Petition Calls for Ouster of FCC Chairman Pai (whitehouse.gov) 174
Long-time Slashdot reader speedplane writes:
Yes, we've all heard that net neutrality is on its way out, and it seems NPR was able to snag one of the few (the only?) interview's of Ajit Pai on its effect. Sadly, NPR's Rachel Martin stuck to very broad and basic questions, and failed to press Pai on the change of policy. That said, it's worth a listen.
Pai insists that "We saw companies like Facebook, and Amazon and Google become global powerhouses precisely because we had light-touch rules that applied to this Internet. The Internet wasn't broken in 2015 when these heavy-handed regulations were adopted, and once we remove them, I think we'll continue to see the infrastructure investment that will benefit digital consumers and entrepreneurs alike... I've talked to a lot of companies that say, look, we want to be able to invest in these networks, especially in rural and low-income urban areas, but the more heavy-handed the regulations are, the less likely we can build a business case for doing it."
But New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says he's spent six months investigating "a massive scheme to corrupt the FCC's notice and comment process" for net neutrality, adding that "the FCC has refused multiple requests for crucial evidence." (Nine requests over five months were ignored.) And now over 65,000 people have signed a new online petition at WhiteHouse.gov calling for the immediate removal of Ajit Pai as the FCC's chairman, calling him "a threat to our freedoms."
Meanwhile, The Verge has compiled "a list of the lawmakers who voted to betray you," with each listing also including "how much money they received from the telecom industry in their most recent election cycle."
Pai insists that "We saw companies like Facebook, and Amazon and Google become global powerhouses precisely because we had light-touch rules that applied to this Internet. The Internet wasn't broken in 2015 when these heavy-handed regulations were adopted, and once we remove them, I think we'll continue to see the infrastructure investment that will benefit digital consumers and entrepreneurs alike... I've talked to a lot of companies that say, look, we want to be able to invest in these networks, especially in rural and low-income urban areas, but the more heavy-handed the regulations are, the less likely we can build a business case for doing it."
But New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says he's spent six months investigating "a massive scheme to corrupt the FCC's notice and comment process" for net neutrality, adding that "the FCC has refused multiple requests for crucial evidence." (Nine requests over five months were ignored.) And now over 65,000 people have signed a new online petition at WhiteHouse.gov calling for the immediate removal of Ajit Pai as the FCC's chairman, calling him "a threat to our freedoms."
Meanwhile, The Verge has compiled "a list of the lawmakers who voted to betray you," with each listing also including "how much money they received from the telecom industry in their most recent election cycle."
Too little... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little... (Score:5, Insightful)
Removing Pai is nearly useless. Trump will just put in a clone. Enough outrage might slow down his policies, but I doubt it. People are pretty stupid. They don't notice that their new swimming pool has a very large heater under it as the water slowly warms up.
Now if Pai blocks facebook or something you might get screaming.
At any rate Trump is doing the exact same thing at the consumer protection agency for the same reason. The republicans do not protect consumers. They protect big business and wait for some kind of yellow substance to trickle down.
Seriously, can anyone answer how network neutrality was a net minus for consumers? How about how the cfpb was a net minus? Sure anyone can nitpick, but taken for all and all, they were good things. Sadly elections have consequences.
Re: Too little... (Score:3)
There's a lot of foot in door speculation about what the private sector could do, if its things like low latency traffic for gamers, it'll be fine. If its going back to permanent tracking cookies injected:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]
It'll fail in the free market, as consumers seek net neutral providers. Don't forget the effects of unethical financial products, the 2008 housing meltdown with govt bailout. What could the 2020 ISP meltdown look like??? If they're not ethical, we'll find out.
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You can't seek net neutral providers. If I want fast Internet my choice is either Cox or CenturyLink, CenturyLink tops out at 100mbps while Cox is about 300mbps. Both will likely take that path leaving me no choices.
Re: Too little... (Score:3)
Not now, but at present Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and more have all come out in support of net neutrality.
I'm old. Slashdot 14 years ago was talking in desperation about MS monopoly, which fell apart at hands of Google, Apple. Also, the awful cell phone monopoly, e.g. Nokia flipphones with $60 proprietary chargers that broke all the time, totally wiped out by iphone. If ISPs overreach, the combined power of these companies can offer replacements, and win. Forcing people to buy junk dependi
Re: Too little... (Score:3)
So if Charter decided to throttle Netflix to 50% of the throughput I currently get, it would still be 3x faster than the next competitor.
