Law Upcoming vote on Net Neutrality laws - How many times do we need to strike this shit down?

FCC plans to vote to overturn U.S. net neutrality rules in December

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the Federal Communications Commission is set to unveil plans next week for a final vote to reverse a landmark 2015 net neutrality order barring the blocking or slowing of web content, two people briefed on the plans said.

In May, the FCC voted 2-1 to advance Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to withdraw the former Obama administration’s order reclassifying internet service providers as if they were utilities. Pai now plans to hold a final vote on the proposal at the FCC’s Dec. 14 meeting, the people said, and roll out details of the plans next week.

Pai asked in May for public comment on whether the FCC has authority or should keep any regulations limiting internet providers’ ability to block, throttle or offer “fast lanes” to some websites, known as “paid prioritization.” Several industry officials told Reuters they expect Pai to drop those specific legal requirements but retain some transparency requirements under the order.

An FCC spokesman declined to comment.

Internet providers including AT&T Inc, Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc say ending the rules could spark billions in additional broadband investment and eliminate the possibility a future administration could regulate internet pricing.

Critics say the move could harm consumers, small businesses and access to the internet.

In July, a group representing major technology firms including Alphabet Inc and Facebook Inc urged Pai to drop plans to rescind the rules.

Advocacy group Free Press said Wednesday “we’ll learn the gory details in the next few days, but we know that Pai intends to dismantle the basic protections that have fueled the internet’s growth.”

Pai, who argues the Obama order was unnecessary and harms jobs and investment, has not committed to retaining any rules, but said he favors an “open internet.” The proposal to reverse the Obama rules reclassifying internet service has drawn more than 22 million comments.

Pai is mounting an aggressive deregulatory agenda since being named by President Donald Trump to head the FCC.

On Thursday the FCC will vote on Pai’s proposal to eliminate the 42-year-old ban on cross-ownership of a newspaper and TV station in a major market. The proposal would make it easier for media companies to buy additional TV stations in the same market.

Pai is also expected to call for an initial vote in December to rescind rules that say one company may not own stations serving more than 39 percent of U.S. television households, two people briefed on the matter said.

Oh, and Comcast is already lobbying.

I'm so sick of this shit, seriously. The FCC is whoring out for Comcast and AT&T instead of ensuring that American citizens have equal access to the internet.

 

[Spellskite]

I've never heard a compelling argument against Net Neutrality. The one person who I talked about with in person argued that "People who haven't done anything wrong have nothing to worry about," as if that solved the whole issue with censorship. How do you reach people who only care about the internet as a means to access their social media feeds?

 

[NotoriousD]

Thankfully the one in my area is a small Ma & Pa operation.

I don't ever divulge personal info, but I live in a more rural area and while it's not a ma and pa thing, it's certainly on the lower spectrum of giving a fuck about all the big corporate noise afaik. Just full of people who do their jobs, make sure people have net and pay their bill.

Now, I'm not very knowledgeable in this field at all, but I wonder how it would play out between large entities like Google, Valve, etc. I remember a post here about Steam not being mainstream enough I think?

I doubt most people will miss the internet (as we know it). They mostly just want email and news. I can't see online shopping being too adversely effected by this. News won't require too much bandwidth either. Youtube and Netflix will feel it though; long load times might drive people back to satellite/cable and redbox rentals. Steam and other online game shops aren't mainstream enough for people to care about. I suspected there might be a 'gamer' plan from an ISP that will give steam or other major gaming services the fast lane but, it will be very costly and fairly restrictive.

This one. I would actually be interested to know how it would turn out if companies like Google or Valve were openly opposed to this, but again, I know jack and shit about this area of things.

I DO remember that back during one of the previous things, I forget whether it was SOPA/PIPA or ACTA, the fucking porn industry of all things managed to actually influence stuff a bit because it makes just that much money.

 

[tehpope]

I've never heard a compelling argument against Net Neutrality. The one person who I talked about with in person argued that "People who haven't done anything wrong have nothing to worry about," as if that solved the whole issue with censorship. How do you reach people who only care about the internet as a method to access their social media feeds?

Over the last 16 months, as I've debated this issue around the world, every single time somebody has said to me, "I don't really worry about invasions of privacy because I don't have anything to hide." I always say the same thing to them. I get out a pen, I write down my email address. I say, "Here's my email address. What I want you to do when you get home is email me the passwords to all of your email accounts, not just the nice, respectable work one in your name, but all of them, because I want to be able to just troll through what it is you're doing online, read what I want to read and publish whatever I find interesting. After all, if you're not a bad person, if you're doing nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide." Not a single person has taken me up on that offer.

