Bicyclist Protests Net Neutrality By Slowing Traffic Outside the FCC Building (thehill.com) 181
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: A protester opposed to the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) net neutrality repeal slowed traffic to a crawl outside the FCC Monday as a demonstration against the repeal. A video released Monday shows Rob Bliss, video director for the website Seriously.TV, setting up traffic cones to block all but one lane for cars, then riding a bike slowly in the lane. Bliss wore a sign encouraging drivers to upgrade to "priority access membership" for $5 a month, which would allow them to drive at normal speeds. The protest was meant to mimic what critics say will be the effect of the net neutrality repeal, which will allow internet service providers to favor certain content or require content providers to pay for faster speeds.
Where do I sign up? (Score:4, Funny)
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It's cute how you think the so-called czars are elected.
I'd like to see more protests this relevant. (Score:5, Insightful)
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seriously.tv, not Seriously.TV
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seriously.tv, not Seriously.TV
Domain names are case insensitive. It is the same domain either way.
Why on a bike...ugh!!! (Score:1)
I mean, I like to ride my bike, but when I'm on roads with cars, I try to stay the hell to the side so I'm not holding up traffic...and I know when I'm in a car...you get some jerk on a bike going 10-15mph in a 35 zone...and my BP hits the roof, and even I find myself wanting to accidentally sideswipe this asshole who's holding things up....'cause lets face it, NO ONE is driving the speed limit, at very least they are 10mph above that...so, that bicycl
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Hello, counselor Deanna Troi.
Re: Why on a bike...ugh!!! (Score:1)
The only place you need to be driving to is to get your script for meds filled.
Re: Why on a bike...ugh!!! (Score:2)
Bicycles and tire traffic don't mix well. That's why cities need to build buffered or fully separated bike lanes.
Also - rest assured the average bicycle commuter has at least as dim a view of motorists as you have of cyclists.
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Bicycles and tire traffic don't mix well.
Well, if your bicycle has no tires, I'm not surprised you are holding up traffic.
Protest like that is good only as a quick demo. (Score:2)
It seemed to me that the protest might be appropriate for a 1 hour demonstration. I agree with others who would not like traffic to be slowed during rush hour.
As I said before [slashdot.org]: "Cities and counties should own and lease dark fiber. The Internet is a necessary public utility, like water, electricity, natural gas, sewage, and trash pickup." And, I should have said, road maintenance.
The protest
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One cyclist ?
It should be thousands !!
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That would be the equivalent of Uncapping your modem O.o
One problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
He inadvertently supported the other side.
By impeding everyone else's "bandwidth" on his bicycle, he made the point that someone should have the power to move him out of the higher-speed lanes and into a lower-priority one.
Oops.
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Agree... the Memberships should not be $5, but $1million.
Still, creative protest.
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Just the opposite... I suspect if you paid the protester sufficiently he would have gotten out of the way.
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Can I make payment with a tire iron upside his head?
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The perfect response to a non-violent protest.
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Violence. The perfect response to a non-violent protest.
Forcefully and physically blocking someone is violence.
What would he have done if someone forcefully and physically prevented him from performing his stunt?
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He might have been - I don't know about the specifics of state law, but there's usually some version of 'obstructing traffic' that can be used.
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I thought the United-States-of-American Way was Shoot first, think never [twimg.com].
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It would have been more appropriate for him to use a car to slow down other cars. Using a van would have been better and would have given him a much larger surface to put a much larger sign which would have been readable from the car behind him. Just slow down in front of the FCC building block, then loop around and repeat all day.
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Which the drivers should pay for because they are the ones who benefit from getting bicycles out of their way!
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Which the drivers should pay for
Drivers already pay to get bikes out of the way. We pay gas taxes so there can be bike lanes and bike paths.
I hope he got ticketed, at least, for obstruction of traffic. He had no authority to cone off lanes of traffic, and he created a hazard for everyone around him.
Re: One problem. (Score:2)
Those are some nice, shiny jack boots you've got there.
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He inadvertently supported the other side.