How am I supposed to "shop around" when there is no competition? And more to the point, how is Netflix supposed to shop around being extorted?
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EAE, encrypt absolutely everything. You would think law enforcement and national security agencies would be pushing for net neutrality so that the population feels safe about sending plaintext and they can continue easy mass surveillance but maybe they are asleep at the switch or simply lack influence compared to the communication companies. Or maybe all of the big endpoints ar
Re:Manufactured Outrage (Score:5, Interesting)
> If it were really that important, why didn't Obama implement it early in his tenure?
The president was pretty busy, with Iraq and Afghanistan as wars he didn't start but needed to clean up, with the health care program, the difficulty of appointing any Cabinet staff in the face of an obstructionist Congress, and an economy reeling from two Asian wars and the housing market economic meltdown. I think we can safely say that he was _busy_.
Moreover, the FCC is supposed to be an independent agency from the White House. So any guidance or promotion of particular policies at the FCC can take much longer because it can't be done by presidential mandate.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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If it was actually supposed to be independent then the FCC's rules of governance wouldn't force weighting membership to the ruling party: 3 to 2.
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And the Congress just SAILED through his judges, right?
And his executive orders were never ruled unconstitutional, unlike Trump
Go suck Neil Cavuto's A$$ fool!
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No RECORD HIGH GROWTH in the stock markets, right?
Idiot
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This is completely manufactured outrage. This regulatory stunt of the Obama's administration was an overreach of the magnitude beyond that of any of Trumps, but it's good because it claims to be "network neutrality" even though it's nothing of the sort. If it were really that important, why didn't Obama implement it early in his tenure? Oh, that's right, because it was completely a political stunt.
If you were honest, you'd read what Pai wrote about many of the rollbacks of regulation. Of course, he's a Trump appointee, so he must be evil and lying. I'm sure he wasn't evil and lying when he was an Obama appointee. Much of the regulation pushed through the FCC by the Obama administration was a deliberate departure from the intent and letter of the law. This is one of them. Changing a law that clearly says "voice telephony" to apply to all data transmission demonstrates contempt for the law. Further, giving all internet metadata to the various LEOs under CALEA was, at best, an oversight, but more likely a malicious attempt to bypass many of the protections that we regained when the NSA spying was judged illegal.
Everybody is always being so unfair to Trump, SAD! :-(
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You can't de-manufacture the outrage with this sort of reasoned logic, either. Might as well be pissing up a rope. The fix is in, and the people demand that the Feds regulate the Internet. Pai isn't going to stop it, either. CNN and Fox is going to be protected from foreign news outlets, and Facebook and Google are right on board with censoring any non-government-approved sources of information.
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If it were really that important, why didn't Obama implement it early in his tenure?
Because it wasn't a problem at the time?
Prior to cable ISPs, all other ISPs (e.g. dial-up and DSL) were classified as common carriers, but cable ISPs were able to sneak through a loophole because they had started in a different industry. Despite that, cable ISPs originally respected net neutrality because they needed to remain competitive with the dominant dial-up and DSL ISPs who were being compelled to respect net neutrality. It wasn't until cable ISPs achieved dominance that they were finally in a positi
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I wondered when the NeoMcCarthyites would show up to claim Russia bought the presidency for $100,000 in Facebook ads. Didn't take long at all...
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Yea, did you?
Your whining about the massive public outrage is Moscow-bought commentary
the next non-traitor not-going-to-prison ACTUAL PRESIDENT
Pretty deranged, NeoMcCarthyist crap from a TDS sufferer.
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You're right. What would I want the head for? That thing starts to rot and stink the place up.
Just dump the whole corpse.
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It takes a special kind of retarded traitor apologist to compare a public petition to oust an elected official from their badly managed office to an actual lynching.
Maybe you should experience your hyperbole sometime.
missed opportunity (Score:2)
2006 Series of tubes (Score:3, Insightful)
"The Internet wasn't broken in 2015 when these heavy-handed regulations were adopted,"
2015? Ahhh lets remember 2006 and the various efforts to stop telcos slowing traffic to charge throttling fees..
Here's Senator Stevens:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes
"A series of tubes" is a phrase coined originally as an analogy by then-United States Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to describe the Internet in the context of opposing network neutrality.[1] On June 28, 2006, he used this metaphor to criticize a
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How sad is it that our entire society has declined to the point that the nuclear option is the only option for any given conflict?
