2:03:22 Alright, Democracy Now. Democracy Now had a little bit on the sanctimoniously smug John Oliver who is back again with his complete misunderstanding of net neutrality and its implications because of course we only expect the evil government to censor us, censor the internet which I think really they mean We don't want Netflix buffering. I think that's what people are really worried about and John Oliver did this whole thing if you recall a couple years ago about net neutrality completely off base, completely wrong yet heralded by everyone in the scientific community in Silicon Valley And certainly in government as the best explanation ever of net neutrality And it's bullcrap! It's total horse shite what he is saying Total
2:04:14 And I don't know if we need to go into it at all really, but we can highlight some of the things as we go through. Democracy Now's take on John Oliver doing net neutrality point version two and of course Judy thinks it's all very... not Judy what's her name? Amy. Amy thinks it's all very funny. Net neutrality is just a way of saying no discrimination, net neutrality is what... I'm sorry this is... That's not true No of course not! This guy is um..I'm sorry I should have mentioned who he is He's the CEO of....hmmm What is the name of this outfit? The Free Press! We've looked at them before
2:04:57 They're a lobbyist group. You can hire them as lobbyists, you hire this group and you can only imagine who's hired him for this that would be Silicon Valley. Net neutrality is just a way of saying no discrimination net neutrality is what ensures that when you go online you can go wherever you want do whatever you want Download whatever you want and it's not up to your cable company or the phone company to decide which websites and services are going to work, and which won't. Is that net neutrality John? Is that what is is? God I hope not! What is net neutrality then because this guy just spouted off some bull Well net neutrality... The idea of net neutrality is that all bits are equal
2:05:44 That's in a nutshell, all bits are equal. So whatever you ask for from your browser... Whatever it is you're gonna get with the same... What would you call it? The same priority. The same priority that's it! And is this efficient use of any network in the world ever? No no nobody... It's stupid. And why?! Why is it stupid famous example of priority my favorite examples the following which is that I'm doing remote medicine mm-hmm and I'm doing an operation a very delicate operation remotely yes, and I have
2:06:24 I have to have a little more priority than somebody watching a YouTube clip because the life and death situation is at hand, and I want my...I want priority for my bits. To do this operation over the YouTube bits! Yeah, what's wrong with that? No. You can't have that. But that's not net neutrality you can't do that! Because that stifling the free and open internet... What this is about and you'll hear it in this clip I think you're always right about this being about Netflix It's all about Netflix and Facebag We fought a fight—I've talked about it many times on this show, over 10 years—to push the FCC to pass strong net neutrality rules and have clear legal authority to enforce them. And the Trump FCC has really declared war on those rules. War! The chairman has said he wants to take a weed- I haven't declared war. There's no war here? These analogies have to stop.
2:07:20 Declared war. Yes, we're going to war! No he didn't the FCC just said we're getting rid of that I don't think there was war? The chairman has said he wants to take a weed whacker to them He's trying to undo the rules... He did?! He said that!? Yeah. Ajit- whatever his name is. He said he wants to take a weed whacker A weed whacker to the rules yes It's good though. I don't know if he actually said that, that is a good question. That is what everyone is claiming. He might have. A weed whacker to them and he is trying undo the rules passed at the end of Obama administration. Those rules were never put in place! Say again? Those rules passed at the end of the Obama administration were never put in place. No they were passed but never implemented.
2:08:01 Situation normals. Everything is the way it always has been and it never changed to them, It never changed with those Obama rules And what happened to the big browser history campaign? That faded away really quick Another rule that was put in place but that was signed but never implemented and everyone's just forgotten about that Now, where's the browser? I don't know. Because it's the meme fumes that all people... Oh! Trump trying to kill the internet. At the end of Obama admin- The Obama administration under the rules supported by millions and millions of Americans just to give Comcast Verizon and AT&T more ability to create special fast lanes for their own content To favor the content sites and services that they own or who they're in business with And cut off
2:08:50 competitors undermine the competition, make it harder for independent voices to be heard. Really damage... You know stop that thing for a second you know the funny thing about this is yes in theory whatever he says is true but there's no evidence of it! No There's little evidence of it I would say there's none let's put this way There is a complaint that floats around that Comcast refuses to play ball. I don't know if this is still true, this was from like a couple years ago. Com, which is during the battle that's really going on... Hold on one second! Just the genesis of it is very important The genesis of this problem was Reed Hastings whatever his name is from Netflix and he said
2:09:34 Ho, hold on a second. This is bullcrap why should I because it's all about peering and i don't think we have enough show to get into that but this is how the internet was born he said why should i have to pay extra to get onto Comcast network because they were saying you need to pay us extra for all that crap you're using on our network That's the genesis of it Yes, there's that element. And it is partly the Genesis because they're the ones who made the biggest fuss and everybody...it caught hold with the tech writers and so everybody got all worked out been out of shape because what was happening which was never discussed was that Comcast refused to use the appliances that were provided by Netflix.
