The Furry Forums
Furry Chat => General => Topic started by: Bricket on December 15, 2017, 01:35:25 AM
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Are you for or against net neutrality?
And why do you have this opinion?
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I was in favor for net neutrality, because I just didn't feel the reasons for it's repeal were really valid.
I am also quite displeased with the outcome of today's vote not just because of the repeal but also because of principles. I found it pretty sad to see the ignoring of the overwhelming public outcry against the repeal by certain members of the Fcc and pressing on with just that blatant disregard for the people.
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Net nuetrality is an absolute necessity in america. Ensuring all websites are treated equally allows the internet to "flow" without being pre-censored or pre-determined by another group. You want to visit TFF? go ahead Facebook? go ahead. Reddit, Go ahead. 4chan? Not sure why you would want to, but sure.
without net nuetrality, many big sites will end up being put in one of two boats. Either they will tell the consumer "Pay extra, or you will be put on a slow lane for this site" (Read: The website will be UNUSABLE) Or, they will go to the site owners directly and say "Pay us, or all our customers will be unable to use your site." Due to the way american ISPs have a monopoly, users will have no choice but to pay these higher rates, and sites will be forced to choose between being extorted, or losing their American user-base. Smaller websites will HOPEFULLY be untouched, but the possibility of the basic deals on purchasing internet only including "the big names" is fully possible. effectively forcing you to pay extra if you go to obscure sites (like say... the furry forums.)
Oh, and all adult sites will end up universally being heavily throttled. as supporting adult content is eeeeevil, and no general ISP will want to be seen doing it.
But thats not the worst part. the worst part is that most information many people have about the world comes from the internet. We know about net-neutrality in large part, because the internet talks about it. Trumps twitter account is (For better or worse) a major source of information about what happens in the whitehouse. Every newspaper, every news show, has a website.
Now imagine if I was in charge of comcast, and being a socialist hippy, I decided to block all rightwing news-sources.
Or if you prefer, imagine I am a rightwing Nazi who decided to block all left wing media.
America just gave complete control of the flow of information into the hands of cooperations who are KNOWN to be corrupt, unreliable, amoral, unethical. And those companies now have the potential power to select which parts of the internet american's can view.
They can shape which voices are heard, and which ones are seen as being stigmitized. Effectively many peoples political and social views will be open to manipulation by american ISPs.
It won't happen next year, or even in 3 years. but the fact the posibility is there honestly terrifies me.
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I wanted to say something about this, but Angder litterally took the entire figurative cake, soo I'm just going to say: GG, overthere...
The only thing I think is left to be said involves this:
Net Neutrality now forces that every website should be treated the same.
That means that the simple webblog that has 50 visitors a month should be treated the same as Facebook, this means that this simple webblog has to pay the same amount as Facebook which makes no sense.
Isn't it normal tha thte biggest users of internet space should pay more than this simple webblog?
Isn't this already how the internet works?
The big site uses more data, and thus, needs to buy a higher speed internet connection, or bigger server rooms?
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I wanted to say something about this, but Angder litterally took the entire figurative cake, soo I'm just going to say: GG, overthere...
The only thing I think is left to be said involves this:
Net Neutrality now forces that every website should be treated the same.
That means that the simple webblog that has 50 visitors a month should be treated the same as Facebook, this means that this simple webblog has to pay the same amount as Facebook which makes no sense.
Isn't it normal tha thte biggest users of internet space should pay more than this simple webblog?
Isn't this already how the internet works?
The big site uses more data, and thus, needs to buy a higher speed internet connection, or bigger server rooms?
No, they still pay the same amount of money more or less.
Net Neutrality means every site has to be treated the same: big users = small users, you could literally make a site called "drain the net" where people can download massive files with the only goal to slow the infrastructure yet this site should be treated the same as the smallest site.
At this point Facebook more or less pays relatively the same amount as a very small site does, getting rid of net neutrality means that this smaller site either keeps paying the some amount or a bit less and will have to pay more if more people visit it.
Facebook on the other hand will have to pay more since they use more of this infrastructure.
Isn't it weird how Facebook and all other big sites/infrastructure users are against repealing NN?
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Well, I guess it would make sense, but is it just?
Let's say you build your own website, just for amusement, and completely in your free time, and a handfull of people visit your website. But, suddenly, your website starts becoming more active, and there's an X amount of more people visiting your website.
