A Harris-Decima poll just recently reminded everyone why direct democracy is a profoundly dangerous concept to tinker with.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jrhYITWLPHiAVsXij2ybrXzou6mw
The poll had to do with Net Neutrality, particularly internet traffic control. 20 % of those surveyed had actually heard of it. The remaining 4 out of 5 got all their information from what I’m sure was a nuanced and comprehensive run-down by the pollster before making their decision in the minute or two alloted for the phone-call.
Somewhere between 19 – 25% of those polled said they did not support traffic management of any sort.
A question I have, that is not answered, is how many who had heard about traffic-shaping BEFORE the poll said they agreed with it? I would bet good money that those informed about the issue are disproportionately opposed to traffic shaping.
I would wager that the people polled didn’t even have an operable understanding of the concepts of bandwidth or routing or even a primitive understanding of the architecture of the internet in Canada – these are required for any sort of reasonable stance.
In the same poll I would’ve asked people the following questions:
- On a scale from 1 to 7 what do you think the state of competition is in telecommunications in Canada?
- How many telecommunications companies do you think exist in Canada?
- Have you been a customer of more than one telecommunications company in the last 5 years?
- Globally speaking, do you think Canadian’s pay average, below average or above average for our telecommunications services?
Unlike the survey published, questions like this can actually be spoken to by more than 1/5th the population.
What this really underscores is the colossal failure of net-neutrality activists to raise awareness of the issue and its importance to average Canadians. I think it is time for net-neutrality to split into two groups an education/public outreach group and a political-activist group, the competencies of one do not translate to the other and people will be inclined to be part of one group and not the other.