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The FCC plans to vote away net neutrality in December

ThisIsDaAccount

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Link. It hasn't been officially announced, it's been leaked from within the FCC They announced it on Tuesday, Nov. 21st.

I don't want to include a wordy main post, just wanted to hear what the Temp has to say on the matter.

For those wondering, here is what neutrality means:

"Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers and governments regulating most of the Internet must treat all data on the Internet the same, and not discriminate or charge differentially by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication.[1] For instance, under these principles, internet service providers are unable to intentionally block, slow down or charge money for specific websites and online content." -Wikipedia

Basically, it says that no one that gives you internet access can block parts of the internet for you or create incentives to use one service/site or the other by manipulating how it works in your connection.
 
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Yeahhhhhh F*CK that. Net neutrality should be a no-brainer. It's clear that getting rid of net neutrality only benefits the big companies, not we consumers. No one's buying the ISP's crap, saying that no net neutrality is going to be somehow better for us. I wish the internet can be classified a service like telephone networks so that we can be done with this nonsense. The internet should be open and free forever.
 

ThisIsDaAccount

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Yeahhhhhh F*CK that. Net neutrality should be a no-brainer. It's clear that getting rid of net neutrality only benefits the big companies, not we consumers. No one's buying the ISP's crap, saying that no net neutrality is going to be somehow better for us. I wish the internet can be classified a service like telephone networks so that we can be done with this nonsense. The internet should be open and free forever.
It currently is classified as Title 2, not far from phone service. That's what the vote is trying to get rid of, and with it would go net neutrality.

For context, ISPs used to be classified as Title 1, which is a looser regulation level. The FCC still had net neutrality rules though. Verizon sued in federal court, arguing that the FCC had no authority to maintain net neutrality under title 1. They won the lawsuit. The FCC then promptly gave a Verizon a big FU, and put them and every other ISP under Title 2.

The situation is different now, however. The FCC head is a former Verizon lawyer, so he'll do whatever they want.


That last part is my belief, but I think it's proven to be true.
 

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I believe personally that it shouldn't be revoked.

One argument you could make though is that if we did charge differently per platform/website, it would make it not as easy financially for Russia to interfere with the 2016 election. Yes, internet should be open and free, but from a security standpoint, it does make sense to limit it slightly.
 

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Honestly, I don't really care about it. Since the FCC can only enforce it in the US, the rest of the world will just keep going on with their lives, but less burdened by idiots (not all, just a ridiculously high %):P Though I can understand why people complain about it. Want to get support on this? Explain to the masses that they won't have access to porn anymore and watch support against the FCC rise instantly!
 
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The FCC head is a former Verizon lawyer, so he'll do whatever they want.
I hate this so much. Clearly the big and very vocal protests from consumers and lobbying from groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation shows support for net neutrality, yet the big companies (Verizon) basically have a man in their pocket. I mean, I know the FCC and all are quite useless in the face of lobbyists, but for something as major as the internet, I wish just once they'd really do what's right for the consumer. Things were going so well, too, with the Title 2 classification n' all.
 

ThisIsDaAccount

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Thanks for posting that video, I watched the entire thing just now and I enjoyed it. There are a couple of points I'd like to argue against though.

1) Ron Paul expresses fears that increased government regulation of the net will favor the big companies and decrease competition.
The big thing I think we have to keep in mind is thst the current FCC is in bed with big ISPs, just like he feared. Ajit Pai went to the FCC from Verizon, one of the big players the FCC was made to regulate. It's no secret he's sympathetic to them, he's very much been public about that. However, in this case, decreased regulation would benefit monopolies the most. If we lived in a perfectly competitive system, we wouldn't even need net neutrality because we'd just switch to our ISP's competitor if they started to take advantage of us. The reason net neutrality is relevant is because we already have monopolies in the market. The cellular data market is dominated by less than 10 companies, and the broadband market basically has just two players- Time Warner and Comcast. To expand on that last point, you probsbly only have one or the other in your area. Thsts because they've basically agreed not to compete with each other. It's not a possibility that monoplities might pop up, its reality - they're already here. Net neutrality just limits what they can do while they control the markets.
With that in mind, the current FCC's goal is to just let them do whatever they want. Ajit Pai has said publicly thst he considers an area's ISP market sufficiently competitive if there's one broadband ISP around. That's not competition, that's the textbook definition of a monopoly. Repealing net neutrality is just a step towards the current FCC's goal of letting monopolies roam free.

2) Ron Paul argues that the cost of regulation might be passed on to the consumer, stifling access to technology, or that net neutrality would decrease incentive to innovate/compete.
There are public recordings of ISP companies telling their shareholders (to whom they're legally accountable) that they wouldn't decrease investment or face significant costs over net neutrality. I'd go over the point myself, but they did it for me.

3) He's afraid of increasing government control over content.
That's the exact opposite of what's happening here. In this day and age, government isn't the only one that regulate content. Without net neutrality, the ones who regulate what content gets to you are the ISPs, and they could, for example, remove your access to anti-Comcast or anti-Verizon sites. In case you haven't noticed, that's analogous to the example Ron Paul uses where the government stifles criticism of the patriot Act. Net neutrality isn't an example of the government doing that, it's a case where the government is stopping ISPs from doing that.
TLDR of 3, the government isn't regulating content. It's stopping other people from doing that.

