“So your argument seems to be that regardless of the number of people at any given event who stand on one side or another of a given topic, each specific stance should be given equal airtime. In other words, if there are eleven people in a room and each of them are given equal airtime to speak their minds on a given subject matter, you feel that if ten are of one opinion and one of them another, then the overall debate was unfair because one stance got ten times more airtime than did the other.”

No, it wasn’t just a numerical advantage; it was a time given to individuals advantage. Not only were there mostly people who knew nothing about networking invited to speak, they got more time to speak. Lessig who hardly contributed anything substantive took 26 minutes to give a presentation while I had about 7 minutes with a minute of that interrupted. Lessig spent 8 minutes just answering 2 questions back-to-back from the Chairman while I was prevented from giving even a quick reply.

The fact is that much of the key testimony from Jon Peha and Robb Topolski was just wrong.
http://www.formortals.com/Home/tabid/36/EntryID/11/Default.aspx

And to Feryurself,
I dodged nothing and I satisfied the question from the Commissioner. I have never to this date taken a dime from any cable or telecom company for any political activity. Here is my full disclosure from my last employer CNET Networks http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?page_id=557 as of last month. As Technical Director and Editor at Large at ZDNet, full disclosure was mandatory for employment and I’ve been talking about Net Neutrality since middle of 2006 with no pay from anyone. On the other hand, all the folks from Free Press do get corporate money and they should have been the ones getting the questioning.

>> @ m. peterson:

>> Very constructive comments.

Thanks! 😀

>> I heard you. He heard you. That’s obviously not sufficient to change anything in terms of “is” versus “ought”. Now what?

We agree to disagree?

The moderator refers to “someone shouted out a question about this”, talks about compensation “Is anyone receiving any compensation, has your travel here been paid for …” [talks about consulting … something hard to hear about someone (George?) not having to travel far].

Then: “So everyone is here on their own dime? … George, you’re here own your own dime?”

[Note he’s addressing George Ou in specific because of the accusation.]

George Ou: “I drove here. With Richard Bennett.”
(someone else jokes – “We’re taking collections later.”)

Moderator: “OK, I just wanted to get that out of the way.”

It’s clear in context that George Ou is not evading anything, and the moderator is satisfied with the response.

http://www.vontv.net/default.cfm?id=9667&clip=2&type=wmhigh

George identifies his position on the topic before the “heckler” calls out., “Who sent you, Comcast?” Later, someone on the FCC side says, “as someone in the audience asked” and questions panel members on whether they are representing someone other than themselves. He asks George specifically and he only says, “I drove myself here,” not addressing the question about who he might be representing. Probably an oversight butthat probably did not play well with this audience.

Looked carefully and it does NOT look at all like “nearly half the people” in the audience are from Poor News as George states above.

I will say for George he had a tough act to follow, the lady from Christian Coalition was a surprise panelist who got a big cheer from the left-wing crowd. Abandoned by the ISP’s who wouldn’t show put a lot of onus on him as well.

http://www.vontv.net/default.cfm?id=9667&clip=2&type=wmhigh

George identifies his position on the topic before the “heckler” calls out., “Who sent you, Comcast?” Later, someone on the FCC side says, “as someone in the audience asked” and questions panel members on whether they are representing someone other than themselves. He asks George specifically and he only says, “I drove myself here,” not addressing the question about who he might be representing. Probably an oversight butthat probably did not play well with this audience.

Looked carefully and it does NOT look at all like “nearly half the people” in the audience are from Poor News as George states above.

I will say for George he had a tough act to follow, the lady from Christian Coalition was a surprise panelist who got a big cheer from the left-wing crowd. Abandoned by the ISP’s who wouldn’t show put a lot of onus on him as well.

Very constructive comments.

@ george ou

I was personally at the hearing, and you didn’t get it half as bad as George Ford did. The problem is that you were at a public hearing. And we public can be unruly.

I heard many comments about the fact that industry representatives chose not to attend. Your side deserted you to the public by failing to stand up for themselves at this hearing. That is why it was so one-sided. I do not think you should have gotten extra time to speak simply because your fellows were so ashamed of themselves they couldn’t bring themselves to show up. I showed up and I only got 90 seconds to speak because you guys ran over.

Personally, I’m trying to read all the coverage I can find to find out more about concrete solutions that have been proposed. And personally, I thought it was very telling to hear about how the networks have been allocated to favor television over internet. The ratio I heard was 98% to 2%. If this is correct, then I have to confess, this is not really the scarce resource it’s made out to be. It’s all bandwidth, right? Is there no way to address that in your view?

I mean, it seems like that’s the tiering we’re all describing already. The cable channels get a ton, and I get a pittance. Now the ISPs want to shave my pittance. That may be a rather simplistic view, but I don’t yet understand that it’s wrong from anyone. And unfortunately, this was not adequately addressed at the hearing.

@ lessig
I really appreciate the additional content you’re making available here for us. It’s really wonderful to see professionals who are not only willing to argue on behalf of the public good, but also to then extend a hand to the public to help us understand these issues. Thanks for your efforts and patience.

At the core, the P2P-throttling is not an especially difficult issue to lay out – there is X capacity, Y users, some uses crowd out others, what to do, what’s fair. There is an enormous amount of noise-making around that basic question, some of which is in very bad-faith (let’s not have an Attack Of The Strawmen here, of “You think EVERY …”, when in fact “I think THIS …”).

Look, this exchange is repeating itself. George Ou is upset, and I’d say for a very understandable reason. You can keep saying that interferes with purely rational argument. I heard you. He heard you. That’s obviously not sufficient to change anything in terms of “is” versus “ought”. Now what?

>> (again, saying someone should be saintly in this situation is not really achievable by average people).

I’m not suggesting “saintly” as a requirement for anything. But I’ve read thousands of arguments in my lifetime that didn’t including patronizing those in whom disagreed with their position. Professor Lessig, for example, provides a perfect example of how you can present your argument while at the same time being respectful to those in whom disagree with his opinion. What I am suggesting is that it’s a lot easier to pay attention to someone’s primary argument when it’s not filled with patronizing acts of “self defense.”