Nothing brings home the peculiar nature of “the D.C. Beltway Bubble” than listening to the local news station WTOP. Lets start with the fact that our local 24-hour news station is actually the most popular radio station in the D.C. market. It’s also fun when some incident around the White House or the Capital ends up sequentially on the national news, the local news, and the traffic report.
But what really sets D.C. apart is our advertisements. The political ads never stop. Particularly when a major vote is about to happen — such as the upcoming vote in the Senate on S. J. Res. 52, aka the “net neutrality CRA,” aka the repeal of the FCC’s net neutrality repeal. Today (May 9), Senator Markey will file the resolution to force the vote — which is expected to actually happen next week. So, naturally, we are getting all kinds of ads from broadband companies and their various associations (e.g., Broadband for America) trying to push the public to get their Senators to vote against the resolution.
The problem for the anti-net neutrality folks, however, is that network neutrality remains enormously popular with the general public. Which leaves these groups trying to rally the public with a problem. Die-hard anti-net neutrality folks like Rep. Marsha Blackburn may think “let ISPs discriminate so that your online experience can be more like going through a TSA security line before flying” is a selling point, people who actually sell stuff for a living recognize that “make your browsing experience like your airline experience with long waits and hidden fees” is kind of a loser. So if you just advertise “The Senate is considering a resolution to restore the network neutrality rules the FCC repealed last December, call your Senator today and tell them to stand up for ISP freedom to throttle competitors charge new fees ‘innovate’!” — odds are good you will actually drive lots of people to call their Senator and tell them to vote for the resolution and restore net neutrality. (Which, btw, you can do here.) So how do you campaign against network neutrality without actually telling the public you are voting against restoring the net neutrality rules?
UPDATE: Jay Cassono has this piece in Medium providing details on a similar scam opposing net neutrality while pretending to be in favor.