Someone cuts you off on the freeway? Chase them down and blow their brains out.
Your inability to argue against sincerely held positions gives something away. You've got fuck all.
None of that shit is happening, and you're a fucking moron to suggest that it is.
Slashdot effect (Score:2)
Here's hoping for a Slashdot Effect, in the most positive way, for that petition.
Interestingly I've seen Imgur posts linking to it with over 100,000 likes, but the petition has yet to raise 100,000 signatures! (76k at time of writing).
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Let's rather go collect some money and buy us a ho ourselves. Have you read the article? Some of them go for less than 20k bucks, if we all chip in, maybe we can get a representative ourselves. Think about it: A congressman representing actual citizens. That could be revolutionary in US politics.
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It's the ultimate form of Capitalism. A government bought and sold according to the laws of supply and demand.
Lobbying in DC (Score:3)
>Let's rather go collect some money and buy us a ho ourselves.
It might be better to bankroll a professional lobbyist, so you have the potential to persuade more than one politician. Give your lobbyist a list of issues to work and a budget for researchers, lawyers, and bribes (I mean.. err, an entertainment budget for business lunches, etc). They're going to need an office, too.
Now, the lobbyist is going to cost about US 150K + bonuses and benefits. A legislative researcher pulls about 50K, and you're
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The money will in the end come from one American, yes.
Do you think any legislation to that matter would bother going any further than this?
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>The money will in the end come from one American, yes.
Funny you say that. I was googling for citizen PACs to see if any already existed... and there's a Citizen SuperPAC. It has only two donors of significance, and one of them is obscured behind a corporate front.
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Hey, if I wanted to bribe politicians, I'd also try to get some kind of Patreon scam going.
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>Let's rather go collect some money and buy us a ho ourselves.
It might be better to bankroll a professional lobbyist, so you have the potential to persuade more than one politician. Give your lobbyist a list of issues to work and a budget for researchers, lawyers, and bribes (I mean.. err, an entertainment budget for business lunches, etc). They're going to need an office, too.
Now, the lobbyist is going to cost about US 150K + bonuses and benefits. A legislative researcher pulls about 50K, and you're probably going to fork out another 80K for the lawyer. To be honest... you're going to want someone to handle office administration, reception, and errands, so probably throw another 35-40K in there for that. Oh, and you're going to pay around US 4500/month for office space.
You're getting close to 400K just to start up, and that's before you've figured out how much it costs to actually DO something with that office and those people. It's not unusual to spend millions on lobbying in DC.
So... maybe 1.5 million per year to start. Can you crowd fund that? Given the events of the last year, are you prepared to show all the money comes from Americans? How are you going to decide which issues your team should work on? (I can answer the last question - break your crowd funding attempt up by subject, divide efforts by the budget proportions). Who is going to give the orders to the team, judge their effectiveness, etc.?
It's perhaps not as big a job as you might think, but it's not simple, either.
And then behind your back, concentrated interests will pay your lobbyist more to sabotage your efforts while assuring you of progress. Ask Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms how that works.
No (Score:1)
Folks today think signing a petition online, or taking part in a robofax attack against your local congressmen is civics.
I spent an hour friday talking to my congressman about both sides of this, and his office hadn't received a single call or mail about the issue. He wasn't uninformed, but his give a shit is low.
robofax / robomail campaigns? nobody cares. if you can't be bothered to put your own words and ideas down and participate in the civic process then you genuinely don't care about the issue. Regardl
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There is a
Re: No (Score:3)
How do you get a chance to talk to him for an hour?
For Democratic congressmen, a large pile of coke. For Republican congressmen, a naked boy - and a large pile of coke.
This will backfire on FB, Google etc (Score:2, Insightful)
Steve Bannon has already suggested regulating them as utilities
https://www.google.com/amp/s/s... [google.com]
Essentially the Democrats want one set of unpopular companies regulated. Bannon wants another set regulated. Right now the mainstream GOP is sticking to principle - ie that regulating either is bad and the status quo should stay. As US politics becomes more about shafting the other tribe and less about principles that might change though. I think it's fair to assume Trump is not overly concerned with abstract pri
Content makers versus wire owners (Score:3)
Right now the mainstream GOP is sticking to principle - ie that regulating either is bad and the status quo should stay.