No he only inadvertently supported 1% of the other side. The problem with saying that this supports the argument that people should be able to pay for access ignores the sheer number who will feel ripped off for doing so.
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No. Think. He's pointing out that allowing the carrier to artificially slow down traffic is a really bad idea.
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No, because HE is not the carrier. He's the bandwidth hog that's interfering with everyone else. He's the one with the shit connection that's messing up the wireless for everyone else.
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Agreed -- he's not "giving them a taste of their own medicine". Their own medicine is "it's okay to treat some packets differently". His bicycle is throttling everyone *the same*, with no discrimination, which is 100% consistent with net neutrality!
(Not all malicious ISP practices violate NN. For example, throttling everyone to 1 KB/sec doesn't.)
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By impeding everyone else's "bandwidth" on his bicycle, he made the point that someone should have the power to move him out of the higher-speed lanes and into a lower-priority one.
Net Neutrality has absolutely nothing to do with quality of service type traffic prioritization. The only people who conflate the two issues are either ignorant or intentionally misleading people.
In this scenario, the cyclist was in the position of the ISP. The road is the Internet connection the consumers and content providers (drivers) have already paid to access. He was artificially slowing them down unless they paid to go faster, just like Comcast has already done to BitTorrent users and Netflix.
His
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The only people who conflate the two issues are either ignorant or intentionally misleading people.
Or more likely they're listening to the net neutrality zealots who make statements about NN that would exclude the ability to use QoS in any way. Yes, true NN does not exclude QoS shaping. It also does not exclude Netflix "throttling" due to congestion at the border gateway. But people who make statements like "all packets must be treated the same" are saying that QoS is not allowed.
I do not approve of or condone his actions (Score:5, Insightful)
That having been said: I'm a firm supporter of Net Neutrality, and while there is humor in this stunt, breaking the law and creating a hazardous situation for both himself and the drivers he inconvenienced is not cool at all and just as likely convinced some people who don't even know what Net Neutrality is, that advocates of it are just lunatics. So I say "no thanks!" to this Rob Bliss, he's probably just made matters worse for both cyclists and for the case for Net Neutrality.
I encourage cyclists at every level to obey the same traffic laws that motor vehicles are bound to, and to ride safely in all circumstances. Lead by example.
I also encourage all advocates of Net Neutrality to make themselves heard whenever possible, and to educate those around them who do not understand what's at stake -- but to do it in a reasonable, rational, and lawful manner.
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Yep, this probably just ticked people off. I get and agree with his overall message, and yes, there's a problem when politicians care more about kissing corporate ass for future kickbacks than what we the people want and should have, but still, illegally blocking the road isn't the best way to convince anyone.
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So...only block Ajit Pai's vehicle.
Re:I do not approve of or condone his actions (Score:5, Insightful)
its a protest... nobody asked for your condemnation or acceptance.
if anything this makes me relate to a bicyclist in a positive way.
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It's pretty ironic you're accusing GP of virtue signalling when that's about all this stunt accomplished out
Re: I do not approve of or condone his actions (Score:2)
Does the NGO still pay you just $0.25 every time you post the word "faggot" on Slashdot?
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Trollolololo
Go back to 4chan.
Re: I do not approve of or condone his actions (Score:2)
Go back to Reddit.
Re:I do not approve of or condone his actions (Score:5, Insightful)
So protest, but don't make any noise or inconvenience anyone. Definitely never protest on a bicycle Got it.
People politely filed millions of protests through proper channels and got nowhere. So at what point in the breakdown of institutions will it become OK to inconvenience people to get some of our rights back?
Re: I do not approve of or condone his actions (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if you are quiet and inconvenience no one people will still find a reason to criticize your form of protest. Even after you meet with veterans to find a respectful compromise people will still criticize you.
Just ask NFL players.
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These United States was birthed on the principle that Civil Disobedience is The Way To Get Things Done and I support that 9001% (*** FUCK THE POLICE ***) -- but
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You damned well better not throw my tea into the Boston harbor!
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You want 'net neutrality' you have the option to start your own company
Not when cities impose unreasonable conditions on access to rights of way.
