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everyone I am joined by Jeremy Tallulah from the e FF he is a senior technologist and we're going to be talking about net neutrality today so the point of this discussion is rather than do the that here's why net neutrality is important here's why you should care about it that's kind of been done to death so I'm going to bring it up some counter points that we've seen on internet comments and from the FCC and then Jeremy is going to be addressing those with his own counter points or clarification or things of that nature so the idea is to bring both viewpoints to the table for the argument that way we can get a fuller understanding of what's going on rather than just an elevator pitch of net neutrality but before we get into that this coverage is brought to you by ifixit.com and their protec toolkit I fix it as refreshing there protec toolkit in time for the holidays you can find a link in the description below to the protec toolkit and other toolkits that iFixit sells we find the protec and essentials kits to be the most useful for DIY enthusiasts so Jeremy let's start with the question of the net neutrality did not exist before 2015 so this one we've seen in comments a lot where people say yeah net neutrality wasn't even a thing until two years ago so we have the same problems then as we did now how does the repeal of net neutrality hurt that or helped that or I think you see where I'm going with this one totally so for I guess I'd start by saying that the the premise of the question isn't 100% true so it is true that we did not have official you know written regulation enforcing net neutrality until 2015 that's true but we did have for basically ten years leading up to that was the FCC saying that we are going to try to enforce net neutrality one way or another I mean it started when they tried to take action against Comcast for throttling BitTorrent back in 2006 then they first tried one set of rules a court throughout saying you know you can't do it under title 1 of the Communications Act you have to reclassify ISPs as common carriers and that's of course what led to the 2015 order so so while it's true that you know the the official you know rules that have held in court didn't exist until 2015 for 10 years we've had an FCC that has said we are going to work to enforce net neutrality we're just figuring out how and the effect of that is that it deterred a lot of bad behavior that could have happened so when you have an agency saying we're working to enforce this we're figuring out how to do it you know if I'm a company I'm gonna say you know I'm not you know I I wanted to throttle or block some website but the FCC is determined to find some way to enforce net neutrality so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna you know play that game and see you know just how far I can get with blocking or throttling before I get in trouble and so that's why I don't think it's quite right I mean a another another difference is that not only has the has this repeal I guess undone what the 2015 order did in terms of you know bright-line rules against blocking and throttling this repeal has explicitly said and the FCC has no authority over internet providers in any way shape or form no matter how bad their behavior is so they've actually gone you know even further backwards than where we were in 2015 with what they repeal which you know from my perspective certainly is unfortunate so I I don't think it's the case that you know we did have net neutrality before 2015 we had an agency that was trying to enforce net neutrality one way or another it you know had misstep certainly so we do have the same problems and more that we did in 2015 now we've got the same problems we had back in 2006 when Comcast got away with traveling BitTorrent I'm just saying to you know to anyone using BitTorrent then go find a different Internet service provider right so then talking about the different agencies that can contribute to governing or overseen not the idea as I understand it now is that a lot of these obligations would be handed off to the FTC if that's I think that's kind of okay so that's kind of my understanding of it so then the next question is well can't we just trust the FTC to do the same job or you know where where's the disconnect there why can't the FTC do the same job as the FCC so the the reason we can't trust I mean the reason relying on the FTC won't work is the the FTC's only authority is to regulate unfair and deceptive or at least with respect to what you know the types of things we want them to regulate with respecting that neutrality is to regulate unfair and deceptive trade practices so what that means is that your if your internet provider says in their fine print oh and by the way we're going to throttle you know all of these websites and we're going to block your access to these other websites then you can't complain to the FTC because it's not unfair or deceptive they told you they were gonna do it they went ahead and did what they said they were gonna do and the FTC will just look at you and say you know look it was in the fine print what are you gonna I mean we can't we can't enforce we can't take any action against them they were transparent and so that's why you know this this argument that somehow the FTC will be able to play the cop on the beat and make sure that internet providers are on their best behavior it just it rings hollow all the FTC can do is make sure that internet providers don't go further than what they say they're going to do and you can set the internet providers I mean Comcast already deleted its open Internet pledge and so they're they're being transparent they're being honest and the FTC