The GOP only pretends to be against regulation. They just want THEIR regulations. They want regulations that reduce taxes but those are still regulations. They want individual freedom unless it is something like abortion or homosexuality that offends their sensibilities and then they are all about regulation. They want regulations that favor money making over clean air. They want regulations that hurt worker's rights to organize.
I think it's fair to assume Trump is not overly concerned with abstract principles.
True but he doesn't seem concerned with tangible principles either.
And the Net Neutrality advocates won't confront the fact that their argument for net neutrality should apply to Google and FB which are decidedly non neutral for political content.
Net neu
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I want my ISP and backhaul providers to stay the hell out of deciding whose content should get priority. That should be my decision, not theirs.
That's what I keep telling the network engineers at my company. But for some reason, they just laugh at me.
Re: This will backfire on FB, Google etc (Score:5, Informative)
Net neutrality has been distorted by idiots like you.
It isn't the content that is being regulated. It is the ability to get that content at all.
Would you use Facebook if you had to pay $5 more a month for social media access?
Would you get kissed off if your Comcast (Which owns msnbc) stopped streaming all fox news streams? Unless you signed up to pay Comcast $10 a moknth to allow fox websites and streams access?
How would fox pay for such things? They charge you for it. So you pay Comcast $10 a month to access fox websites and pay $ fox $10 a month to get access to that plus pay Comcast again for basic internet access?
Net neutrality is only to ensure that Comcast which owns msnbc doesn't use their monopolies to limit what you can get access too. That is what Comcast has started doing. That is paid access that Comcast forces Netflix to pay, to show content that you requested.
All ISP's want this. That is how they monetise the stream. They want to charge 3-4 times for the same network content.
That is what net neutrality is. Everyone arguing otherwise is using distraction and lies to hide the truth.
In Portugal you pay extra to access certain websites like facebook
Re:This will backfire on FB, Google etc (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a very silly argument that falls apart under even the slightest scrutiny. Changing ISPs means selling your house and moving to another city. Changing to a new search engine or social network requires merely typing a different address at the top of your browser window. The two situations are simply not comparable.
The reality is that anybody with sufficient technical experience could pull together a team and build a new social network or search engine from the ground up in O(months). That's why everybody on the planet has access to multiple social networks and multiple search engines. Regulating them makes no sense, because if you don't like the policies of one, you can trivially leave and go to another, and bring all of your friends with you, if necessary.
By contrast, starting a new ISP involves attaching to utility poles that are owned by a third party and/or digging up roads and people's yards. And the telcos recently managed to get a federal judge to overturn Nashville's laws [slashdot.org] that are designed to make it more feasible to move existing utility lines in ways that make it practical to add new utilities. The current regulatory environment makes it largely infeasible to start a new ISP in most places. Worse, because of the relatively high cost per customer, it would still be infeasible even without those regulations except in dense urban areas. There's a reason that outside of the big cities, the fiber network in Tennessee is being built by the state government. There's not enough profit in it for a single ISP to run fiber, much less multiple ISPs.
Not at all. The Democrats feel we should regulate monopolies because they are monopolies, and should not regulate industries that have healthy competition, while the Republicans feel we should not regulate anybody, and believe that somehow competition will magically appear in markets with an obvious natural monopoly even though history has shown repeatedly that this almost never occurs in practice. Basically, Democrats believe in the notion of a natural monopoly, whereas Republicans just put their hands over their eyes and pretend that the problem doesn't exist, to the benefit of monopolies owned by their buddies.
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Changing to a new search engine or social network requires merely typing a different address at the top of your browser window. The two situations are simply not comparable.
Yeah, if I get banned from Youtube or FB I can go to Minds or Gab.ai. Where no one will see my post.
It's like saying if you get banned from Moscow you can go and live in Siberia where you're not allowed to have a phone. Which the Soviet Union did to Sakharov when he said things they didn't like.
What it meant is they could control what the Overton Windows was in Moscow, where they cared about politics but exiling people to Siberia where they didn't. Meanwhile pro government media in Moscow would run all sort
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You have a fundamental right to speak. You do not have a fundamental right to make others hear you if they don't choose to do so.
No, it isn't similar at all. Being forced to leave your home and your family and live
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Being forced to leave your home and your family and live in a forced labor camp in exceptionally cold temperatures with poor medical care
That's not what happened to Sakharov though. He was sent into internal exile in Gorky and his phone was taken away. He didn't get sent to a labour camp. They wanted to move him out of the Overton Window, but were a bit more subtle about it than they were in the 30's.
