FCC Votes for Net Neutrality
 

Didn't notice any threads on this. This is HUGE IMO. Anytime the mega-corporations lose it's always good for us commoners.

FCC Approves Net Neutrality Rules For 'Open Internet' : The Two-Way : NPR

Brilliant stuff. He HAS to replace Jon Stewart.

I'm happy with this outcome. Wrote my congressman and shit.

Not that I have any desire for corporations to have free reign to control the internet (de facto Google tyranny anyone?), but I also wonder if this isn't the first step (or second or third or whatever) toward government slowly exerting its own control over the net. I'm a great believer in the internet as a wild west kind of place, a repository of all the world's information where it can be spread freely to all, even if that means that child predators and scam artists have an easier time of it -- just an unfortunate but necessary trade off IMO.

But I just can't see the government remaining neutral over internet freedom in the long run. Every time there's a hacking incident, or a pretty little white girl gets molested by a guy she met on the internet, I imagine there's an invisible noose that's going to get tighter and tighter. I don't necessarily see it as gov clandestinely trying to shut down free expression on the internet, but if you allow them any kind of power over it, eventually they're going to pass some kind of restriction that's never going to be lifted, and so on and so on until I can't even watch a thirty second clip from a movie on Youtube without getting sued.

I think you are overreacting. This was much more about the commerce aspect of things.

There has to be "some" level of control over the content available but we can't let big money decide what's going to free, what's going to cost a nickel, and what's going to cost a CC number.

The opposite of this ruling would have been devastating to the majority IMO.

While I can see this is a good thing I still don't like it that with pretty much because of all the big companies being based in the U.S. basically one country can hold the world ransom to get to decide how the internet is run.

Thats a good point. Should one country be able to attain the rights to do that. It would be a horrible road to go down. That being said the internet is always gonna be under government scrutiny its just non-avoidable.

I agree that I prefer this outcome over the alternative, but in the long run government control can be insidious and not to be underestimated. The Law of Unintended Consequences is no joke. Just look at the Middle East.

*shrug*

It is what it is. America's influence on the rest of the world is just a reality. You're perfectly entitled and correct to complain about it, but in the end it's just a fact of life. We can only hope that in the future that developing spheres of influence throughout the world, like the European Union and whatever becomes of China and Japan's fight over control of Asia manage to create power blocs that can neutralize America's stranglehold to some extent.

Well,its a dirty job fit for the Us.Don't hate because you are geographically challenged.

If it wasn't for an Englishman you wouldn't even be here :p:

http://tw.rpi.edu/launch/img/lee.jpg

We whipped yer ass twice red coat,you want some more?

*cough*WWII*cough*

I'd never let anybody with that tie/shirt combo help me with anything.

I think you mean once. We whipped yours the second time.

No.

im more worried about losing access to unlimited free ****

that's the #1 most pressing political issue on my personal agenda

The eventual "wrangling" of the internet is probably inevitable. It happens with every medium. This vote was simply one answer to the long question of where control will end up, and I don't buy for a second that it's a final answer either. Look a few decades into the future, and I suspect you'll see a much more constrained internet than the one that exists now, regardless of whoever ends up as its "steward". Maybe by then a new frontier will be in the works. Hopefully.

This. A repository of pretty much everything on Earth that can be digitized? I find that far more important than copyright laws.

I've been following this for months ever since I became part of this email list. Last time I checked, that email list has upwards of 1.2 million emails on it BTW.
It's so ****ing ridiculous how blatant the government corruption is in this whole debacle, particularly in Congress. Comcast has pushed harder for anti-net neutrality than Obama pushed for the ACA. Lobbying, funneling millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Congressmen...Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable did pretty much everything in their power to alter the outcome, and political idiots from both parties like Ted Cruz, and the ****ing media sure didn't help at all (Fox News calling net Neutrality Obamacare for the internet?? Like...WUT), and so many other idiot maneuvers stood in the way, but we, the people, still won.


http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/...psdb977285.png

victory. At least, for the moment.

So you're saying ... we should go to war with the USA? ;)
And I think in fairness the USA owes its existence more to an Italian...
http://www.biographyonline.net/wp-co..._Columbus1.jpg

The US has nuclear weapons. The rest of the world is terrified of them. If those countries you mentioned were to neutralize the US's power, they'd have to acquire a ****ton of nukes, and then we'd have another cold war. I'd say USA would have to give up some of its power voluntarily for the whole thing to work, and they probably won't.

:laughing:

Fuckin' Republicans *grrr*


https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/0...net-neutrality

Are there going to multiple internets in the foreseeable future?

...I don't get it

This one is a living organism....sooooo....stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

I'm asking if anyone thinks another network of interconnected computers comparable in size to the current Internet and unwilling or unable by design to communicate with the current Internet is likely to arise.

Deepweb

Davos (John Perry Barlow) of Switzerland wrote a short but frighteningly prophetic piece in February of 1996 dubbed A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

It foretold all of the government's attempts to cripple the free and open internet which would follow in the 20 years since its drafting.

Of course, these acts are by no means surprising; they simply mimic the events associated with every other technological revolution that empowered the people and offered greater transparency of the hand of their masters.

Thankfully, as history has always demonstrated, it is the people who have triumphed in each of these communication revolutions. Especially in the case of the internet, the implementation of corporate "fast lanes" for the wealthy would undoubtedly be met with an equal but opposite innovative response from the people. I'm confident a free and open alternative network would rise directly in proportion to the powers' attempt to constrain it. The tighter they squeeze their financial fist, the faster our collective waters would escape its grasp.

Alright, as much as I've tried to understand this whole thing even since SOPA/PIPA, I still can't wrap my head around what any of these articles are going on about. Can someone explain this in terms of someone who knows next to nothing about networking and the legal system?

If this is wrong, obvious to you, or stupid, I apologize in advance.

The way I understand it is giant website/corporations have a symbiotic deal with Internet providers to give them an unfair amount of the bandwidth and fast access avenues to their sites so they open fluidly and quickly. When someone tries to compete with them, no matter what they try their site is clumsy and slow making them non-competitive. There's been legislation proposed to regulate the situation so it's more fair for the little guy. Some people oppose the legislation because they want to keep the Internet organic. For now, the attempts at regulation have failed.

Cue corrections.

http://data.whicdn.com/images/34810757/large.gif

I wasn't aware of that, but that basically sounds like a pseudo-Mafia protection racket. I imagine that would eventually lead to breaking anti-trust laws. At the very least it would be in the same spirit of bigger companies temporarily selling products at a loss to put smaller companies out of business, which is very illegal.

Very illegal?

I thought that was known as "loss leader" and used all over.

I'm not arguing, I'm trying to learn. That's different than price fixing so what's that called?

Absolutely right. Unfortunately, Obama appointed the head lobbyist of the cable industry as the Chair of the FCC - an act that John Oliver famously likened to hiring a dingo to babysit your infant child.

Oliver did an excellent job of summarizing each of the critical points of net neutrality in a segment on Last Week Tonight, as well as contextualizing the circumstance of its political threat.

He also points out that the US pays more for cable and internet than almost anybody else on Earth, and yet, our download speed is crappier than lesser-expensive services in countries like Estonia.

o

Ah yes. Sorry for the oversight. Tristan, what of Oliver's explanation are you not clear on? Or more specifically, what part of SOPA/PIPA?

Just looked it up, and apparently it's not directly illegal, but if it can be proved that it will result in a monopoly that hurts consumers, then the business can be hit with anti-trust laws.

Wikipedia: Predatory Pricing