Would you think that it'd be right that you would have to pay the Y amount of more money to [Insert whoever it is website owners pay money to]?
You can't controll how many people come onto your website, and neither can the people visiting it.
Just imagine asking your websites users to please not visit your website in such numbers, because it's too expensive for you...
Net neutrality, in this case would not only ensure that you don't have to pay more money for more people using your website, but it would also ensure that the larger website does not interfere with your smaller website, and vice-versa.
If both websites being used at the same time hampers the preformance of the ISP's service, then the ISP would simply have to work on a better infrastructure, or suffer the consequence of having less costumers satisfied by your service, wich would lead to lower income, or lower prices for the service.
This, in turns, (I think, I'm not super good in economics) would then encourage competition between the ISP's, rather than encourage cartel formations, wich, don't you think it's funny on why all ISP companies are in against NN?
If large websites, like facebook, would have to pay more money than small websites, then I believe that this number would have to be based on the companies' revenue, rather than it's visitor count.
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Also for the people going crazy:
(https://scontent-bru2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/25289572_2020610364823535_6309322627932554020_n.jpg?oh=47da390ecedec53b4569b427bdf3c091&oe=5AD7B013)
It's normal that the biggest user pays more than the smallest user.
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just fyi
congress over there still can block it but everyone thinks this is a giant panic situation when it can be blocked (exactly like the courts did with the travel ban and can do again)
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I'm not really American, so I don't know, but didn't the USA not have nn until recently? I'm not too sure why everyone is making such a big deal to the point of wanting to suicide, but I also agree that it was probably not smart for the FCC to go against what 83% of the population wanted. **please don't get upset with me, I'm not American and I genuinely don't know much about this stuff**
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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Yeah, don't worry, I'm a Dutchie, soo I'm not too close on it either, but yes, according to wiki, net neutrality did only become a thing in the US since 2015...
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It became a thing in reaction to Verizon being found throttling Netflix even AFTER Netflix paid for a fast lane. Basically, it became formalized after people started abusing the lack of regulation.
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Really it's hard to see how repealing net neutrality benefits anyone with the exception of the ISP cable companies, from the individual, small business and even big businesses, it's why almost every company that exists is against them.
I mean, most people have been focusing on the individual aspect, how it affects us so I don't think I need to tread too much on about it. You'll probably have to pay more money for the same services you get, you may end up getting faster access to some of your favourite websites at the expense of slower access to some of the smaller less used websites. And ISPs will have a lot more ability to block sites, especially torrenting sites and even competitor sites.
Bricket brings up a point that Facebook, Google and Microsoft are all pretty much against the repeal of net neutrality, especially the former 2, and there's a good reason for that. If an ISP starts to declare prioritization services so that a site can pay money to load faster, of course every big business will be forced to pay into that. What that means, overall, is that the big businesses have to pay ISPs more money then they would normally, which isn't a very fun thing to do, so obviously they're against it.
However, this also directly negatively affects small businesses too. We can assume a prioritization scheme would work similar to Google's search index scheme, the higher the cash you pay, the faster your site is relative to your competitors. A small business is never gonna be able to dish out the same amount of money a tech behemoth such as Google or Facebook can muster, so what this means is that all competing small businesses will inevitably load slower than big businesses. This harms their ability to compete, how can they grow if no one is even gonna go to them in the first place because their sites load, comparitively, slower? In a world that's already ruled by tech monopolies, is it something we really wanna continue to foster. I read in the nyt a tech expert coin an interesting phrase which I somewhat agree with, "The internet is already dead, net neutrality just hastens the rot". Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, these people own the internet, but by subduing net neutrality, we'll be strengthening their hold.
So it doesn't benefit large businesses, it doesn't benefit small businesses and it doesn't benefit the individual, it only benefits ISPs directly. They claim some ridiculous arguments, that the fact net neutrality was a regulation, means that it inevitably stifles innovation, but innovation isn't necessarily a good thing and net neutrality literally stifles the bad innovative procedures, innovative procedures to gain more profit at the expense of the consumers. And also I need to quote bricket on something.
you could literally make a site called "drain the net" where people can download massive files with the only goal to slow the infrastructure yet this site should be treated the same as the smallest site.