I do acknowledge that in theory there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem in terms of discovering that the content is filtered in the first place, but in practice, any action that prevents people from hearing about other social networks would be a *blatant* anti-trust violation, which is already solidly covered by existing laws.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/... [theverge.com]
https://www.whaleoil.co.nz/201... [whaleoil.co.nz]
Antitrust only kicks in if FB is declared a monopoly, which it has not been.
As the left wing Guardian observed
https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]
"Don't you know what Facebook is?" a woman said. No interrobang, you notice. It wasn't a rebuke. It was worse than that - she was trying to be kind. It was as if I'd confided in her about my literacy problems or asked her to feel a lump. I can't forgive Facebook for that pang of humiliation and consequently have never signed up - which I'm perfectly happy about and my friends even happier because it's a great way for them not to invite me to parties. I'd only eat all the crisps and ask stupid questions anyway.
But is this a sustainable position? Is joining Facebook becoming mandatory if you wish to remain part of the modern world? I'm sure it feels like that for teenagers and I think it probably does for most people in their 20s. I know I'm not on the technological cutting edge - I don't want to be - but neither do I want to be a modern-day equivalent of those who refused to have TVs in the 80s, a self-absorbed, neo-Amish anachronism flinging a judgmental glance behind me as I stomp out of society in a strop.
Initially, I assumed Facebook was just a fad like its predecessors and, when Twitter became popular and fashionable, it seemed that the MySpace trajectory was once again being observed. Having joined Twitter, I smugly waited for Facebook's inevitable demise, congratulating myself for having skipped a whole technological chapter and saved myself a lot of hassle, very much as would have happened with the fax machine if I hadn't made the eccentric last-minute decision to buy one in 1999. Then something nasty and unexpected happened: the zeitgeist left Facebook and yet somehow it survived. It was like the moment in Outbreak when the virus goes airborne.
It gets worse. Facebook is much more than an internet brand that's managing to ride the fad wave. It's becoming a monopoly. I know this because it's been mentioned in The Archers. A trade name in Ambridge! The place where old-school BBC rules about "sticky-backed plastic" and "a proprietary brand of spreadable yeast extract" still obtain to a ludicrous extent. No iPods, Walkmans, BlackBerrys or Kindles are ever mentioned but, in the last few weeks, the programme has started to call Facebook and Twitter by name. RIP Bebo. You only ever existed to demonstrate that "other social networking sites are available". Now there might as well not be. Everyone else is on Facebook and, if you update your status in the forest and there's no one there to read it...
I'm sure Facebook would claim it's not a monopoly - strictly speaking it isn't - but it clearly wants to be and, if there are whole sections of society who feel obliged to sign up in order to be able to communicate with one another, then its dreams are coming true. Next there'll be electric sheep. Facebook isn't aspiring to be Cable & Wireless or AT&T, major players within a medium; it wants to be the whole telephone network.
The Guardian, being the Guardian t
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Say what you like about the Augustus [wikipedia.org] but his feelings represent a change in cultural thought. You seem to associate with ideas from a fading culture. Whether you choose to accept it, this is the direction we are heading.
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The other option is satellite downloading or ADSL/DSL via various ISP's. But all of these companies have to rent lines from British Telecom "OpenReach", who in turn have the final say when an exchange will be upgraded to high-speed internet. Anyone living in rural areas is at the mercy of the "London First" policy of always upgrading London exchanges first, then gradually moving out to the other cities, towns and villages (usually about 20 years later)..
Well it's subtle. The Blair government forced BT to provide broadband and for that matter phones in rural areas where un unregulated company would just not bother to operate. BT of course makes excess profits in other areas due to regulation - the government basically forces them to use some of them to subsidise rural areas and has always done so.
The government does force them to allow other ISPs to resell their DSL connections. So even though BT has a monopoly on the actual DSL exchanges in an area, they'r
"A threat to our freedoms" (Score:4, Insightful)
I think "A threat to our freedoms" is polarized political mumbo jumbo and not going to serve anyone well in this discussion. The real claim here is that Ajit Pai has a sympathetic view towards corporations that is likely to be a conflict of interest and is using political spin to attempt to justify this position. The political spin is nonsense as far as I can tell. By the way, I'm sure a lot of this is coming from the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. That's the real reason that Ajit Pai should be removed is because he lakes the ability to be impartial and do what's best for the country not corporate America. As we all know, there is a systemic problem of corruption in America and Ajit Pai is the latest to succumb to its influence. It's unfortunately the status quo in American politics.
