Net Neutrality -

[Hellsperger]

This thread is dedicated to @Internet War Criminal . He claims to be against Net Neutrality, which I find very odd. So, let's discuss this topic.

Long story short, A Google search defines Net Neutrality as

the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.

Lloyd Kaufman of Troma talks a bit about Net Neutrality here:

Some links:

The Presidential candidates on Net Neutrality (Basically, the Dems are for it, and the GOPs are against it)

This guy is kinda a sperg, but he takes an iconoclastic look at the situation.

Net Neutrality is number 6 on this list of the 15 biggest Internet controversies of the decade.

Here are some other articles on Net Neutrality out there (this is from that nutjob Alex Jones's site, but look at the comments)

 

[Zeorus]

Anybody who posts on Kiwifarms while being against net neutrality is a massive hypocrite as net neutrality is largely what protects smaller websites (like KF) from being made virtually inaccessible by ISPs.

 

[AnOminous]

If ISPs are going to be treated like common carriers, they should have to act like them.

 

[Joan Nyan]

ISPs have every right to filter content however they want to. I don't want them to, but they should be allowed to do whatever they want.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

There is nothing in the world today that is as based on the Free Market as the Internet. The idea that government regulation will make it better is absolutely retarded. The idea that it will stop websites like KF from being accessible is retarded.

Why is Net Neutrality a terrible idea? Here it is, summed up

First of all, the internet already had standards to prevent fuckery to happen. It's always been loosely regulated thanks to the IETF and the Internet Society. This is why not being able to access KF or other niche websites without Net Neutrality is so ridiculous. We never had Net Neutrality before and it had never been a problem, and it would have not been a problem. Anyone who tried to throttle down connections, another company would have popped up and said 'Hey we don't do that shit!' and people would have flocked to them.

Oh, and also, it never happened before. Saying we needed Net Neutrality to prevent it is like saying we need a special government fence hindering our movement to protect us from tiger attacks in Siberia. You know, even if there has never been a single fucking tiger attack and there is no reason to believe there ever would be one.

Why fix something that wasn't broken? One trillion dollars have been pumped in the internet with almost zero government. That's not because the government wanted it that way, it's because the courts ruled against it a few times.

Do you remember how shitty the internet was 10 years ago? Do you see how fucking awesome it is today? You think more government regulations would have helped innovation? It wouldn't. Government regulation is what kills progress and innovation it never helps or does better than the private sector. It will make it harder for people to invest, it will choke the growth of the internet and will prevent innovations. We've essentially kneecapped progress in technology thanks to it, and the further tightening grip the government has on the Internet. You think they will stop at NN? Soon, there will be taxes on internet sales too. Shit like Uber will stop being convenient and just as bad as regular taxis. Tons of apps will have to stop due to internet regulations.

Now that the Internet is classified as a common carrier service it doesn't help the consumer but it helps Comcast and others to do tiered pricing and fuck us over while not making their service better. Forget about paying a flat fee and getting all you want. Now that the internet is basically a utility, it will be like gas, water or electricity: you will end up being charged for what you use. Forget about streaming Netflix 8 hours a day every day and not seeing a change in your bill.

Right now there are cellphone companies who are offering plans where your data for websites like Netflix, youtube etc.. doesn't count as far as your bill. Well thanks to Net Neutrality they have to go to court to determine if that shit is even legal and if they can continue to offer it. The answer which will most likely be 'no' since it's not neutrality by definition.

So yeah now the customer is suffering and can't even benefit from deals that are great because its not 'neutral enough'.

Now that Net Neutrality has been installed, we're stuck with the fucking government fence. What does it mean? It means that the government has to install software and possibly even hardware in order to monitor internet traffic. With the NSA scandals and Snowden, you trust the US government to have an even tighter grip over the internet? What happens if the US goes from Republic to Dictatorship? The government already has all the tools in place to fuck us over the way Iran did to its citizens in 2009 and spy on us in a way that even before had not been possible.

Even without going that far, the Government has already showed it has the intention to regulate more content online. So if Hate Speech starts being regulated online thanks to Net Neutrality mandates and loopholes, you think websites like KiwiFarms will be allowed to stand?




So killing innovation, opening the door to taxes and censorship on top of government spying more on citizens and hurting customers by slashing their services and making them pay more. What a great deal!

 

[Hellsperger]

Do you remember how shitty the internet was 10 years ago? Do you see how fucking awesome it is today?

Actually, the USA's internet speed is pretty slow compared to other countries.

 

[DuskEngine]

Zero-rating services were banned here in February as part of a major backlash against Facebook's Free Basics service. I don't think that sort of deal should be considered equivalent to traffic shaping or IP differentiation.

It means that the government has to install software and possibly even hardware in order to monitor internet traffic.

