WEBVTT 00:00:04.645 --> 00:00:10.969 Our top story tonight concerns the Internet, aka the electronic cat database. 00:00:10.969 --> 00:00:16.689 But first, let's take just a moment together and appreciate how amazing the Internet is. 00:00:16.689 --> 00:00:23.518 You can use to file your taxes, apply for jobs ... you can go online right now, and buy a case of coyote urine. 00:00:23.518 --> 00:00:28.430 Do you know how difficult it used to be to obtain coyote urine? 00:00:28.430 --> 00:00:36.373 You literally have to give a coyote Gatorade and then wait. It was a mess. The system was a mess. 00:00:36.373 --> 00:00:43.259 But, if you have tuned on the news recently, you may have heard some worrying references to the Internet changing. 00:00:43.259 --> 00:00:49.750 The Federal Communications Commission has agreed to move forward on a proposal that could change the way we use the Internet. 00:00:49.750 --> 00:00:55.082 At risk, the basic principle of net neutrality. Net neutrality. Net neutrality. 00:00:55.082 --> 00:01:03.350 Yes, "net neutrality". The only two words that promise more boredom in the English language are "featuring Sting." 00:01:06.430 --> 00:01:11.622 Hearing people talk about it is somehow even worse. 00:01:11.622 --> 00:01:19.448 As anticipated, the notice proposes to ground the net neutrality rules in section 706 of the telecommunications act of 1996. 00:01:19.448 --> 00:01:26.854 Oh my god! That is the most boring thing I've ever seen. That is even boring by C-SPAN standards. 00:01:26.854 --> 00:01:31.144 I would rather read a book by Thomas Friedman than sit through that hearing. 00:01:31.144 --> 00:01:36.351 I would rather listen to a pair of dockers tell me about the weird dream it had. 00:01:36.351 --> 00:01:46.951 I would rather sit down with my niece and watch Caillou, a children's show about a bald Canadian child who lives a live devoid of any incident. 00:01:46.951 --> 00:01:55.626 Fuck you, Caillou! Grow some hair and leave the house. Find out what the world is about, come on. 00:01:55.626 --> 00:02:05.488 But here is the thing. Net neutrality is actually hugely important. Essentially it means that all data has to be treated equally, no matter who created it. 00:02:05.488 --> 00:02:11.475 It is why the Internet is a weirdly leveled playfield, and start-ups can supplant established brands. 00:02:11.475 --> 00:02:18.490 That was how Facebook supplanted MySpace, which supplanted Friendster, which supplanted actually having any friends. 00:02:18.490 --> 00:02:25.261 Do you remember physically having friends? It was awful. You couldn't tap people's faces to make them go away. 00:02:25.261 --> 00:02:35.022 The point is, the Internet in its current form is not broken. And the FCC is currently taking steps to fix that. 00:02:35.022 --> 00:02:39.661 The FCC is endorsing new rules that could clear the way for a two-tier system. 00:02:39.661 --> 00:02:45.960 The rules will open the door for the first time for Internet providers like Comcast and Verizon to charge 00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:52.670 tech companies to send content to consumers more quickly. Netflix, for example, may pay a premium to ensure 00:02:52.670 --> 00:02:59.887 that its customers can stream movies more reliably, at a cost a start-up competitor may not be able to afford. 00:02:59.887 --> 00:03:08.351 No. This cannot happen. How else is my start-up streaming video service Nutflix going to compete? 00:03:08.351 --> 00:03:13.731 It's going to be America's one-stop-resource for videos of men getting hit in the nuts. 00:03:13.731 --> 00:03:18.420 You don't even know you want it yet, that's why it is brilliant. 00:03:18.420 --> 00:03:25.390 Ending net neutrality will allow companies to buy their way into the fast lane, leaving everyone else in the slow lane. 00:03:25.390 --> 00:03:30.597 Although, telecom companies will prefer that you put it in a slightly different way. 00:03:30.597 --> 00:03:35.629 When you say fast lane and slow lane, it's a good illustration. 00:03:35.629 --> 00:03:41.721 But what you really should be taking about is a fast lane for everybody, and a hyper-speed lane for others. 00:03:41.721 --> 00:03:51.372 Bullshit! If we let cable companies offer two speeds of service, there won't be Usain Bolt and Usain Bolt on a motorbike, 00:03:51.372 --> 00:03:55.917 there'll be Usain Bolt and Usain bolt-ed to an anchor. 00:03:55.917 --> 00:04:02.721 And telecom companies will say they will never slow down a website speed in order to get more money out of them, 00:04:02.721 --> 00:04:12.138 but let me tell you story. Recently Comcast was negotiating with Netflix. This graph shows Netflix download speed on various providers. 00:04:12.138 --> 00:04:17.568 That black line plummeting downwards was their speed on Comcast during the negotiation. 