Net Neutrality is kind of a big deal. I don’t care if you’re a republican, democrat, communist, libertarian, or some sort of weird political party based entirely around getting Marvel to release the next Avengers movie early. This is important. Important enough that I’m posting political shit instead of talking about weird space parasites. Net neutrality helps protect small startups from being quashed by bigger peers, and helps protect weird niche sites (like this one) from getting filtered or slowed by ISPs who’d rather maintain a “family friendly” image than allow their customers to access the content they want.
If you’re an american, please consider supporting net neutrality. Here’s one place with some things about it. Battleforthenet.com has a nice little form set up to send a message to the FCC and congress if you want to be lazy about it.
I’d ask you to strongly consider future candidates’ positions on net neutrality before voting for them, but I think internet regulation is pretty low on every one else’s priority lists. Oh, and also… vote. There’s a reason politicians care a lot about catering to grandma and grandpa’s whims – it’s because they vote.
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Good to see this out on the front page. When I posted it in General BS, I was pretty sure it would just get lost and no one would see it.
WE CAN’T LET MARVEL GET AWAY WITH THESE RELEASE PRACTICES, MOVIE-GOERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!
“There’s a reason politicians care a lot about catering to grandma and grandpa’s whims – it’s because they vote.” <– This, seriously. By not voting you're saying all choices are fine and you do not get to whine over "the wrong person won" because you didn't do shit to do anything against it.
Eh, well, the thing is, the act that’s going “against” net neutrality, is termed Internet Freedom (or something akin to that). I will freely say I’m on the fence between the two, IF ONLY because of an extremist’s act on the side of net neutrailty, who (from a reputable news source) hung placards on the FCC guy’s (the one who proposed Internet Freedom) neighborhood’s door knobs a la sexual predator style. Name, physical details in large print, “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?”, and in very small print at the bottom, “He’s against Net Neutrality”, instead of sexual predations.
…Which got me to thinking, net neutrality SOUNDS good, but..yeah. Going to sit on the fence between neutrality and freedom.
The news source also said the original net neutrality was aimed at giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, but that other giants have sprung up who aren’t covered by net neutrality, and the revised internet freedom (not neutrality being entirely revoked, just revised) would be to cover the new giants & any others as well.
Bleh, can’t edit my post.
Again, just wanted to note out, that Internet Freedom is aimed at REVISING/REPLACING Net Neutrality, NOT REVOKING/CANCELING it. Yes, Net Neutrality is okay. Will Internet Freedom be better? Don’t know (which is why I’m on the fence). …for most of the pro-Net Neutrality news tidbits, I see precious few elaborating on what Internet Freedom will do vs it, rather on just how good Net Neutrality is.
And because I and my stupidity can’t leave well enough alone, might as well provide the Bill’s complete details, as shown on https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/993/text.
A BILL
To prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from reclassifying broadband Internet access service as a telecommunications service and from imposing certain regulations on providers of such service.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. Short title.
This Act may be cited as the “Restoring Internet Freedom Act”.
SEC. 2. Limitation on authority of FCC.
(a) In general.—The rule adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in GN Docket No. 14–28 on February 26, 2015 (relating to broadband Internet access service), shall have no force or effect, and the Commission may not reissue such rule in substantially the same form, or issue a new rule that is substantially the same as such rule, unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of enactment of this Act.
(b) Rule defined.—In this section, the term “rule” has the meaning given the term in section 804 of title 5, United States Code.
Without title II classifications and regulations, the FCC cannot enforce net neutrality.
This is not amending net neutrality, this is killing the FCC’s ability to enforce it in any fashion. We know this because the previous FCC chair attempted to set up some net neutrality regulations. Verizon sued them and got it struck down in court, which basically said that such regulations require title II classification.
So title II classifications were made in order to provide regulation.
Removing title II classification and any net neutrality restrictions is basically saying, “You know what, Comcast? You’re one of the most hated companies on the planet. You cable companies are widely reviled for shady business practices and poor service, so I think you need the freedom to charge websites money for decent transit speeds to your customers. While you’re at it, I also think you should have the freedom to block me from seeing any website you don’t like, including ones that oppose what you’d like politically.”
Don’t believe me? It happened in Canada once already: “In 2005, when Telus blocked access to labour union blogs during an employee strike, the question of net neutrality became more prominent.”
Ah, thank you for the clarification. And yes, I’m mostly for net neutrality again (methinks my Willpower stat is very low) – though food for thought, a 2014 report in Business Insider pointed out a pro for cancelling net neutrality (though a very small and EXTREMELY UNLIKELY pro) – with some larger people providing an increased revenue to promote their services online, the smaller less-usage data plans could be cheaper/free. Though, of course, that’d go against capitalism/money-making entirely.
The problem with that is that no meaningful revisions are ever going to happen under Ajit Pai. Ever.