can't do anything about that so if you're the FTC can make sure that the things they do are the things that you know the bad behavior we see is the bad behavior they tell us they're gonna do which is cold comfort I think yeah well yeah that's a good way of putting it I think so with if we take that same scenario of the ISPs declare in the fine print what it is they're doing and then we just go back to where we have the FCC overseeing it as opposed to the FTC what's the difference there and how those two agencies would react to what you might consider unfair trade practices so the I think the big difference is that the FCC does have authority to create regulations about how internet providers can conduct their business about in particular how they can manage traffic on their networks so the FTC doesn't have any statutory authority to do that the FTC is not allowed by law to put out the kinds of you know no blocking no throttling rules that we had up until a few days ago whereas the FCC can and so that's the you know the big reason why it makes a lot more sense for the FCC to be the one doing it because they can actually make rules that prohibit the bad behavior we don't want internet providers to take part in right okay that makes sense next question then this is another account we saw on Twitter this one's pretty common it's the idea that the free market will decide so if you don't like your ISP the free market will find a way to correct it make that better and give you the consumer better options so what would be your response to that so it's interesting so uh a little bit of backstory here so as you mentioned I'm I work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation up until probably about three years ago or so maybe it's four maybe it's two and a half something like that EF F was actually very much against having the FCC put forward any sort of regulations on internet providers and we were very much of the of the opinion no we should just let the free market take care of this you know if Kalan Cass does something terrible you can switch to a different ISP and and you know get better service the our eventual realization though was that that's not working I mean if you look at broadband companies across the USA I think the statistic is something like half of Americans have at most it's it's either at most one or two choices in broadband so basically you get cable or DSL and of course DSL is slow so nobody really wants DSL so you basically and they have one choice when it comes to broadband and there is really not any competition I mean these companies have agreed not to build over each other's service areas I mean they've got these agreements that say you know Comcast will not encroach on an area where charter already has service and so that's the reality I mean the reality is simply that there is no free market competition right now you can't choose to use a different ISP you know and and to be clear there are a few exceptions to that if you live in a major metropolitan area you might have a few more choices you know San Francisco is great we've got even some small is local ISPs that are really good on net neutrality but if you live in most of the country you know a lot of suburban areas and especially a lot of rural areas where you may not even have cable as a choice really only have DSL as a choice or maybe even satellite which is kind of scary you you don't there is no competition and so there when there's no competition the free market can't can't help you now some people could say well or at least an argument I've heard is that that may be true now but if the practices get really awful enough then there will be demand and you know new ISPs will come in I think the the issue with that argument or the issue I have is that starting a new ISP is ridiculously expensive because infrastructure is expensive you know starting a software company is easy you just find you know two people to write some software and you're set starting an ISP is a lot harder because it takes a lot more than two people to dig all of the trenches to lay all of the fiber to make the connections to people's homes to get the backhaul in that connects to the local peering point you know all of these things that are just it just costs a lot of upfront capital to do and I think that's the the real reason mean part of it is you know that these are giant you know corporations and it's tough to compete against them but part of it is even if you know that wasn't an issue just starting an isp is is ridiculously expensive and so it's hard to imagine that you're going to get a lot of people saying I've got the cash to throw into this company and we'll see if it works and it's not gonna make you know we're not talking you know an investment where I'll get you know Google sized returns you know ten years down the line or something like that it's you know so yeah well and speaking of Google - they're having enough trouble on their own starting up in ISP yeah Google Fiber hasn't necessarily had it easy so if a company the size of Google is struggling to roll out I can't imagine how difficult it would be for an upstart I think I think that's a great point I mean and and part of the reason Google is struggled is because not only do you have the you know the cost prohibitions but you have you know these companies you know Comcast and Verizon and AT&T they have like huge lobbying budget and they can lobby in state and local governments to keep a new competitor out and so that's part of it too is that these corporations have have just extensive political power particularly at the state and local level and so yeah I mean if Google can't do it it's kind of hard to believe that I mean there's lots of things that you know