00:04:17.568 --> 00:04:25.583 See if you can guess when Netflix agreed to Comcast demands. I'll give you a hint: it is right there. 00:04:25.583 --> 00:04:32.754 That has all the ingredients of a mob shakedown: "Netflix, that show about life in a ladies' prison, 00:04:32.754 --> 00:04:41.191 such a shame if there was going to be something happening to your connection there. So frustrating that would be." 00:04:41.191 --> 00:04:47.805 And it's not just anti-corporate hippies who think abandoning net neutrality is a bad idea. 00:04:47.805 --> 00:04:54.394 The net neutrality movement is leery of big corporate players, but in this debate is on the same side as some of them. 00:04:54.394 --> 00:05:01.063 Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, all signed on to this letter supporting net neutrality. 00:05:01.063 --> 00:05:08.440 What's being proposed is so egregious activists and corporations have been forced onto the same side. 00:05:08.440 --> 00:05:15.040 That's basically Lex Lutor knocking on Superman's apartment door: I know we had our differences, 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:25.229 but we have to get rid of that asshole in apartment 3-B. He is too loud, Sup, he is just too loud! 00:05:25.229 --> 00:05:30.962 And you may wonder: look, if everyone is against it, how is it even possibly happening. 00:05:30.962 --> 00:05:38.020 Well, consider who will benefit from this change: cable companies. Verizon wants a two-tier system so badly, 00:05:38.020 --> 00:05:42.458 they sued the government to force the rule change that is currently being discussed. 00:05:42.458 --> 00:05:48.278 These companies have Washington in their pocket, to a conveniently, almost unbelievable degree. 00:05:48.278 --> 00:05:58.674 Comcast has spent 18,810,000 dollars in lobbying last year. That is more than any other company, except for defence contractor Northrop Grumman. 00:05:58.674 --> 00:06:11.930 So just to be clear. The ranking of who buys government influence is: #1, military-industrial complex, and #2, the provider of Lizard Lick Towing. 00:06:11.930 --> 00:06:20.079 Look: I can show you the troublingly cozy relationship between cable companies and Washington in any number of ways. 00:06:20.079 --> 00:06:25.927 I can show you the president golfing with the CEO of Comcast. Or saying at a fundraiser at a cable executive house that 00:06:25.927 --> 00:06:31.524 he's been there so many times that "The only think I haven't done in this house is have Seder dinner." 00:06:31.524 --> 00:06:34.954 But perhaps the most succint way is this: 00:06:34.954 --> 00:06:41.945 The president has picked Tom Wheeler, a former top-lobbiest for cable and wireless companies, to be the next chair of the Federal Communications Commission. 00:06:41.945 --> 00:06:51.378 Yes, the guy who used to run the cable industry's lobbying arm, is now running the agency tasked with regulating it. 00:06:51.378 --> 00:06:57.649 That is the equivalent of needing a babysitter and hiring a dingo. 00:06:57.649 --> 00:07:11.133 "Thanks for stopping over. Make sure they're in bed by eight. There are 20 bucks on the table for kibble. Please don't eat my baby." 00:07:11.133 --> 00:07:22.181 With the fact that they are practically overseeing their own oversight, it is hardly a surprise that the cable companies are basically monopolies now. 00:07:22.181 --> 00:07:29.247 A federal study found that 96% of the population has access to two or fewer cable broadband providers. 00:07:29.247 --> 00:07:36.937 It is almost as if they would agree to stay out of each other's way like drug cartels. But hold on, that's not fair. 00:07:36.937 --> 00:07:45.600 If hypothetically, a cable company like Comcast was planning to merge with a company like, let's say Time Warner, 00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:50.115 it's not like their CEO is going to sit down and mark who out who has which turf, right? 00:07:50.115 --> 00:07:55.731 Both in video and in broadband, we don't compete with Time Warner. You have to start with that very fundamental point. 00:07:55.731 --> 00:07:59.705 They are in New York, we are in Philadelphia. They are in Los Angeles, we are in San Francisco. 00:07:59.705 --> 00:08:06.150 You can't buy a Comcast in New York, you can't buy a Time Warner in Philadelphia, so there is no reduction in competition. 00:08:06.150 --> 00:08:15.833 Exactly. You can't reduce competition when nobody is competing. You could not be describing a monopoly more clearly, 00:08:15.833 --> 00:08:25.811 if you were using a metal top hat while driving a metal car of the "winning second prize in a beauty contest." 00:08:25.811 --> 00:08:35.905 Maybe it's because of their lack of competition that they get away with providing such shitty service. 