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Not when cities impose unreasonable conditions on access to rights of way.
Yeah! Unreasonable! It's outright fascist to require that a new franchisee agree to the same franchise conditions that all of the existing franchisees did!
I better put in the <sarcasm> tag before you think I'm agreeing with you.
Did we forget, this is federal law? Companies that need franchises (and not all ISPs do; many do not) cannot be blocked by an exclusive franchise agreement.
Franchise requiring day one citywide service (Score:2)
Yeah! Unreasonable! It's outright fascist to require that a new franchisee agree to the same franchise conditions that all of the existing franchisees did!
Except that's not always the case. Though exclusive franchises are forbidden, I seem to remember reading that some franchise conditions require competitive providers to offer service to all addresses in a city from day one rather than rolling out service gradually from one end of the city to the other. That's too large of a capital investment for a smaller company to handle in any practical way that I'm aware of. And though all new franchisees in 2018 must agree to a particular set of conditions, these cond
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Except that's not always the case.
It's federal law. Find a case and report it.
I seem to remember reading that some franchise conditions require competitive providers to offer service to all addresses in a city from day one rather than rolling out service gradually from one end of the city to the other.
They can't do that, because they didn't require that from any of the incumbents. No franchise contains such a requirement. It may require a timetable for system buildout so that service will eventually be provided to everyone in the franchise area. Why is this a bad thing? You want to run an ISP in our city with access to all of the rights of way, then you need to run an ISP in the city. Not just cherry pick high density high income areas.
And though all new franchisees in 2018 must agree to a particular set of conditions, these conditions may have differed in 1918
There were no such franch
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How cute, a supporter of regulatory capture.
I do hope you enjoy it when you cannot afford the cancer drug you need to cure you, because the regulated single source of what is a combination of generic drugs has been given a government mandate to charge what they damn well please.
I hope you enjoy it when a loved ones newborn that arrived a bit early cannot have a full incubator because the manufacturers have got a long line of specific requirements in place that only they can meet (thanks to patent protection
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How cute, a supporter of regulatory capture.
This has nothing to do with regulatory capture, and your "think of the children" argument is actually pretty funny in this context.
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No franchise contains such a requirement [for day one citywide service]. It may require a timetable for system buildout so that service will eventually be provided to everyone in the franchise area.
Then I guess I must have misremembered "day one". It might have just been that the city in question required a buildout timetable that was impractically rapid for a smaller company or a nonprofit cooperative.
You want to run an ISP in our city with access to all of the rights of way, then you need to run an ISP in the city. Not just cherry pick high density high income areas.
I understand this intent. A competitive ISP could satisfy its spirit by ensuring an even mix of high- and low-income areas during each phase of its buildout plan, even if said plan is gradual. It just gets low-key monopolistic if a city requires overly rapid buildout despite this concession.
nobody gives a fuck what was being done in 1918 because any possible franchise that did exist then has long, long, long expired.
My point is
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Other than wires or radio frequency, over what last mile were you considering?
You seem to admit that you know that wires passing every home in the city is not the only way of getting internet, and but then ignore that those other methods don't need phone or cable tv wires.
The medium does not define the service.
Yes it does.
The "medium" means what the physical delivery method is. "The service" means "internet service." The medium does not define the service.
I know it's complicated. It's hard to separate "Cable TV" from "Internet", in large part because the cable TV companies want you to conflate the two and always get both from them
Low-volume and business not adequate substitutes (Score:2)
"The service" means "internet service."
That would be relevant if all Internet services were adequate substitutes for one another. But they are not. In particular, many forms of Internet service are not adequate substitutes for high-volume home Internet service.
You are correct that telephone service and Internet service are not the same thing. But the same companies that own the spectrum used for cellular telephone service also own the spectrum used for cellular Internet service and vice versa. Thus in addition to being providers of cellular tele
Re:I do not approve of or condone his actions (Score:5, Informative)
It further damages the already bad reputation of cyclists everywhere
Hold on a fucking second: "everywhere"? And "further"? That may be the case in the US where car reigns supreme, but here in Finland (and other nordic countries, Germany, Austria etc.) cyclists have a fine reputation.
