Net Neutrality

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Net Neutrality

Post by Nano »

https://www.battleforthenet.com/

Net Neutrality is an incredibly important part of our freedom of speech. Please don't let the FCC take it away from us. Do your part and contact your representatives and tell them to vote against ending net neutrality.
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by Coty »

The end of net neutrality is the end of the internet as it stands and the beginning of a dystopia.
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by Rajikaru »

I did a call earlier this year, I think summer? And I plan on showing my support now too.

It does warm my heart, however, just how many people are fighting for the right of net neutrality.
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by chaoadventures »

Image

please
Image


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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by EvilPinkamina »

Shame all this fighting will be incredibly unlikely to have an effect on Pai's actions.
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by Nano »

If you get a chance

Ajit Pai - Ajit.Pai@fcc.gov
Michael O'Rielly - Mike.ORielly@fcc.gov
Brendan Carr - Brendan.Carr@fcc.gov

Please send emails to these people!

Here's a copy paste you can send to all three of them at once.
Spoiler:
Everyone on the FCC roster: Ajit, Mignon, Mike, Brendan, Jessica,
Please do not repeal net neutrality! This proceeding has no benefit for consumers across the U.S.; rather, this only benefits the Telecom giants by handing over monopolistic advantages to them.
Ajit, your philosophy is that the free market will better serve U.S. citizens than a managed regulated market. This is a fine sentiment, but as you must know from your studies of economics, de-regulation only works when you have perfect competition: when numerous small firms compete against one another. What we have is an Oligopoly, where a few large firms dominate the market. To boot, they have geographical monopolies wherein only they are allowed by law to serve certain cities and locations! De-regulation will only serve to encourage these companies to abandon innovation and efficiency to win customers in favor of simply gouging customers who have no choice but to buy their product. How is this in any way American? How does this benefit the American people you are tasked with protecting?
Internet is a necessity in today's world; to communicate effectively with our families, friends, business associates, and representatives, we use the greatest invention humankind has yet procured. We are able to share thoughts and ideas across not only our vast continent, but with the rest of our fellow humans as well. We have seen mathematical problems that were previously thought to be unsolvable subsequently solved after hundreds of thousands of people worked together to help find a solution. We are witnessing scientific and technological advancements today that only a decade ago were thought to be the works of fiction, because we are able to share our information freely and with ease.
I implore each and every one of you to consider the American people, and the ethics that we as a country wish to stand for. We should not be viewed - internally and externally - as a country run by profit. This is the land of the free, home of the brave, where our people are encouraged to innovate and invent in a country that protects its people and shows the world our potential. Not just this country's potential, or even its citizens', but the potential of human-kind itself.
Show that we choose innovation and freedom over endless greed. Vote No on repealing net neutrality.
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Re: Net Neutrality

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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by Nano »

It's expected, but I still don't think that should stop people from sending emails in to the FCC. The FCC is, after all, just one cog in this machine trying to end net neutrality. Send an email to them, even if they aren't going to read them. Send an email to your congress representative. Do whatever you can, even if you don't think it's gonna do anything. The FCC may not be reading our messages, but that doesn't mean we're simply going to stop. That's what they want, they want us to stop so they're telling us they're not going to listen to us. We just gotta make our voices even louder to the point where they HAVE to listen to us. That means sending messages to the FCC, to Congress, to the media, to content creators, etc. Even if they aren't read, you can bet the sheer numbers will be enough to send our message regardless. You can ignore a few emails about it, but thousands with the same subject will show a message that'll never have to be read.
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by Triert »

I'd also like to make a comment regarding the image of portugal that's been circulating.

I talked with someone from portugal itself who also has the same internet service that's been seen in the image that's been circulating, on top of that I've also seen misinformation spread that portugal has no net neutrality because of this image. Portugal, being a member of the EU does indeed have NN laws, the image you've seen is nothing more than additional data you can buy. This exists here in the USA as well.

it's important to stop the spread of misinformation, it will compromise the integrity of net neutrality.
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

While I won't deny the importance of Net Neutrality, I have to question what the incentive for the average ISP to abuse it is. Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems like a lot of work to throttle/block specific high-bandwidth activities when existing speed tiers and data caps mean only the fastest/highest cap plans don't already cripple these activities. Sure, most corporate executives have no scruples when it comes to increasing the bottom line, but most of the worst predictions of a world without net neutrality sound more like evil for evil's sake than evil for profit's sake. The pre-existing problem of most non-mobile ISPs having localized monopolies or a data cap high enough to not make using Wi-Fi at every opportunity costing a small fortune seem like far more pressing issues in this arena.
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by Triert »

should we talk about the municipal governments and their exclusive contracts with certain providers while we're at it?
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by EvilPinkamina »

It's really not that difficult for companies to do it BECAUSE many non-mobile ISPs have localized monopolies and have lobbied/written anti-competitive laws through local governments. In an area with comcast, you can't just switch to a different provider because in a majority of the country, there is no other alternative.

Spoiler Tag of major examples of exploitation before Net Neutrality. (Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/c ... r/dq61ar0/ )
Spoiler:
Also for anyone who tells you that "Net Neutrality is solving a problem that doesn't exist"... or anything along those lines:

Here's a brief history on what the internet companies were doing that triggered Net Neutrality to be put in place:

MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today.

COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.

TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites.

AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.

WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results.

MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices.

PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites.

AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing.

EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affected at least one in five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email were commonplace.

VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Verizon violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction.

AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T’s own products.

VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC in 2013, judges asked whether the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over others if the court overruled the agency’s existing open internet rules. Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: “I’m authorized to state from my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of arrangements.” Walker’s admission might have gone unnoticed had she not repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments.

Source has links to each case where you can read the legal documents about it: https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/ ... ef-history
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by Triert »

Net Neutrality laws aren't protecting us, they're only protecting big companies from having to pay more for the bandwidth they consume.

Even if NN stays, the price of our internet rises instead of big companies paying more.
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by Nano »

Either way prices are going up. The only difference here is that freedom of speech isn't going to be shattered as a result of having to pay more for faster internet.

After we handle NN and get it saved forever, we need to work on busting up the monopoly internet providers have over the United States.
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by Rajikaru »

Nano wrote: Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:00 am After we handle NN and get it saved forever, we need to work on busting up the monopoly internet providers have over the United States.
I don't know about y'all, but I'm just planning on moving to Canada or the UK when I have enough money. The US isn't worth all the **** going on.
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by Triert »

Twitter censored the woman who made accusations against Harvey Weinstein.

We don't have any freedom of speech, not only that we're dealing with private companies who have no incentive to uphold it.
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Re: Net Neutrality

Post by EvilPinkamina »

"Freedom of speech" only refers to congress's ability to pass laws barring freedom of speech, and generally most public places. The amendment that gives us freedom of speech is literally worded "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Even in this case, there are instances where freedom of speech isn't a legitimate defense, such as when your speech endangers the lives of other people (yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, "bomb" in an airport, etc. etc.).

However, in twitter's case, it, like all websites, is classified as a private entity. Private companies don't have to host your ******** if they don't want to, in the same way that you don't have to host someone else's ******** if they come into your house and start saying ****.

This SHOULD be done by an act of congress, but honestly, its unlikely anyone in congress knows **** about net neutrality. The anti-competitive ******** laws put in place by major companies should be cracked down on by the FTC, but they're off ****** around who knows where. The FCC's classification of the internet as title 2 communications and regulating internet service providers as common carriers is effectively the last line of defense against total victory of corporate greed.
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