I'm sure people can do that Google couldn't pull off but it does indicate that there is some difficulty there it's not as easy as you might think right so what what about the topic of this is another internet comment the government created these monopolies and dwelle please in the first place so that's that's when we've seen as well so I think that's true to some extent I mean when you think of you know giving companies access to the right-of-way and that sort of thing having you know exclusive franchise agreements it's true to some extent but that doesn't mean that the right thing to do is to then abdicate responsibility for overseeing these government created monopolies and dois police it's like saying you know Frankenstein created that you know his monster uh add that he should just let it go wander in in you know in the village and attack people like that's know if if you created it then you have a little bit of responsibility to either undo the damage you did and make you know alternatives to the monster or you know rain in the monster's behavior and so I mean I agree to some extent but I think it's kind of not it's it doesn't help with arguing against why we shouldn't have some bright-line net neutrality rules I've got a couple quotes from the FCC as well so these this one was published in The Verge a couple months ago and I believe it was ajik that title two classifications quote hurt low-income rural and urban neighborhoods and said that the the effect would be accelerated Digital redlining and so that these neighborhoods would be the first areas where internet providers cut their spending ah that might be true with internet providers we're cutting their spending there were no indications that internet providers were cutting their spending as a result of the net neutrality order I mean you you know you look at quotes from from CEOs and CFOs from some of these internet providers I mean in in 2016 the CEO of AT&T said that we're investing aggressively in the network architecture that is going to give us a competitive advantage in cost and we continue to invest in spectrum you had the CEO of Time Warner Cable back in 2016 saying that you know once again we invested heavily in our network and equipment now network investments to drive better reliability and greater capacity the CFO of Verizon in 2016 said we remain committed to consistently investing in our network for the future our 2015 investments have positioned us for growth and allow us to maintain our network leadership leader position as we consistently as consistently acknowledged by third parties sorry about that so I mean I'd be worried if it were true I certainly don't want to see the practical redlining but that's not what we were seeing in reality you know a GP might be living in a different reality than the rest of us and and I feel sorry for him if that's the case but it's not what we were seeing we are seeing continued investment no decrease in investment and I actually think it's the flip I would almost say it's the opposite because as I mentioned you know low income particularly rural neighborhoods rural areas as I mentioned don't have a lot of choice when it comes to their Internet service provider and so if you end up stuck with one that is going to throttle your speeds to certain websites that you want and only provide fast lanes to the website you don't want or block access to websites that you really want to get access to you're out of luck right you I mean that's you might as well again that might that effectively the same as your internet provider cutting access when they cut back their spending because they're not giving you access to what you want to be able to access so I really don't see how reducing people's ability to control what they can access is somehow gonna help you know low-income rural and urban neighborhood right I have another quote from the FCC so this one was broadband providers will have stronger incentives to build networks especially an unserved areas and to upgrade networks to gigabit speeds and 5g this was a public statement promoting the repeal of net neutrality they further stated this means there will be more competition among broadband providers it also means more ways that startups and tech giants alike can deliver applications and content to more users and then concluding in short it's a freer and more open Internet any response to that one so that is what what I would call doublespeak it it's using words to say the opposite to say the opposite of what they actually mean I mean it's almost like straight out in 1984 as I met so I guess the first thing is again to to emphasize that broadband providers already had plenty of incentive to build networks especially in unserved areas they were not losing money because of net neutrality they were certainly and I will you know not mince words about this unable or prevented from extracting every last penny and really squeezing money out of both their customers and third parties you know the edge providers the web sites the startups where they you know prevented from squeezing as much money as they could from those from those two sides yes that's true but there a fundamental business model of I am going to take your data and send it to where you want me to send it to and vice versa they were not struggling with that and and so I think it's a little disingenuous to say that suddenly that somehow you know there is no evidence that that they're going to you know build networks and unserved areas you know we can now if the if these if this repeal stands you know we can wait and see and we can test that theory you know it will see in terms of more competition among god broadband providers again uh that's just not true certainly among wired