunny creatures in the universe.
But then I kept reading, and was disappointed.
Re: Trump! (Score:5, Funny)
Immagrant! I hate them as well. That's why my text editor underlines the word!
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Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooosh.
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Whoosh
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If Trump doesn't want a select few organizations to have control over the message that gets out to people, and in doing so have huge political sway, perhaps he should consider whether a law guaranteeing that all messages have equal priority over an internet connection...
Lack of net neutrality is exactly what gets you Comcast, Verizon and AT&T carefully controlling what news people see.
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Does he disturb your precious universe with a harsh dose of reality that much?
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Fuck John Oliver.
You only wish you could.