00:08:35.905 --> 00:08:42.772 We pay more for our Internet service that almost everybody else on earth, and yet, the download speeds we get, 00:08:42.772 --> 00:08:52.532 lack behind Estonia, a country were from the look of it, they still worry about Shrek attacks. 00:08:52.532 --> 00:09:02.254 Is it any wonder that in a massive recent customer satisfaction survey, Comcast and Time Warner cable came in dead last. 00:09:02.254 --> 00:09:06.635 And when you look at the companies that were scored better than them, people were basically saying: 00:09:06.635 --> 00:09:14.578 Yes, Bank of America took my home. Yes, Taco Bell gave me diarrhea. And sure, GM tried to kill me. 00:09:14.578 --> 00:09:25.017 But Time Warner and Comcast are the worse. They are the worse. 00:09:25.017 --> 00:09:31.874 I know that Cable companies will say, they support net neutrality protections. 00:09:31.874 --> 00:09:36.961 Or they remain committed to the open Internet, or "just the tip." 00:09:36.961 --> 00:09:44.629 But, let me remind you they also said they'll be at your house between 2 and 6 tomorrow afternoon, 00:09:44.629 --> 00:09:49.085 and does any part of you who really expect them to fucking turn up. 00:09:49.085 --> 00:09:55.937 And yet, our government look set to end net neutrality and letting these companies run hog wild. 00:09:55.937 --> 00:10:04.328 And we are just gonna let me, and you know why, it all comes back to this. 00:10:04.328 --> 00:10:11.159 It seeks comment on ways to construe additional language on section 706 and even suggests using section 230-B to broaden the scope of the commission you serve's authority. 00:10:11.159 --> 00:10:15.138 Oh my god, how are you still so dull. 00:10:15.138 --> 00:10:19.729 And that's the problem: the cable companies have figured out the great truth of America. 00:10:19.729 --> 00:10:24.379 If you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring. 00:10:24.379 --> 00:10:34.453 Apple could put the entire text of Mein Kampf inside iTunes' user agreement. And you would just go: agree, agree. 00:10:34.453 --> 00:10:42.596 And that's why advocates should not be talking about protecting net neutrality. 00:10:42.596 --> 00:10:47.563 They shouldn't even use that phrase. They should call it: preventing cable company fuckery. 00:10:47.563 --> 00:10:53.164 Because that is what it is, and it might actually compel people to want to do something. 00:10:53.164 --> 00:10:59.180 And the interesting thing here is, there may actually be something you can still do. 00:10:59.180 --> 00:11:04.329 The FCC will be taking public comment for 120 days. 00:11:04.329 --> 00:11:14.208 That's right, the FCC are actually inviting Internet comment at this address. And at this point, and I can't believe I'm about to do this, 00:11:14.208 --> 00:11:20.009 I would like to address Internet commenters out there directly. 00:11:21.619 --> 00:11:29.618 Good evening, monsters. This may be the moment you spent your whole life training for. 00:11:29.618 --> 00:11:36.052 You've been out there ferociously commenting on dance videos of adorable 3-years old, saying things like: 00:11:36.052 --> 00:11:40.721 "every child could dance like this little loser after 1 week of practice." 00:11:40.721 --> 00:11:48.681 Or you've been poluting Frozen's "Let it go", with comments like "ice castle would give her hypothermia and she dead in an hour" 00:11:48.681 --> 00:11:54.967 Or, and I know you've been in this one, commenting on videos of this show, saying: 00:11:54.967 --> 00:12:00.530 "Fuck this asshole anchor, go such ur presidents dick ur just friends with the terrorists." 00:12:00.530 --> 00:12:10.154 Now, I don't know what any of this means. But I don't think it is compliment. 00:12:10.154 --> 00:12:17.204 But this is the moment you were made for, commenters. Like Ralph Macchio, you've been honing your skills, 00:12:17.204 --> 00:12:25.878 waxing cars, and painting fences. Well guess what, now it is time to do some fucking karate. 00:12:25.878 --> 00:12:32.022 For once in your life, we need you to channel that anger, that badly spelled bio, 00:12:32.022 --> 00:12:37.601 that you normally reserve for unforgivable attacks on actresses you seem to think have putted on weight, 00:12:37.601 --> 00:12:48.458 or politicians you disagree with it, or photos of your ex-girlfriend getting on with her life, or non-white actors casted as fictional characters. 00:12:48.458 --> 00:12:58.895 And I'm talking to you RonPaulFan2016, and you, OneDirectionForever, and I'm talking to you OneDirectionSucksBalls, 00:12:58.895 --> 00:13:07.205 we need you to get out there, and for once in your life, focus your indiscriminate rage in a useful direction. 00:13:07.205 --> 00:13:11.582 Seize your moment, my lovely childs, turn on CAPS LOCK, 00:13:11.582 --> 00:13:17.849 AND FLY MY PRETTIES. FLY, FLY, FLY!