If you base your political opinions on the fringe actions of either side, you’re going to pingpong back and forth continually, because there’s always going to be a nutjob doing fucked up shit for a cause, no matter how noble (or ignoble).
Secondly, why would you base your opinion on the title of a law? The Patriot act had literally nothing to do with patriotism. They just called it that because calling it “The Massively Broadening Surveillance Powers Act” wouldn’t have sounded as nice.
There are tons of videos and well-written explanations as to why net neutrality is important. But when it comes down to it, removing net neutrality does give one set of parties much more freedom – ISPs. Without net neutrality, there is nothing to stop Comcast from throttling netflix into low-def 480p while piping its own service through at 4k.
Seriously, do some research.
I agree. Of course, this also applies to whether or not the “Net Neutrality” pushed by the Obama Administration in 2015 would actually get the US Net Neutrality, rather than simply transferring control away from ISPs to some other oligopoly or monopoly. I’m all for preventing ISPs from selectively imposing artificial bandwidth limits (or even preventing access entirely) to various IPs and such. But that doesn’t mean it’s inherently a good idea to support any action which people claims do do so without looking into what all else it does (and indeed whether or not it solves the problem in the first place).
I don’t have a solid opinion in terms of what, if any, regulations and laws existing or proposed are actually good as I’ve not read the legal text involved, but I do think a lot of people are jumping to protect “Net Neutrality” based more on the concept than understanding of the regulations involved. I think a lot of people will look at this and say: “yeah, ‘freedom’ sure…” without really looking into who is supporting the removal of FCC regulation and why (above and beyond the ISP companies at any rate).
Hopefully the United Statians can figure this crap out at some point.
This! The problem with “good intentions” is they ALWAYS get out of hand. Anyone who wishes something on someone else they never consider the fallout for everyone else involved. This practice of making everything these control freaks touch “Neutral” will be the death of their way of operation. This cannot stand and I aim to misbehave as I see fit!
As far as I can tell, Comcast wants to charge money per site loaded, and Chairman Pai seems to be a puppet of Comcast.
Solution: Kick Pai out of office, and put someone competent in charge.
Problem solved.
That’s the president’s job. We have to elect a pro net neutrality president and congress if we want these things.
Yeah.
Sadly, the simplest solution is the hardest to implement.
Remember that there’s no such politician. Worse thing is, pretending such is so easy. That is not an option.
Lets just elect Fenoxo! That will work!
+1 to Arki. FEN FOR PRES!
It really does suck to hear that companies really want to police and shut down sites like this.
Please fight this as hard as you can guys, even if you aren’t with Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, etc.
sincerely,
A concerned Aussie.
P.S <3 Fenoxo and team for bringing this to my attention.
I think it’s more that they want to make more money. The policing could totally happen as well, but probably not for some time.
Good luck fighting against this bull shit guys
sincerely
A concerned Brit
Anything an Australian can do to help? :3
Sadly no.
Yes there is, it won’t end with us. FIght for your rights to be left alone!
Thank you for advocating for this. It truly gives me hope to see how many people are opposed to the fools we’ve instated.
for what its worth I attempted a badly typed letter about how it will probably lead to Americas economic collapse, and have no idea if it went through… so… yeah….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cLWgTIsMLM
I would advise listening to this. Net neutrality isn’t quite what you think.
Net neutrality is exactly what I think. Try educating yourself with a legit source of information and not an insane propaganda piece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
Sorry no. If ISPs pull shady shit then people can vote with their wallet just like any other industry, giving bureaucrats more power is never the right answer.
Actually, they can’t. For most people in America, there is usually only one real internet provider in a given area thanks to regional monopolies. When your choices are “use shitty service” or “get something barely better than dial-up”, you can’t vote with your wallet. Especially if you need the internet for work. There’s a reason literally everyone in the tech sector except for ISPs and die-hard anti-government types are against this.
then the solution is not more government control. the solution is to give people choices so that they can vote with their wallet.
Who are regional monopolies granted by again? Oh that’s right, these same bureaucrats. The answer to a problem created by government is not more government.
They are not granted by anyone. That is the late game of capitalism. The ISPs tend to avoid stepping on each other’s terf and just split the country. There are only a few, afterall, so plenty of the country to share.
Regional monopolies aren’t due to bureaucrats, but because of a oligopoly in the market. Big companies all try to avoid competing so they can wring the money out of their customers without restraint.
building the infrastructure to service these areas is costly, and breaking the monopoly would mean the prices would rapidly crash in those areas driving the potential profits down. So the ISPs simply just avoid touching each other’s ‘turf’, and then all happily shaft the customers.
Small companies simply do not have the money to build an entire network around a town, and even if they did all the big company would have to do is undercut the small company, and wait for them to go bankrupt before jacking the price back up.
Thus you get an oligopoly where big companies silently agree not to compete, and small companies don’t have a chance in hell of standing on their own against the behemoths.