See this is the kind of stuff that I feel pro-net neutrality people would be spreading, even though it actually makes no sense when you think about it. Infrastructure cannot be slowed down by a size of a file, it can be slowed down in two different ways.
1. If the people downloading the file were given preferential resources over those who didn't: Which is exactly what net neutrality avoids, the people downloading the file, no matter how big the file is, will still be allocating the same amount of resources that everyone else is allowed, so it won't drain resources from other people. (If it's a big file, it'll just take longer to download, rather than more taxing on the infrastructure) Ironically the repeal of net neutrality is exactly the thing that can allow a scenario like this to happen!
2. Everyone is downloading the file: Which is fine if everyone actually wanted to download the file, of course it's not fine if someone made malware that forced infected computers to download the file (in which case yes the infrastructure would be slowed down). But if that was the case then such connection would be illegal, and the former FCC laws already made special exceptions for illegal content (which is why ISPs can still ban illegal websites).
So like, it's that kind of stuff that seems to make sense, but in reality makes no sense. That's the kind of thing I feel the repeal net neutrality people would be promoting towards. In reality it's very hard to see how repealing net neutrality benefits people, the only people who seem to support it are people who either work or have worked for an ISP, or people who listen to those people.
EDIT: Also for the people who are saying that the NN laws haven't been in place in 2015, you are technically correct but there's more context you need to be aware of. It is true ISPs had the ability to throttle and block sites prior to 2015, but they never did use that, and when they did it was usually met with legal action. In 2014, however, there was a push for ISPs to actually start abusing the lack of net neutrality which is what motivated the obama era FCC to pass those restrictions in the first place.
The only reason the restrictions weren't in place prior to 2015 was because they didn't need to be in place, they were an unspoken rule. They were put in place as a reactionary response when ISPs decided they'd try and violate that unspoken rule. In Australia, we don't actually have right to speech, there is no official constitutional or legislative order or act that states that we have freedom of speech, but the only reason is because we've never really had to defend it, the courts generally all agree that freedom of speech exists. If however, a judge decided here decided that, no they'd rule that freedom of speech DOESN'T exist, then I'm 100% sure the parliment would quickly pass legislation overriding that judges decision and saying "freedom of speech does in fact exist". Now, if that legislation was later repealed, that is still a cause of concern, even though Australia had run fine without a freedom of speech legislation for so long. The climate had changed to make having a freedom of speech legislation necessary.
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Eerhmm, Anoni, I'm not shure, but might it be possible that you're mixing up the term of "net neutrality" in a few places?
Just to make shure, "net neutrality" = all internet traffic being treated equally.
I feel like, though your arguments make perfect sense, you're mixing the term "net neutrality" with ISP's getting the freedom to throttle, block, and charge extra for scertain sites.
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To be clear my argument is for net neutrality, not against it. Sorry, when I use "Net neutrality" in my argument I sometimes refer to the whole scandal, I'll edit it to make it more clear.
What I'm saying is without net neutrality laws in place, ISPs will have the freedom to throttle, block and charge for certain sites because they no longer have to treat all traffic equally, they can prioritize some traffic over others. My argument is exploring the consequences of giving ISPs the ability to do that.
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LOOK! Already! Why!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/eTP2onvRoeudAZuB3
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LOOK! Already! Why!
[link]
Looks more like that was pulled due to piracy than lack of net neutrality. It appears this site was sharing copyrighted music without permission and thus got flagged as illegal music piracy.
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I see merit in removing net neutrality, but this isn't the way to do it.
In theory, it's paying less for what you want and that having priority (e.g. the gaming package would have faster connections to steam and other similar services).
It would be really cool to be able to browse the "regular" internet at 4Mb/s and use Steam at 40Mb/s at the price of having access to everything at the speed of 10Mb/s.
The way it's going though, is that ISPs in 'murica will be able to more intricately control where the traffic goes faster. This would mean Facebook could pay an ISP to favour them over Twitter (as an example) and another ISP could do the opposite.
To make a more scary comparison, imagine if Square Space paid an ISP to favour their websites over all other small domain names, meaning that people would be more likely to use them in website creation over going DIY.
Basically, Net Neutrality is the way to go for now.
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Well it's completely dead now. Thanks fcc for taking more money out of our pockets.
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It's not dead until Congress, House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court says it is.