providers as as we as I explained before it costs a lot of money to build out a wired network and so there's no reason to think that you will be you'll see more competition from new entrants and in terms of a freer and more open Internet uh again you know I I fail to see how an internet where if I want to if I've got some cool new app and I want to you know I want to distribute it to the world I'm now gonna have to go and potentially pay you know a dozen different internet providers or more and that's only you know that's only if we're about the big ones but if I have to go pay a dozen different internet providers to make sure that I don't get throttled down to some you know minimal speed that doesn't sound like a freer and more open Internet for me if I have to pay to be able to because good you know the googles and Netflix is the the the Microsoft's the you know Facebook's they are all going to be able to pay the internet providers for fast lanes now that fast lanes are blessed by the FCC the the companies that won't be able to pay our small businesses and startups and so if you want to compete if you've got something that you think is you know the next the next Facebook killer you're gonna have to pay and you're gonna have to figure out you're gonna have to work into your budget not only do I have to pay a bunch of smart engineers to build this app I also have to pay all of these big internet providers just so I can reach people at the same speed as Facebook or Google but I joined back to what you were just saying about Facebook and potential competition if there's a lot of discussion of startups and new companies might have to pay to get fair access or distribution so in your eyes or on the e FF size how likely a scenario is that to actually happen you know that what it is is this getting blown out of proportion online or is this like a an actual real immediate concern so from my perspective actually think this is the most likely outcome I think that's the first thing that you're gonna see once the rules actually I mean so and I'm going to be clear the rules haven't gone into effect yet because they have to get published in the Federal Register to become official regulations and that could take months but once that happens I think it's the first thing I mean I think you're much more likely to see internet providers start offering fastlane services and then of course you'll see the big companies jump right in and pay because they know that you know if I want someone to use my product you know an extra second or two of load time will just kill the proportion of people that use my prod I think it's more you know it's the first thing you'll see you'll see that before you start seeing you know Comcast or Verizon blocking specific websites before you see them like offering separate packages for social media or for streaming video although to be honest we're already seeing that to some degree you know I think every single one of the major mobile carriers now just by default throttles streaming video and just says that's that's what we do and if you want HD video you have to pay us more which is you know directly against net neutrality right they also throttle uploads too which we know from uploading YouTube videos oh yeah exactly um you know if it looks like video streaming it gets throttled and so all right so I think you'll see the order in which you'll see things is you know fast lanes immediately being offered immediately being snapped up and immediately causing trouble for small businesses and startups that want to compete with more entrenched players the second thing you'll see is a lot more differentiation of traffic on mobile networks you know it even more so than we already do in terms of streaming video and I think you'll see both of those things first and then the rest of it is gonna be more subtle I think it will take a little time before we see you know you have to pay X and more dollars a month to if you want to get Facebook or Twitter or that sort of thing I think that will take a little longer because the ISPs are wary of the backlash that would cause whereas the other things either people aren't you know can't be consciously aware of it's not sort of in your face or you know like with zero rating and throttling video it's harder for people to notice it right with the idea of fast lanes do you see that being more of something that is offered to the consumer or is this more of like a business-to-business fast lane this what I'm talking about is more of a business-to-business fast lane something where an ISP says to some edge provider some website or some app hey if you want to access our customer pay us this much per month and we will give you a faster connection or will prioritize your traffic and then by doing that people will use your system your service more and you'll make more revenue above and beyond what you have to pay us which is probably true but it stifles competition right yeah that's a huge competitive advantage for anyone who already is an incumbent in their space so two more main ones here one is about VPNs so for people who are considering the option are already using VPNs to protect themselves do you foresee these net neutrality changes impacting those users I mean if I say well I have a VPN so they they can't see what I'm doing anyway yeah how does that come back to me if net neutrality is repealed ah they could start straddling VPN traffic like if a particularly pernicious internet provider has decided you know I want to you know squeeze as much money out of my customers as possible so if they want to be able to stream video at more than at HD quality HD speeds they're going to have to pay you know an extra five dollars a month or ten dollars a