The only way to fix this is to either:
– Give companies a reason to compete. Like rewarding them for expanding their networks into regional towns, and thus breaking monopolies.
– Use an open network infrastructure like Australia, where almost all companies use the same copper pair phone lines to connect to people’s housing, thus allowing small companies to easily enter the market as the government maintains the primary infrastructure.
Back to net neutrality itself
Now out of curiosity what part of the net neutrality laws do you think is “giving bureaucrats more power”?
Your name suggests you’re one of the die-hard anti-government types who’d be for it, which kinda proves Fen’s point.
I’m sure you have a glowing view of the government and find the government trustworthy, honest, and reputable, and that all parties put forward good, honest, and trustworthy candidates that serve the will of the people.
Look, not everyone votes, but everyone votes with their wallet. That’s why that should be how most things are decided. The government shouldn’t be preventing people from doing that by granting these regional monopolies.
Dude you can’t be that stupid, right? It isn’t that government assigns them regional monopolies, it’s that they divy up markets piecemeal and avoid stepping on each other’s toes so they have no competition and can charge higher rates. Higher rates mean higher profits.
Unfettered capitalism at work! Capitalism can work very well, but it needs decent regulation to avoid sliding into monopolistic situations – something only government can do.
Then why don’t we break those monopoly? That’ll be super easy with just one nudge from some anti-trust blah-blahs!
You can’t break a centry’s old monopoly that has simply changed what the monopoly was over. Whether it’s oil, coal or tech, there’s someone controlling it. Unfortunately, the control freaks decide what gets done in the end, and they despise us little people acting otherwise.
Regional monopoly != Monopoly. We don’t need to break up the companies so much as force them to actually compete. Policies like local loop unbundling have worked wonders in places like Europe to drive up competition, down costs, and improve speed.
But, because of “Murica!”, we likely won’t get the “local loop unbundling”, just like we haven’t gotten (proper) free healthcare, or tuition-free college.
“Free” doesn’t exist, there is always a cost. The point is to give these monolithic companies no choice but to compete.
Imma net most canidates dont know what it even really is, cause how else would pepa ever get attention.
Aside from corruption but that isnt the case
Thank you for raising the issue Fen.
For those interested in learning more, John Oliver did segments on the importance of Net Neutrality here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU) and here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak).
For a deeper dive, arstechnica.com has an analysis (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/how-title-ii-goes-beyond-net-neutrality-to-protect-internet-users-from-isps/) on how repealing Title II would weaken overall consumer protection.
John Oliver,Really?! Your other link has some real information that helps, thanks for the info!
Wish I could help ya guys but I live in Canada, anyways ya monopolies suck. Thankfully Canada has laws set up to prevent monopolies to bad america doesn’t have them. However good luck guys and I hope you win.
I hate the world.
So instead of answering my question it just gets completely deleted? You’re willing to call other people stupid- yet when I directly question something you believe in you just can’t have any time for that huh? That’s very interesting.
Original post:
“I’ve gotta ask- what do you do when neither party holds your Interest, does your vote really matter at that point?
I found both parties last election to be garbage- in my opinion the current election system that is in place does not represent the democratic process in which I believe in. I believe everyone that is willing to try and run should have a set and even budget that allows them to put in as much work as they are willing to do before election day. Allowing for people to have more options and not this ridiculous corporate funded campaign where amazingly people in the company and not the company itself* are funding these campaigns with millions of dollars? I think that is ridiculous personally.
I wrote in Burnie- he’s not the best, but I feel he would have been better than the other two. Yet that vote feels worthless to me and I feel like I shouldn’t have even bothered, it doesn’t do anything from my view point more so than not voting. If it was a mass of people that weren’t voting it would be a different kettle of fish, but as it is now? One person’s vote isn’t going to change anything. Apparently a MILLION people’s votes didn’t even change anything because Trump still got in past the majority.
Note/TL;DR: I’m not saying voting isn’t important, I’m saying that the system we have in place needs to be overhauled to separate corporations from the government, and allow for more diversity when it comes to parties in general.
(I did my part on Net Neutrality, shared it to everywhere I could. Let other content creators know what’s going on, signed myself, etc. Hope everything works out.) ”
What reason was this deleted exactly?
Probably because the question doesn’t directly involve net neutrality, and could be viewed as an attempt to incite a flame war.
I feel like he’s calling me an idiot for not voting personally, that’s the only reason I wanted clarification or some kind of answer. I feel like I’m getting shafted by someone I respect just because of my personal beliefs on the matter. If his opening post hadn’t said anything political I wouldn’t have even posted the question to begin with…
I understand what you mean though and I appreciate an outside comment.
I don’t usually comment here but I agree on your point on voting. The way I see it, it’s everyones dude to vote if you live in a democratic society.
No matter what one’s political view, vote.