There are publicly available tools to test traffic shaping like Wireshark or you can just set up a Raspberry Pi as a packet sniffer.

Why would the government prohibitively monitor a consumer-interest issue like that instead of waiting for the consumer to raise the issue with the relevant body? Why would they go to the trouble of pre-emptively monitoring people's traffic?

The NSA already has XKEYSCORE running, why would the FCC (which would presumably administer Net Neutrality-related issues) set up a parallel packet capture system necessary to run a surveillance infrastructure that pretends to be a consumer interest body?

The surveillance genie is out of the bag dude. If the NSA can read my fucking emails and I'm not even American I don't really give a shit if they know about my ISP throttling torrents lol

 

[Internet War Criminal]

Actually, the USA's internet speed is pretty slow compared to other countries.

Gee, how could that be? Could it be because America is almost bigger than continental Europe and people are spread all over the country in the middle of nowhere so people living in podunk Alabama are driving down the average speed of the country?

85% of households in America have access to a 100mbps if they want to. Most people don't opt for that because if you live in a tiny shack in Alaska its gonna cost you a lot more than if you live in Helsinki and everyone is living in tiny apartments in the same cities because your country is small as fuck

Why would the government prohibitively monitor a consumer-interest issue like that instead of waiting for the consumer to raise the issue with the relevant body? Why would they go to the trouble of pre-emptively monitoring people's traffic?

... have you never read anything about the government, like, ever?

 

[DuskEngine]

... have you never read anything about the government, like, ever?

Still, my point stands. If the FCC releases Free! Net Neutrality Monitoring Tools, then the people who download government spyware when free privacy-preserving alternatives exist have it coming.

And the NSA and other letter agencies are already putting backdoors into all the hardware they can get their paws on. Routers, phones, hard disks, firewalls, you name it.

The people demanding backdoor access to iPhones are the FBI, not the FCC. The people talking shit about end-to-end encryption are all FBI or DoJ cronies.

I'm not denying that things are kinda dire but I don't reasonably see how net neutrality would result in this battle becoming any more lost than it already is.

 

[AnOminous]

If I'm sold Internet access and I get anything but that, or get deliberately defective service, my money is being fucking stolen and the people doing it are thieves. Period.

 

[Hellsperger]

First of all, the internet already had standards to prevent fuckery to happen. It's always been loosely regulated thanks to the IETF and the Internet Society.

What about the EFF?

I'll point out that the Save The Internet people have been very displeased with the way the Obama administration has handled Net Neutrality.

 

[DuskEngine]

If I'm sold Internet access and I get anything but that, or get deliberately defective service, my money is being fucking stolen and the people doing it are thieves. Period.

The reason I'm fine with zero-rating and not traffic shaping or IP differentiation is that enabling preferential access to a certain service isn't fundamentally anti-consumer in the same way that blocking or restricting access to competing services is.

Plus literally giving people free data is an excellent way to encourage connectivity in a developing country.

The Wikimedia Foundation also runs a zero-rated services package and I am 100% in support of that, so I can't in good faith be against Free Basics, even if it is run by Facebook.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

If I'm sold Internet access and I get anything but that, or get deliberately defective service, my money is being fucking stolen and the people doing it are thieves. Period.

If you are buying a service they advertise and they give you something else, they are thieves. If you are getting what they advertised, you're an idiot for complaining its not what you wanted

What about the EFF?

Soros-funded left-wing agitators who have gone way off the deep end in the last 5-6 years and have put politics before principles

They did some good things in the past, and they will do other good things in the future I'm sure, but I do not trust them and they've supported tons of bullshit, such as NN.

 

[AnOminous]

If you are buying a service they advertise and they give you something else, they are thieves. If you are getting what they advertised, you're an idiot for complaining its not what you wanted

The other choice is no Internet at all. So fuck that noise.

 

[Hellsperger]

Is "Net Neutrality" as meaningless a label as "Feminist"? Because I'm not sure if Internet War Criminal is talking about the dictionary definition of Net Neutrality in my OP.

 

[Big_Boss]

If you are buying a service they advertise and they give you something else, they are thieves. If you are getting what they advertised, you're an idiot for complaining its not what you wanted

Problem is that a lot of states in the US, especially the suburbs, have very few internet options. In my area we only have 3 choices, Comcast and AT&T and some other company that's very expensive. All of them are terrible and have fucked me over many times, even when I call them up.

This is ridiculous, I should be getting very high internet speeds for what I pay. Instead I'm getting something that rivals dial up sometimes. They advertise high internet speeds when I signed up for all 3 of them, it's awful.

 

[Hellsperger]

And now the EU is asking people for input on Net Neutrality laws.

 

[Shokew]

Sorry to necro this, but now that we have a GOP - Dominated Congress in power, ca we expect this whole Net Neutrality thing to be no more??