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I'm more concerned with people here in the U.S., not Europe. I know damned well that pretty much anywhere in Europe, I'd be treated with orders of magnitude more respect, as a cyclist, than I am here in the U.S.. So I'm really speaking to U.S. readers, not EU readers, okay? By the way anti-cyclist types here in the U.S. don't care if it's EU cyclists or U.S. cyclists, they're haters one way or another.
Re:I do not approve of or condone his actions (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Our car culture means that outside of urban areas and college campuses, riding a bike for your daily commute is generally looked down upon. A common attitude is... why ride for 30 minutes when you can drive less than 10 and arrive to work without breaking a sweat? Clearly if you had enough money and prestige, you'd buy a car.
2) When it comes to infrastructure planning in suburbs and rural areas, bikes are generally left out of the picture, so it's uncommon to see things like dedicated bike lanes or even a place to lock up your bike at your destination. Our state senator even went on the record as saying that he strongly opposes spending any money to build greenways or bike lanes, because he feels that funds would be better spent on roads that carry vehicles full of goods which, apparently, boost commerce. This means that more bikes are forced onto lanes shared by cars.
3) Quite a few recreational cyclists have taken the mantra "share the road" to such an extreme that they feel their right to ride on the roadways means that they're entitled to act like complete assholes to car drivers. This means doing things like intentionally impeding traffic by riding in the center of the lane in the name of "safety" (that car might hit you as it passes, so be sure it doesn't get a chance to), blowing through stop signs and traffic lights (you can't let that red light slow down your cadence), and refusing to use pullout lanes where they are available (because god forbid you have to stop and unclip while you wait for all that piled up traffic to go by). Now, I'm into road cycling myself, and I can say that it's only a very small percentage of cyclists who act this way, but the actions of a few give a reputation to the whole bunch.
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2) When it comes to infrastructure planning in suburbs and rural areas, bikes are generally left out of the picture, so it's uncommon to see things like dedicated bike lanes or even a place to lock up your bike at your destination.
When such infrastructure planning does happen, bikers often paint themselves in a negative light by demanding outrageous concessions. For example, our county was working on a bike path to connect us to the next city over. I agree that one is probably necessary, but I could not support the bikers demands that their bike path be taken out of the middle of actively farmed acreage, cutting farms in half and putting bike riders very close to active farm machinery. The vocal minority of selfish bikers cost them a
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This means doing things like intentionally impeding traffic by riding in the center of the lane in the name of "safety" (that car might hit you as it passes, so be sure it doesn't get a chance to)
That's an interesting one that I do myself when I approach a roundabout. Or at least I used to. Now I live in a country where drivers don't have a little penis problem and generally even when I don't block the lane in the name of safety I don't feel unsafe.
Incidentally I'm not sure what the law is like where you are but in the state in Australia where I used to live (and where people have a similar attitude to cyclists and cars as Americans) the law was definitely on my side, and I'll never forget the douch
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The problem is a lot of car drivers think because they drive the bigger thing that some of the laws don't apply to them.
I've see a lot more bike riders who believe that because they "drive" the smaller thing that the laws don't apply to them. For example, "it's too inconvenient to have to stop for pedestrians in a marked crosswalk because we lose our momentum and they can move out of the way more easily than we can." And don't even think about stop signs.
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I agree, and let's both agree to say fuck those people.
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That may be the case in the US where car reigns supreme, but here in Finland
Is Finland's FCC also putting the onus for net neutrality regulation on Finland's congress or FTC? Wow, an amazing coincidence.
I think it's probably clear he was talking about the US.
The US has a wondeful history with bike riders staging stunts that make everyone hate them. (Not everyone, but "most people", and by "people" I mean "people in the US metropolitan areas".) There are examples of such nonsense where bike riders deliberately block bridges and keep emergency vehicles like ambulances from being
Not in Germany (Score:2)
I would disagree with you inclusion of Germany. In fact, we hate you smug cycling mother fuckers. There are perfectly serviceable cycling lanes, but no... you fucking assholes need to ride your bike right, smack dab in the middle of the car lane. Not even off the side, but right in the middle. Forcing traffic into oncoming cars and putting everyone in danger because of these selfish m-f'ers who think they have the same rights as a car.