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Indeed. I do find there is a bit of irony in all of this. The Net Neutrality regulations were passed by Obama. Obama was the one who brought Ajit into the FCC. And now Ajit, after his promotion, turns to try and destroy net neutrality. So Obama sabotaged his own regulations in the end, more than likely unknowingly.
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I'm in favor of Net Neutrality as I believe it allows everyone to pay one price as opposed to many prices for the same material. I understand that N.N is not yet 'dead' as it has to hold it's own in court - but the vote still has me worried over the future of the Internet.
I worry also, on a side note, about minority voices. I believe this was mentioned in the livestream of the FCC but basically, I worry that companies would slow down blogs, posts, websites and other things ran by POC, religious minorities or members of the LGBTQ+ community and effectively silence them due to a difference of opinion. I hope this isn't the case but still, worrying nonetheless.
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I worry also, on a side note, about minority voices. I believe this was mentioned in the livestream of the FCC but basically, I worry that companies would slow down blogs, posts, websites and other things ran by POC, religious minorities or members of the LGBTQ+ community and effectively silence them due to a difference of opinion. I hope this isn't the case but still, worrying nonetheless.
No company cares about the colour of someone, it's odd that there is this idea that coloured people get "repressed" wherever they come.
This is not true, it's even illegal to do so.
When N-N is gone you can finally pay for whatever you want. Why pay €50 a month for a complete package when you could pay for the gamer and social media package that might cost less?
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When N-N is gone you can finally pay for whatever you want. Why pay €50 a month for a complete package when you could pay for the gamer and social media package that might cost less?
That's not entirely fair. More than likely you'll only be given the option to pay MORE not LESS.
It doesn't cost the provider any different regardless what you use the internet for so these "packages" would be artificially imposed and would more than likely be added as a fee on top of what you're already paying, effectively making things more expensive.
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Plus, personally I don't believe that, at this point, it's still just about net neutrality.
If a "democracy" can get away with something that almost everybody fundamentally disagrees with, then what's left of it? What's more to come?
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So just clearing up some misconceptions
It's not dead until Congress, House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court says it is.
As Vosur stated there's many avenues that can reverse this decision, currently more than a dozen states are suing the FCC.
Indeed. I do find there is a bit of irony in all of this. The Net Neutrality regulations were passed by Obama. Obama was the one who brought Ajit into the FCC. And now Ajit, after his promotion, turns to try and destroy net neutrality. So Obama sabotaged his own regulations in the end, more than likely unknowingly.
Ajit was nominated for the republican position of the FCC, but he wasn't nominated chairman by Obama, he was promoted to Chairman under the trump administration so it's more fair to say he got as much power as he got via Trump, rather than Obama.
I worry also, on a side note, about minority voices. I believe this was mentioned in the livestream of the FCC but basically, I worry that companies would slow down blogs, posts, websites and other things ran by POC, religious minorities or members of the LGBTQ+ community and effectively silence them due to a difference of opinion. I hope this isn't the case but still, worrying nonetheless.
No company cares about the colour of someone, it's odd that there is this idea that coloured people get "repressed" wherever they come.
This is not true, it's even illegal to do so.
When N-N is gone you can finally pay for whatever you want. Why pay €50 a month for a complete package when you could pay for the gamer and social media package that might cost less?
Two things: While I do agree that it's doubtful companies would slow down POC sites, they HAVE slowed down and blocked political sites in the past, an ISP blocked the website of a pro-reproductive group and in 2007 AT&T censored Pearl Jam because the lead singer criticized President Bush
And the "Pay for what you want means you will pay less", is not necessarily true, as others have stated. Considering ISPs have a monopoly and it's harder for consumers to calculate total cost when they're getting things in packages, an ISP may end up getting consumers to pay more without them really noticing.
A history of Net Neutrality violations (https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history) paints a good picture of where things could go. This includes
Comcast Blocking Peer-to-peer technologies, AT&T forcing apple to block Skype from Iphones, MetroPCS (top 5 wireless provider) blocked all videos over 4G except for youtube, AT&T SPRINT & Verizon blocking google wallet because it competed with Isis (a program all three companies had stake in), Verizon blocked tethering applications that were free because it competed with their $20 tethering application, AT&T attempted to block users from using FaceTime unless they paid an additional fee (because FaceTime competed with their app), Verizon openly admits that if Net Neutrality was entirely repealed than they would favor preferred services, content and sites over others.