month and then I really want to enforce that I can also start throttling VPNs and say same thing if you want to use a VPN you have to pay me ten dollars a month otherwise it's it's and they won't say it's throttled they'll say you know it's here is your normal speed and if you want the higher speed you have to pay more which is the same thing as saying this is you know the higher speed is the normal speed and you know what's rattling you otherwise so it's I mean fast lanes slow lanes and it's the fact that there's a difference there that really matters and so I think that might take a little bit longer you know again this is not something we're gonna see overnight they're gonna you know do trial balloons they'll they'll try things in certain areas they'll start trying practices maybe not announcing it in some big splashy announcement but only you know having it in their fine print at first until people catch on you know the the ISPs aren't dumb they're going to be subtle about this so as to avoid a backlash because a public backlash they know is disaster for them so they're gonna be smart about how they do it there they're clever right last major question for you here is we have about 55 percent international viewers for our YouTube channel so only maybe 45 percent or so folks are in the u.s. eight percent in Canada then you have all over the world does any of this impact those people who don't live in the US so I think there is there's uh two ways I would say that it potentially impacts people not in the u.s. um one I would say and and this is a positive impact uh uh for people who don't live in the US because it's kind of a negative people impact for people who do is that I can definitely see this affecting where innovation online in terms of you know what are the physical hubs of activity in areas where this sort of thing happens you know if I'm a new startup and I want to be able to try out you know my new app and I want to you know get feedback maybe I won't target the u.s. first as a market maybe I'll target some other market that has net neutrality first so I can work out all the kinks and you know really in you know establish myself as an awesome app first before I have to go pay Comcast and Verizon huge fees to access the American market certainly you know my goal will eventually be to get into the American market but for testing and really you know trying things out I might not decide to start there and that's unfortunate for Americans and certainly a benefit for the rest of the world uh so that gets a little bit of unintended good news for for international folks the the other thing though that I would watch out for is that a lot of times policy ideas get exported from the US other countries see that oh the US did this so why don't we try it too I mean we've seen that with copyright policy it's to disastrous effect we've seen that with other intellectual property you know patent reform that sort or lack thereof that sort of thing and so you know I would worry that you know if a internet provider in another country got enough political power and and managed to convince local politicians that hey the the u.s. did this and we don't want to fall behind so let's you know get rid of our net neutrality rules too and so I would keep I'd keep an eye out for that I think it's entirely possible again it'll take time this isn't gonna happen overnight but it's something to keep an eye out for you good answer there finally uh so for anyone who wants to get involved or maybe feel like you're a little helpless or your voice doesn't matter or anything like that obviously the e FF the Electronic Frontier Foundation is a great place to that we've used for resources so how can folks leverage the e FF or what else can they do to get involved so if you're in the u.s. the first and foremost thing you can do is because these regulations haven't taken effect yet so so some of your viewers may remember back at the beginning of 2017 Congress ended up repealing a bunch of privacy rules that the FCC had put out about internet providers and what they could do with your personal information it turns out that Congress could use the same procedural setup to undo this repeal of net neutrality rules so if you go to act F F dot org acte F s org and you scroll down the very first thing you'll see is protect the open Internet order and you can basically it's a set up where you punch on your phone number your address we'll figure out who your Congress people are and then you can contact them both your your representative and your Senators and say tell them how important net neutrality is to you and that you expect them to use what's called the congressional review act the CRA to overturn this repeal of net neutrality and so if we if we have success with that then thankfully this discussion will have been moot because the Senate will have and and and Congress will have acted and said nope sorry FCC you can't do that you have to keep the net neutrality rules and so that's where we're focusing our efforts at the moment okay so that was axed EF F dot org yep just scroll down to protect the open Internet order and and you it'll walk you through all the steps that'll give you talking points to to talk to legislative staff etc okay well if you want to get involved we'll leave a link in the description below for xef F dot org if you have any further questions about this topic or if you agree or disagree with anything also leave a comment and maybe we can loop back again later and talk about that but just depending on how things go with the rest of net neutrality we'll see where this discussion goes so Jeremy thank you for joining me I appreciate it my pleasure thanks for having me yeah and we will see you all next time