Now liberals, think about this issue that you care about very dearly. You protest, you sign all these petitions, you blog and project online, etc. and what does the government and corporate America do? They laugh at you because they think you're weak and all talk and no action. It thinks you'll lose interest in the issue and the status quo will continue. Now I wonder.. how else might the people be able to compel the government to represent them? You do the math... and you'll probably move a tad to the right of your beliefs when you realize what the answer to that question is. It's a sad state of affairs in America today that no one seems to have the capability to be reasonable.
Re:"A threat to our freedoms" (Score:5, Insightful)
I think "A threat to our freedoms" is polarized political mumbo jumbo and not going to serve anyone well in this discussion.
Being dismissive of the larger impact and what the future looks like isn't going to serve future generations well either. The internet has become THE resource for global information. Attempting to carve that up into standard and premium bit buckets is nothing more than a form of censorship, which has always been viewed as a threat to our freedoms.
Now liberals, think about this issue that you care about very dearly. You protest, you sign all these petitions, you blog and project online, etc. and what does the government and corporate America do? They laugh at you because they think you're weak and all talk and no action.
One can try and justify that the give-a-shit level of The People is at an all-time low because people are ignorant and lazy.
Or one can try and justify that the give-a-shit level of The People is at an all-time low because they've come to realize just how fucking irrelevant they truly are.
Either way, this particular topic has elicited millions and millions of responses from The People who were ignored, which tends to highlight the latter theory.
Systemic government corruption IS the bigger picture here. The story of the FCC and its corrupt leader is merely another chapter in the horrific book titled Threats to our Freedoms.
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Maybe they have an overly inflated view because they do not understand representative government and because of posts like yours. "The People" are no better at governing than a mob. If 'The People' really think the current government is so terrible then they should stop being irrelevant and run for office and become the change they want others to be.
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Or one can try and justify that the give-a-shit level of The People is at an all-time low because they've come to realize just how fucking irrelevant they truly are.
Maybe they have an overly inflated view because they do not understand representative government and because of posts like yours. "The People" are no better at governing than a mob. If 'The People' really think the current government is so terrible then they should stop being irrelevant and run for office and become the change they want others to be.
*Damn mornings and their coffee.
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"The People" are no better at governing than a mob.
Who do you suggest represent us other than ordinary people than that aren't incompetent and can rationally make decisions? Let's look at some of our choices:
- Politicians - some can't even form coherent sentences like George W. Bush and Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz in particular thought machine gun bacon made a good campaign advertisement. Sorry I don't see it there
- Roman Catholic Church or some other religious organization - Believing in delusional things that there isn't any evidence for and making decisions
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How was my post bitching and moaning? Are you trying to be a twat or does it just come natural for you?
If you are not a constituent of Cruz why is it your business that the people in his district elected him?
Do you have anything better to offer instead of insults and mob rule?
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Do you have anything better to offer instead of insults and mob rule?
You find facts insulting. That's adorable. Let us all know when you find your magical fairy forest filled with unicorns with your rose colored glasses and can demonstrate that it exists.
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You didn't post facts. You posted platitudes.
I guess you are naturally a twat.
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Being dismissive of the larger impact and what the future looks like isn't going to serve future generations well either.
Really, I'm being dismissive? Did you even read my post? I actually went further than net neutrality calling out the corporate corruption that is making the government be puppets on marionette strings not only with regard to Net Neutrality but in a lot of other areas as well and you call me dismissive of the big picture and not being concerned about our future as a country? Get out of here man.
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Being dismissive of the larger impact and what the future looks like isn't going to serve future generations well either.
Really, I'm being dismissive? Did you even read my post? I actually went further than net neutrality calling out the corporate corruption that is making the government be puppets on marionette strings not only with regard to Net Neutrality but in a lot of other areas as well and you call me dismissive of the big picture and not being concerned about our future as a country? Get out of here man.
You were dismissive because you didn't think this was a threat to our Freedoms. The destruction of Net Neutrality ultimately creates censorship. Information is power. THIS is the reason I was dismissive of your comments. We agree on so many levels, but I disagree with your impact here. Much like our founding fathers 200+ years ago, I'm not worried about impact now. I'm worried about impact 50+ years into the future.