In most places, roads are mainly paid for from petrol taxes. If you are n
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I drive a car too, and I don't think drivers are "cagers".
In fact the group of people most qualified to give an opinion on how bikes and cars should interact is probably people who both drive and bike regularly.
Drivers who drive exclusively are the least qualified. I say put them on a bike for two weeks and you'll start to see that they will stop blindly complying with the rules because they don't make sense for a bike.
Like I said in my comment above, I am not antagonistic to drivers and I try to be polite
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"Cycling is freedom, no drivers license no license plate"
Forced helmet laws, forced lighting laws, yea you sure the fuck are free, aren't you?
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if this was NYC (Score:1, Funny)
we would just ride over the idiot on the bike and at the minimum his cones. we already broke a lot of the bike lane dividers the city put up cause they are in our way
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Suck it, non tank-drivers.
Excellent action (Score:2)
Remember, the most productive and efficient US states are passing laws to require Net Neutrality for all ISPs operating in their states, so even if the Feds don't take action, your state can force those doing business in their state to have full Net Neutrality if they want to have customers where you live.
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Because the states ain't dumb. They know exactly that there are no borders on the internet, and companies will go to whatever state offers them the best conditions for their business.
Killing net neutrality will only accomplish one thing: Places that don't take action themselves and implement it on a state level become noncompetitive.
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And yet we see the exact opposite. The states which are legally requiring Net Neutrality have most of the US GDP and their economy grows faster than the rest of the USA. Objective fact tells us that.
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It's Montana (leading the way) , NY and Cali as of now. I'd expect Washington State to follow soon.
Protest at the ISPs (Score:1)
One good way to protest is to speak very slowly to the CSRs on the phone. They get evaluated on their call times.
Offer to speak faster for a discount equal to their "fast lane" fee.
Publicity stunt - not a protest. (Score:2)
A protest would be many bikers going slow all through town with picket signs. This is just one guy diverting traffic without a permit to grab attention for um, it looks like himself?
Without a working paid fast lane, all he's proving is that one dick hogging all the bandwidth for himself slows down the whole neighborhood.
He's not even on topic - going to a starbucks and slowing down their WiFi would have made a better point.
Bicycle socialists (Score:1)
Re:Bicycle socialists (Score:4, Funny)
Slowing down the economy
How does making government employees late to work "slow down the economy"?
It seems to me it would have the opposite effect.
Re: Bicycle socialists (Score:2)
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How does making government employees late to work "slow down the economy"?
Because they'll miss their 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, and maybe 10:00 AM coffee breaks and Starbucks stock will crash.
Back to pre-2015 (Score:3)
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Meh (Score:2)
Net Neutrality in a nutshell (Score:3)
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Both are bad. Adding a second gatekeeper just means two gatekeepers in my way. Let's by all means deal with upsteam monopolies as well!
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got 1024 lanes here (Score:2)
I disagree with this actually... (Score:2)
Ajit Pai's home address is already known to the public, so this deliberate slow down of traffic could have and, I'd argue, should have occurred outside his own home. Slow down his commute to work unless he agrees to pay
net neutrality = false problem/argument (Score:1)
disclaimer: I've been on the provider side for 25 years.
I really see all this hoopla about net neutrality as a non-argument.
On the one hand, I can't see how legislation can effectively either impede it or enforce it, but on the other, I don't see why it should be prohibited either.
Yes, as a quick knee-jerk argument for pro civil liberties evangelisation, claiming that all data should be treated equal and bla-bla-bla, sounds good...
*HOWEVER* it's a waste of time/energy to somehow want to legislate it.
Unless
Effectiveness (Score:1)
Every other car behind the first is just going to think the car in front is being an ass and won't see anything in regards to your protest.