Sauce, which I stole from https://www.privacytools.io/

 

[escapegoat]

Ok, since this post is dumb, does someone want to explain it? Why is the DNC for net neutrality? Are they just good guys who want to do me a solid? Are they bad guys who just feel like net neutrality is too evil? Is it marketing to buy my votes? Because that's actually understandably Machiavellian and I don't have an issue with it.

What's their motivation here? I ask this assuming thst we aren't pretending that Verizon is going to throttle all their websites while redirecting plannedparenthood.com to trump2020.com.

You are looking at it backwards.

The default is net neutrality. It being neutral.

The GOP has an ideological notion of "supporting business," and that means they have deviated from the default, because telecoms should have the laissez-faire God-given right to do whatever they want.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

It seems that Filipino ISPs are run by dumbasses. Well, and their customers probably aren't technically knowledgeable enough to the point where accurate throttling is remotely necessary.

It's very simple to accurately throttle traffic. You have a set of approved IPs and any packets to/from those IPs go fast. Any other packets (including ones that go to VPNs) receive the leftover scraps of bandwidth.

There's a few problems with this (maintaining your list of approved IPs), but by and large, that's how it would work.

And maybe they'll micromanage it to this point. Who knows. Also...you're not wrong in your opinion, but I'm also not wrong in thinking that an overseas paywalled VPN service won't pop up that pays for premium access and allows throughput connections.

This is what I'm envisioning. Just like content providers don't go after the source sites of filesharing immediately, they go after those who connect to it.

 

[Cosmos]

unless someone doxes the homes of the people responsible for these stupid attempts to block the internet.

@Dynastia We need you now more than ever.

 

[Marvin]

And maybe they'll micromanage it to this point. Who knows. Also...you're not wrong in your opinion, but I'm also not wrong in thinking that an overseas paywalled VPN service won't pop up that pays for premium access and allows throughput connections.

This is what I'm envisioning. Just like content providers don't go after the source sites of filesharing immediately, they go after those who connect to it.

It's not really micromanaging.

This is standard packet filtering software in any high level switch.

Like, my only nitpicks with my plan are how to make it more accurate. When my proposed plan is inaccurate, all that happens is more sites get throttled than should get throttled. That is, if Facebook adds another public IP to their list, my scheme would need to detect that and add it to the approved list. There are ways to do that, some better than others. Though I might be overthinking this, because ultimately, if you're running a pay-for-speed scheme, you could just tell Facebook/Netflix/whoever to provide the approved IPs themselves.

No connection through my scheme will go full speed unless it's to an approved IP. With a VPN, your packets get addressed to the VPN, then the VPN unpacks them and sends them to their real destination.

Edit: Oh, are you saying that the VPN company would pay for full speed? In that case, then I can't imagine ISPs would care. They're getting paid regardless.

 

[Maggots on a Train]

So... what do you think you are going to get out of Verizon and Comcast determining which sites you get to go to?

Not that guy, but I expect telecoms will market it as speedy premium access to their preferred sites, and write off the throttled traffic as illegitimate bandwidth hogs.

They will also trot out that retarded remote control robot surgeon thing that doesn't even exist. Because consumer end telecom laws should definitely be based around one piece of hypothetical industrial equipment that doesn't exist even as a functional prototype.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

It's not really micromanaging.

This is standard packet filtering software in any high level switch.

Like, my only nitpicks with my plan are how to make it more accurate. When my proposed plan is inaccurate, all that happens is more sites get throttled than should get throttled. That is, if Facebook adds another public IP to their list, my scheme would need to detect that and add it to the approved list. There are ways to do that, some better than others. Though I might be overthinking this, because ultimately, if you're running a pay-for-speed scheme, you could just tell Facebook/Netflix/whoever to provide the approved IPs themselves.

No connection through my scheme will go full speed unless it's to an approved IP. With a VPN, your packets get addressed to the VPN, then the VPN unpacks them and sends them to their real destination.

Edit: Oh, are you saying that the VPN company would pay for full speed? In that case, then I can't imagine ISPs would care. They're getting paid regardless.

I get the basis of your point, I just think there's way more nerds out there who will figure out ways around it. To bring it back around to my original point... like the cable decoder boxes and the filesharing. At the time, they were inventive ways around paying for services people didn't want to pay for.

Life... uh. Finds a way.

 

[Yellow Yam Scam]

I think you're overthinking this. Just because the fire extinguisher salesman is coming on really hard, doesn't mean that you shouldn't buy a fire extinguisher.

That's because the risk of fires (and the utility of a fire extinguisher) is pretty well understood. Likewise, the problems with losing net neutrality are well documented.

Edit: To answer your question: beats me. Maybe just to be contrarian against the Republicans? Maybe they realize in the long run, technology is run by capitalists and no matter how many trannies they inject into Silicon Valley, money will always overrule them. So a free and independent internet will always be a useful tool in their back pocket.