Our Freedoms are important no matter the topic.
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You need to boil that into a bumper sticker (Score:2)
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Now I wonder.. how else might the people be able to compel the government to represent them?
By making a more representative government at the local level and state level before moving to the federal level. This can be done by voting in individuals who will pass laws to enable elections that are more fair and thus result in a more representative government. It will take work and time but it's the only sane way to get lasting reform. Violence solves nothing.
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It is literally a threat to some freedoms you take for granted on the internet, right now for example. You don't get this, we know.
I'm talking about the claim that Ajit Pai represents a "threat to our freedoms". I think that's sensationalist mumbo jumbo and not talking about what Ajit Pai is really guilty of. This type of talk is like a a little kid going to a parent and stamping their feet and screaming "Bobby is being mean to me! He's really mean and he's just super mean to everybody and someone shouldn't be allowed to do that." and of course the parent asks, "Why do you think Bobby is being mean?" to understand what the real clai
SubjectIsSubject (Score:5, Insightful)
All Year
A Couple Weeks Before NN Vote
A Week After Vote
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Only $5.99 to access this site?
I've been asking for a good while for an actual example of this, but thus far nobody has been able to provide one. Can you?
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Well, prior to all this, when Comcast was subjecting users to 250GB limits, they decided that if you used the Comcast video on demand service to stream your shows, it didn't count against your 250GB allotment.
I believe AT&T did the same a little earlier as well.
After regulations came into force, mobile carriers were excluded because they made a convinc
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Well, prior to all this, when Comcast was subjecting users to 250GB limits, they decided that if you used the Comcast video on demand service to stream your shows, it didn't count against your 250GB allotment.
I believe AT&T did the same a little earlier as well.
You mean a provider's LAN costs less per unit of data at a given speed than its WAN, and they're able to pass on that savings to customers? Knock me over with a feather. Clearly that sort of oppression must be stopped so everyone can pay full price for every bit that enters their home.
because what's the point of "network management' if you're just going to make it so someone on a 1GB plan or less can stream Netflix 24/7, while someone who does YouTube needs to pay up?
If NetFlix colocates a server on the ISP's LAN, then yes, Virginia -- that's a completely different value proposition for them than having to budget and pay for external bandwidth. I take it you'd prefer regulation that pre
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Portuguese ISPs are already charging people extra each month on top of their base rate [boingboing.net] if those customers want unfettered access to popular sites. It was even reported here [slashdot.org] just a few weeks ago. The only reason someone with an account at Slashdot, such as yourself, wouldn't be aware of these sorts of examples is if you're intentionally burying your head in the sand.
Now, if you're asking for a US-specific example, you won't find them, because—despite the false narrative to the contrary—net neutra
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Portuguese ISPs are already charging people extra each month on top of their base rate [boingboing.net] if those customers want unfettered access to popular sites. It was even reported here [slashdot.org] just a few weeks ago.
And that misreported/deliberately skewed nonsense was soundly [slashdot.org] debunked [slashdot.org] in the comments to that very article, as well as in the comments to the original Twitter post linked in the article. That Portuguese model doesn't block the sites at issue at all, but simply allows you to pay extra to exempt certain services from your account's bandwidth cap. That has jack to do with outright blocking access to sites sans an extra charge (as OP posited) or even treating different traffic differently on their network --
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ISP's own the pipe (Score:2)
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They spent the money to develop the fiber optics high speed "pipes". Why is it the governments business what speed, or how they control it? If someone doesn't like it, develop their own pipe?
With the amount of corruption and influence already in place by those in control, what in the hell makes you think the incumbents will play fair with anyone who wants to stand up and develop their "own pipe"?!?
If you really want to know how that bullshit will work out, take a look at the history of failed CLECs.
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For the same reason I can't start my own power company because I don't like the local utility services. I can't just start dropping poles into public right of way.
Without "net neutrality of power" the power company could charge you more to run your oven because they want you to eat out. That sort of seems ludicrous to any rational person. Kilowatts is kilowatts and I should be able to power whatever I want with them. Note there are "setbacks" that you can opt-in with the power company. They will chang
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Because just like the electric company, or the water works, they're acting like public utilities and should be treated as such. There's no competition...they are virtual local monopolies.
Re: ISP's own the pipe (Score:2)
Because that pipe is on government granted easements, and operated under government regulation, and subsidised by government?