2:10:15 Because Comcast had their own movie distribution system and they were using, they didn't want these Netflix appliances. And they were actually being more net neutral because the way they saw it was that in fact I think the biggest and I think I'm reminded of some of this stuff I've written, operations like Voodoo and some of these other movie operations, they don't have these appliances there's no net neutrality it seems to me when Netflix takes a box I don't know, petabyte in it or whatever all their most popular material and movies. And they drop it on at an ISP because Sonic.net has one of these and you drop it there and plug it in and the ISP has to pay a little bit for
2:11:01 the power that it takes to power the thing. It's not a small box, but it gets to serve movies direct Netflix movies directly from the ISPs home with their home base and what was happening here? And this was I think besides your telemedicine example you don't want any government regulating starting getting into regulation of it just know because before you know it and you remember that we looked at these rules and was terms like Illegal network traffic would not be allowed. There's all these little provisions which meant bit torrent, you can write that off... A whole bunch of things you really don't want but people are short-sighted and moronic! Cut off competitors undermine the competition make it harder for independent voices to be heard
2:11:50 Uh, really... And this! Oh, make it harder for independent voices to be heard. What? On Facebag?! Are you kidding me?? Yeah, uh damage the amazing tools that so many political organizers have used- Facebag!! To build social movements using the free and open internet No! Facebag!!! All of this is at risk if we lose net neutrality. Noooo, it's a risk John! The rea- We can't resist We can't resist if we don't have net neutrality. Here's what I want you to do while I play this second clip, because you hear a bit of Oliver's thing—I want you go look at my tweet from this morning. There are only two, I think, announcing the show and then one before that. Greg, I want to turn to FCC Chair Ajit Pai speaking at The Newseum last month during his speech on the future of internet regulation. He attacked your group Free Press.
2:12:34 Consider, for example the leading special interest in favor of Title II. A spectacularly misnamed beltway special interest called Free Press Its co-founder and current board member makes no effort to hide the group's true agenda While he says that we're not at the point yet where we can completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies, he admits that—and I quote—the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control. Craig Aaron, defend yourself Well, I appreciate being called the leading group. Besides that, you know, obviously this is the kind of sort of neo-McCarthyism and redbaiting that we thought we left in the past. The reality is that Free Press for 10 years has fought for the free and open internet, advocated for net neutrality. And there are thousands and thousands and thousands of pages filed at the FCC, op-eds published, emails sent
2:13:31 Our website is filled with content saying exactly why we stand where we do and exactly what we want, which is actually just the free and open internet. So if they want to go dig around the internet to find out-of-context quotes from one of my board members—I guess that says a lot about the chairman and his priorities—we're happy to have this fight and win on the facts." And you see the fight —and this is why I brought up The Adam Curtis Documentary Because it really focuses a lot around this that we are just pieces of cogs in the machine and this case It's it's all connected at Silicon Valley, but it's you know. It's Facebook its Google Its Twitter is read it But it's also the banks everything is connected
2:14:17 You know, right down to TRW who does your credit report. All these things are connected and they have total control over us and we're morons. Okay well just roll on the hamster wheel keep going! These all want to protect their turf, their entertainment based turf is what they want Now I thought i had left a piece of John Oliver in there but I guess it took it out because it was so boring But he did this bit and he says, look at these asshole ISPs who want to control everything. Then if you look at the graphic which popped up three times during the 10 minute piece missing from that picture is Spectrum slash Time Warner who owns HBO John Oliver's own damn station. Yeah what a dick? Yeah well I would agree with you yeah then yeah so everyone's evil except spectrum