4) He's afraid of draconian laws being used in the modern age,
This is the trickiest one, and I'd argue it's a very valid concern. Old laws can cause new harm, without a doubt. It's just that in this case, which is a very special case due to the monopolistic characteristics of the ISP market, we need some regulation to help limit what a monopoly can do. If we draft new legislation, we get exactly the case that he described, where the people that write laws are in bed with the ones those laws are trying to regulate. With that in mind, we need some legal footing, and that's why we're using old and outdated laws. It's a stupid way to do it, but I can't think of a better way.


In all honestly, Ron Paul is applying sound principles in his arguments, but he's not taking into account the current state of affairs in the ISP market. It doesn't help either that, since this was written, the FCC has gotten a new leader that is the poster boy of monopolistic government practices.
 
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The people who are are voting or wanting to let the FCC get away with this, yeah f*ck you all. I hate the FCC, and Verizon. If Net Neutrality goes under, well, I just hope whoever is responsible get an ass whooping.
I hope there's some kind of mass protest like back in 2012 with SOPA/PIPA where major internet sites blacked themselves out to stop anti-net neutrality regulation from passing. I certainly won't stand for no net neutrality.
 

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I hope there's some kind of mass protest like back in 2012 with SOPA/PIPA where major internet sites blacked themselves out to stop anti-net neutrality regulation from passing. I certainly won't stand for no net neutrality.

Oh there will be backlash for sure.
 
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There needs to be a revolt against all these companies. First Comcast and ATT force data caps, then they skew and play favoritism with certain sites willing to bow down and pay the toll for the "speed lane".

But then, what can you do? You can't really vote with your wallet, unless people would mass rather have no internet, which is the most unlikely thing. It's not 2009 anymore, and living without internet is a huge deal.

The only thing left to do is protest it, and that's going nowhere. These big companies are going to keep doing what they want and just steamroll over all the people.

It comes to a point where you need smaller companies allowing for more freedom in the market, but Comcast-NBC/TWC/ATT-SBC are such large corporate monsters, it's near impossible.

Then you've got Google trying to bring gigabit internet access to people at a snails pace, which doesn't help either because they've proven as a company that they're okay with censorship and letting the big dogs do whatever they want. We got lucky with SOPA/PIPA, but unless we get a miracle, things look bleak.
 

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I hope there's some kind of mass protest like back in 2012 with SOPA/PIPA where major internet sites blacked themselves out to stop anti-net neutrality regulation from passing. I certainly won't stand for no net neutrality.

This reminds me of a story my grandma told me when I was a kid:
Once upon a time there lived a wolf and a bear in a dense forest. One day, they found a a great deer, and killed it together. But the bear wanted it all to himself, so he attacked the wolf, and told him that if he ever came back, he'd kill him for good.

The wolf wandered alone in the forest, and eventually, he found the deer's children. He ate every single one, but instead of stopping there, he went on to hunt more and more, so he was never hungry. The bear stayed in the same spot, hoping for another deer to appear again, but none did, and he starved.

tl;dr if something doesn't work for you, you move on to find something better. The same will happen here. People will be upset and will switch to other services.
 
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the_randomizer

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This reminds me of a story my grandma told me when I was a kid:
Once upon a time there lived a wolf and a bear in a dense forest. One day, they found a a great deer, and killed it together. But the bear wanted it all to himself, so he attacked the wolf, and told him that if he ever came back, he'd kill him for good.

The wolf wandered alone in the forest, and eventually, he found the deer's children. He ate every single one, but instead of stopping there, he went on to hunt more and more, so he was never hungry. The bear stayed in the same spot, hoping for another deer to appear again, but none did, and he starved.

tl;dr if something doesn't work for you, you move on to find something better. The same will happen here. People will be upset and will switch to other services.

Not when there are no other good ISPs in the area, we can't.
 

ThisIsDaAccount

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This reminds me of a story my grandma told me when I was a kid:
Once upon a time there lived a wolf and a bear in a dense forest. One day, they found a a great deer, and killed it together. But the bear wanted it all to himself, so he attacked the wolf, and told him that if he ever came back, he'd kill him for good.

The wolf wandered alone in the forest, and eventually, he found the deer's children. He ate every single one, but instead of stopping there, he went on to hunt more and more, so he was never hungry. The bear stayed in the same spot, hoping for another deer to appear again, but none did, and he starved.

tl;dr if something doesn't work for you, you move on to find something better. The same will happen here. People will be upset and will switch to other services.
This *may* be possible in the case of cellular service, because there's several providers. In terms of broadband (modern home internet) however, there's either Comcast or Time Warner, but never both because they don't compete in the same places.

If Comcast or Time Warner start saying, example, that they don't want people access GBATemp, then that's that, because there's no other significant competitors to switch to. There's no option of moving on to a better service.
 

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This *may* be possible in the case of cellular service, because there's several providers. In terms of broadband (modern home internet) however, there's either Comcast or Time Warner, but never both because they don't compete in the same places.

If Comcast or Time Warner start saying, example, that they don't want people access GBATemp, then that's that, because there's no other significant competitors to switch to. There's no option of moving on to a better service.

Don't worry about Gbatemp. It's not a big site like reddit. Also, if there's demand, someone will offer.
 

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