Agreed, but to work within your metaphor, I don't see why the DNC would be a fire extinguisher. Are there not left-wing concerns that would benefit from taking away net neutrality? I feel like they're part of the same power structure that benefits from closing off paths of free speech. I'm sure there's some market research study they have lying around saying that this is the right move for them to make, it just doesn't seem to be in character for them.

 

[Chiang Kai-shek]

To be completely honest, I really doubt this will pass. For a couple of reasons. First the Republican congress can't get shit done. Second this has been tried before and failed, so it will probably fail again.

As for the DNC, they want to win the youth crowd or seem like they’re the freedom party. Which is hilarious if true, because they increased surveillance shit under Obama I believe.

In short this won’t pass.

 

[escapegoat]

Agreed, but to work within your metaphor, I don't see why the DNC would be a fire extinguisher. Are there not left-wing concerns that would benefit from taking away net neutrality? I feel like they're part of the same power structure that benefits from closing off paths of free speech. I'm sure there's some market research study they have lying around saying that this is the right move for them to make, it just doesn't seem to be in character for them.

They don't have to.

Facebook, Google, and Amazon, are all looking like they will do that for the DNC, and they are something like 70% of internet traffic at the moment. Corporate internet spaces are going to have user policies that are work appropriate: as in, SJW-approved.

And porn ain't gonna turn to the GOP, in the one large instance that the taboo is the selling point.

Like, literally, this week, Baked Alaska was insisting that Twitter needs to be treated like a utility, because of this sort of thing.

 

[Marvin]

Agreed, but to work within your metaphor, I don't see why the DNC would be a fire extinguisher. Are there not left-wing concerns that would benefit from taking away net neutrality? I feel like they're part of the same power structure that benefits from closing off paths of free speech. I'm sure there's some market research study they have lying around saying that this is the right move for them to make, it just doesn't seem to be in character for them.

The DNC are the fire extinguisher salesmen. They're definitely interested in the situation for their own personal gain, no doubt about that.

I was suggesting that perhaps they're scared about political discussion being 100% in Facebook's hands. They don't like free speech, of course. But I think handing over the discussion to Facebook would amount to a defeat for them. Despite what people think, Facebook does provide a dumbed down form of free speech. Facebook is driven by money and not ideology, so they have to entertain the whims of middle America to some degree.

For example, Cripplefurher's had a few posts deleted and (if I remember correctly) he's even lost a few accounts.

Maybe the DNC wants to keep fighting. Acknowledging that they'll always have to endure those evil Trump voters is something they're not ready to do.

Kind of a stretch, I know. And actually, now that I think about this more carefully, I think it's probably mostly just big internet companies pushing for net neutrality. Really, the primary companies that seem to oppose net neutrality are just shitty ISPs.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

To be completely honest, I really doubt this will pass. For a couple of reasons. First the Republican congress can't get shit done. Second this has been tried before and failed, so it will probably fail again.

As for the DNC, they want to win the youth crowd or seem like they’re the freedom party. Which is hilarious if true, because they increased surveillance shit under Obama I believe.

In short this won’t pass.

Putting the SOPA PTSD aside I have to agree with this. Also it's thanksgiving week, can I stop reading this thread now?

 

[Genghis Khan]

This thread is making me legitimately angry. Not because of any of you, but because a small handful of corporations have been pushing and pushing to limit freedom and personal rights just so they can make a few more dollars.

Fuck every single person involved in this mess. And fuck the cable industry, I can't wait for it and its shitty practices to curl up and die.

Maybe you're on your period. Don't get your panties in a twist, take a deep breath and LOL TOP KEK like the /pol/tards who are elated at the prospect of their demise.

 

[Collections Agent]

eid ssergnoc eid

 

[JaneThough]

Agreed, but to work within your metaphor, I don't see why the DNC would be a fire extinguisher. Are there not left-wing concerns that would benefit from taking away net neutrality? I feel like they're part of the same power structure that benefits from closing off paths of free speech. I'm sure there's some market research study they have lying around saying that this is the right move for them to make, it just doesn't seem to be in character for them.

Maybe take yourself out of the partisan circle jerk and ask yourself if you want to pay more money to use less of the internet.

 

[UY 690]

If the internet doesn't get saved in time?

Prison rape would be our only option to survive.

 

[Yellow Yam Scam]

Maybe take yourself out of the partisan circle jerk and ask yourself if you want to pay more money to use less of the internet.

You're really gonna accuse me of circlejerking when you missed the fact that I said I was for net neutrality three different times?

 

[JaneThough]

You're really gonna accuse me of circlejerking when you missed the fact that I said I was for net neutrality three different times?

Then why are you so hung up on the DNC? Who cares why they support it? Let's be happy there are some in Washington who can stop this.