They should be thrilled we are only asking them to treat all traffic the same.
You deserve it (Score:2, Insightful)
I am sure I will get flamed for this, but to be honest, Americans deserve to lose their Internet freedom. The vast majority are unwilling to lift a finger to protect it. Most are unwilling to take an active roll in their political system to the point where someone like Donald Freaken Trump got elected to POTUS. I borderline retarded sociopath of a TV personality.
That the heck did people think would happen?
So, yes, you deserve to lose the internet. You deserve to lose your health care coverage. You deserve t
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The problem is that SOME Americans need to have their noses rubbed in shit to understand they're soiling their own nest. The rest of 'em just get to enjoy the health risks even if they're actively trying to prevent the situation.
Beyond that... damn it, you shouldn't have to spend all your free time trying to stop assholes from ruining your life. Politicians are there to handle things for you, so you can do your job instead of theirs... and they're all dropping the ball.
Don't forget, it's the party that ch
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Facebook and Amazon ... (Score:2)
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What happened to Vonage? You know, the one nobody would touch because you could never tell if Comcast or Verizon would block it on any given month and cut you off from 911 service.
Another interview with Pai (Score:2, Insightful)
Pai also sat down with Reason a few months ago to discuss his goals as FCC chairman and his argument for reversing the Open Internet Order. You can see that interview here [youtube.com].
But Slashdot is doing a disservice conflating two issues here. Submitters' abuse of the online comment process has nothing to do with the propriety of reversing the last chairman's effort to regulate the internet.
It needs to be emphasized loudly: regulatory bodies are not democratic. Congress is the place where representatives hash out th
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You know what else is not democratic? An FCC chairman who decides to ignore millions of complaints because they didn't fit his agenda. This isn't a matter of implementing a crystal clear law; it is fuzzy. This is a industry-captured regulatory body intentionally ignoring the intent of a law in order to hegemonize the Internet in favor of their benefactors.
One other thing, the notion that Congress is where every little detail about the implementation of a law gets hashed out is patently false. The CFR has be
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One other thing, the notion that Congress is where every little detail about the implementation of a law gets hashed out is patently false. The CFR has been around for something like 80 years. The nondelegation doctrine, as interpreted by the SCOTUS in 1928 only requires that Congress provide an "intelligible principle" to guide the executive branch. It would be ridiculous for the Congress to be expected to explain what is and isn't covered by copyright as new art forms arise, or which drugs should be approved, or how to best protect workers from benzene. They're too busy fundraising and running the country into the ground to actually explain their laws in detail.
Look at the ACA. It was what, a billion pages long? And even it left a bunch of questions to be answered by others. Can you imagine if they had tried to hash out every single detail?!
The buck stops with Congress. Anything being done under their authority is their responsibility.
This Problem WIll Sort Itself Out (Score:2)
AT&T will most likely own CNN, and Comcast owns MSNBC.
So when conservatives realise that Fox News, Breitbart, World Net Daily, and all the other right wing rags, aren't getting special treatment but MSNBC and CNN are, then they will bring back net neutrality. *shrug*
Just Signed (Score:2)
Thanks, I was #78203
Voted for the wrong guy (Score:3)
The best chance to keep Pai from doing damage to net neutrality was last November. As long as Trump is in the White House it is probably going to be difficult to keep net neutrality as the law of the land. Best hope right now is to use the courts to mitigate the damage and drag out the process until a new administration can be put in place and Pai can be replaced.
Yeah, because petitions *always* make a difference (Score:2)
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Because there are enough people like you who can't spend the 2 minutes it takes to sign, and yet post here complaining about it.
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"Only" interview? (Score:2)
Honest question about NN (Score:2)
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typical NPR interview (Score:2)
Anonymous (Score:1)
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Please. Let's stay civilized. Plucking a chicken is so cruel.
Just throw him in the tar pit and enjoy.
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Please. Let's stay civilized. Plucking a chicken is so cruel.
Just throw him in the tar pit and enjoy.
Infect him with plague, liquefy him, and use a crop sprayer to distribute him over Congress.
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nothing like injecting some good old fashion casual racism to really drive your point home... Good job!
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I'm normally the last person to defend Editor Dhavinder, but both words are totally cromulent.
If you have the vocabulary of a gastropod that's your problem.
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So either the urban dictionary has the vocabulary of a turnip or you're a really clumsy typist.