5 Bullshit Lies Cable Companies Are Feeding You Right Now

This argument about protecting the rights of the disabled surprised a lot of people ... including the disabled. Mark Perriello, the president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities (and someone who is partially blind), told Mother Jones that he'd never heard about the idea that he was somehow getting fucked over by the free Internet. He also said it was rather "convenient" that the best way to help disabled people is to let cable companies earn enough money to become Game of Thrones-powered supervillains.

HBO
"If it wasn't for net neutrality, he'd have robot legs by now."

So let this be a lesson to overpaid lobbyists everywhere: The next time you want to pretend you're looking out for the interests of some minority group, at least have the decency to try to bribe their spokespeople first.

According to Verizon, which apparently sees itself as the brave, idealistic lawyer fighting the oppressive system in a Matthew McConaughey movie, if the government forces them to treat all traffic equally, it's somehow equivalent to a seizure of private assets for public use, which would violate their Fifth Amendment rights. But that's not all: They also claim that net neutrality is trampling their freedom of speech. This may sound like stupid bullshit to you at first, but what they're saying is that they have the "freedom" to decide how the "speech," or Web traffic, going through their systems should be transmitted. Wait, no, that still sounds like stupid bullshit.

You might be wondering now: If companies can decide that your shitty blog should load at 1/100 the speed of Perez Hilton's, or whoever's paying them for "fast lane" access, what does that mean for your freedom of speech? Well, that's totally different, you see, because ... whoops, the signal is fading ... hello? Hello?

Verizon
"Nope, still nothing."

Translated, this means, "We promise to be terrible, but not as terrible as Verizon." Specifically, Comcast means to agree to abide by the now-dead FCC rules that were struck down in court (challenged by, who else, Verizon). This would be good, except that the cable companies had a hand in crafting those rules, too, loopholes and all, which makes this promise mean pretty much fuck all.

Even leaving all of that aside, something tells us their net neutrality love isn't entirely genuine. This February, Comcast basically forced Netflix to pay more money in order to make their website work properly, which some of you may recognize as exactly the thing net neutrality is supposed to prevent. And just in case this wasn't blatantly obvious enough, here's a chart showing all the people trying to spend money to make net neutrality go away. Guess who's #3?

dailydot.com
In our hearts, they're all #2.

And just to add insult to injury, Comcast showed just how in touch they are with their customer base by taking out this full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, of all places. Seriously, guys? You couldn't manage a fucking tweet or something?

Wow, those sure are big numbers! And they're getting bigger! Pack it in, Congress; clearly these guys know what they're doing. More than you'd think, actually: The graph is measuring cumulative investment, as in "all the money we've ever spent since 1996." So yes, the total amount cable companies have ever spent is probably going to keep going up forever, until some mad economist discovers a way to unspend money and turn cable lines back into dollars, like in our Richie Rich/X-Men crossover fan fiction.

Meanwhile, the actual amount they're investing per year is actually going down:

vox.com

Huh, when you look at it that way, it almost seems like the recession fucked over cable companies just like everyone else, and their letter is actually full of shit. But who really needs to include all those ugly details, when skirting the legal definition of lying benefits you so much more?

So who's in this group? Well, let's see: the CEO of AT&T, the CEO of Comcast, the president of Cox Communications, the president of the NTCA, and, last but not least, the CEO of Verizon, among others.

Gary Gershoff/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
"We're basically Voltron using giant dicks, with moneybag scrotums instead of lions."

Some of you may have noticed that this group appears to be made up almost exclusively of cable company presidents, and also that it can suck a hundred Cox. Less obvious is the fact that on its tax filings, Broadband for America retains the DCI Group, a lobbying firm that, as Vice puts it, "specializes in creating fake citizen groups on behalf of corporate campaigns."

Digital Vision/Digital Vision/Getty Images
"Are we supposed to draw something on the signs? I'm new to this."

While this may be the most blatant attempt as astroturfing, it's far from the only one. The American Consumer Institute (if you want no one to question your motives, just put "America" in the title) wants the FCC to leave ISPs alone to do as they please, while also being funded by cable company lobbyists. Similarly, the Heartland Institute, which claims that cable companies should have a right to charge Internet businesses out the wazoo, is heavily funded by Comcast, Time Warner, and AT&T. When you have to shell out millions of dollars to pretend that you have friends, that should be your sign that you're the most desperate, miserable person in existence.

In fact, we feel so bad for them that we're leaving you with this link, where you can tell the FCC how much you like cable companies and what they're doing. Have fun!