no more open internet :'( sad day in history

[yle]

No... I'm not.

So... you are okay with claiming that government censorship of internet content is a direct consequence of net neutrality? Because that's what you essentially said. In your previous post you went into great detail of what the Chinese government censors, and then you stated "THAT is the end-game in Net neutrality."

It's possible I misinterpreted your statement. But I thought your "THAT" referred to the lengthy description of government censorship that immediately preceded. Which is why, in my response, I argued that government censorship of content and government rules requiring neutral delivery of that content are two separate issues.

If you are correct, then the past two years of net neutrality rules in the US should have led to a serious decline in our ability to access porn (or Google, or the Walking Dead) on the internet (i.e. as you described in China.) However, I can assure you that this isn't the case.

 

[Diver0001]

So... you are okay with claiming that government censorship of internet content is a direct consequence of net neutrality? Because that's what you essentially said. In your previous post you went into great detail of what the Chinese government censors, and then you stated "THAT is the end-game in Net neutrality."

It's possible I misinterpreted your statement. But I thought your "THAT" referred to the lengthy description of government censorship that immediately preceded. Which is why, in my response, I argued that government censorship of content and government rules requiring neutral delivery of that content are two separate issues.

If you are correct, then the past two years of net neutrality rules in the US should have led to a serious decline in our ability to access porn (or Google, or the Walking Dead) on the internet (i.e. as you described in China.) However, I can assure you that this isn't the case.

My dear man, this is a straw-man fallacy.

What you are saying here when you take away all the fluff is that since government has some role to play all the commercial arguments are null and moot.

I would almost think you were a lawyer.

Look up "straw man fallacy", read it.... read it again... and a third time.... try to REALLY understand it, and then get back to me with an argument that is worth addressing.

R..

 

[yle]

My dear man, this is a straw-man fallacy.

What you are saying here when you take away all the fluff is that since government has some role to play all the commercial arguments are null and moot.

No.

What I am saying here is:

1. I read your previous post. You claimed that the "end-game" of net neutrality is Chinese government level censorship.

2. We have had net neutrality in the US for years, with no apparent loss of access to content that you claim is censored by the Chinese government.

These are the the only two things I said, and they are simple facts. I also asked you if you were okay making the argument in fact #1. You deftly sidestepped the question. Kudos to you.

 

[Diver0001]

No.

What I am saying here is:

1. I read your previous post. You claimed that the "end-game" of net neutrality is Chinese government level censorship.

2. We have had net neutrality in the US for years, with no apparent loss of access to content that you claim is censored by the Chinese government.

These are the the only two things I said, and they are simple facts. I also asked you if you were okay making the argument in fact #1. You deftly sidestepped the question. Kudos to you.

I'm not sure what you're talking about but there must have been a miscommunication. I presume I must have said something that lead you to quote me as saying that "net neutrality is good" but given how I feel about it, including the comments I made about Chinese government abuses, my opinion is that Net Neutrality and any government control over the internet is bad. Let's just keep this in terms I hope you can understand. Net Neutrality.... BAD.... Even in states like Alabama they can understand language like that. I don't know what state you are from but if they can understand it in Alabama then they can surely understand it in your state.....

Net Neutrality... BAD.

That's all you need to remember.

I don't know how I gave you the impression that MORE government control over the internet was a good thing but if I gave you that impression I'm sorry. More government control over ANYTHING... and especially anything technology related is beyond stupid. The Government needs to keep out of the internet. The only thing I could have imagined myself saying with respect to the Chinese is to illustrate that government control over the internet was damaging.

I don't like Donny (the überclown) Trump at all.... at ALL... Not one single fiber in my being believes that he is qualified to be president of the United States.... but i do agree with him about this. Net Neutrality was a bad bill and it needed to be rescinded.

And believe me I didn't want to agree with him about anything. I would have much preferred to have disagreed with him about everything. It would have been so much simpler to write him off as an unimaginable idiot if there was literally no overlap in his opinion with mine. Alas, on this one thing, I couldn't agree with him more.

R..

 

[drrich2]

They can take ISP's out of the legal loop by defining them as a "utility".

If I understand correctly, an example would be the illegally posted copyrighted content on You Tube. But defining ISP's as utilities, they can't be sued for that illegal content. So, if a studio got mad about their content being uploaded to You Tube, they'd go after You Tube or its owner, and You Tube couldn't try to pass the buck & say the ISPs should be blocking it. Interesting.

The simple fact is that while the killing of net neutrality rules might be done with the intent of allowing ISPs to recoup what it actually costs them to deliver the content, the consequence is that the ISPs will then have the power to censor content. The debate seems to rest on whether or not the ISPs will use that power.

Good condensation of the issue, so let's address it on a couple of fronts.

1.) What kind of censorship would they use? Are we talking about censoring right-wing or left-wing political content, due to political ideology, or are we talking throttling data speed for, say, everything from Netflix and Hulu because they're big bandwidth users with deep pockets, get get money out of them? And the concern is maybe AT&T providers faster, cheaper service if you use DirectTV as opposed to, say, watching Netflix.

We already have corporate favoritism via bundling of services, such as t.v., phone & internet packages.

2.) Is it politically feasible for an ISP to censor as feared? Some in sparsely populated or isolated areas may have one practical ISP option, but are they a substantial enough portion of the market to drive this? Put another way, let's say Verizon decides to censor. While users in some Timbuktu may not have options, users in large urban & suburban areas do. I doubt Verizon will risk the political backlash of ticking the latter off in order to brainwash the former with selective presentation.

If public opinion protects the majority, with choice of ISP, from objectionable censorship, will it protect rural residents without that choice?

Richard.

 

[ljpm]

Good condensation of the issue, so let's address it on a couple of fronts.

1.) What kind of censorship would they use? Are we talking about censoring right-wing or left-wing political content, due to political ideology, or are we talking throttling data speed for, say, everything from Netflix and Hulu because they're big bandwidth users with deep pockets, get get money out of them? And the concern is maybe AT&T providers faster, cheaper service if you use DirectTV as opposed to, say, watching Netflix.

We already have corporate favoritism via bundling of services, such as t.v., phone & internet packages.

2.) Is it politically feasible for an ISP to censor as feared? Some in sparsely populated or isolated areas may have one practical ISP option, but are they a substantial enough portion of the market to drive this? Put another way, let's say Verizon decides to censor. While users in some Timbuktu may not have options, users in large urban & suburban areas do. I doubt Verizon will risk the political backlash of ticking the latter off in order to brainwash the former with selective presentation.

If public opinion protects the majority, with choice of ISP, from objectionable censorship, will it protect rural residents without that choice?

Richard.

From the LA Times
"Broadband companies and other internet service providers say they have no plans to offer paid prioritization, but some have been laying the groundwork for it in recent months."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-net-neutrality-20171213-htmlstory.html


The repeal of net neutrality enables internet providers to prioritize content. This can be done to advantage their own competing content or at a cost to content providers. If Google pays more to the provider then maybe Bing won't work so well. If Hulu pays more then netflix and HBO stream slower. There is now nothing the government can to. And before people start espousing the virtues of the free market, the only customer the ISP now has to answer to is the big corp. paying for prioritized delivery.

 

[RayfromTX]

Here is a simplified version of what I fear has happened.

I post content for free on the internet. It is interesting and people spend hours downloading and enjoying it. My neighbor sells similar content on the internet. He would make more money if more people paid to download his content instead of downloading mine for free. He buys a controlling interest in an ISP and begins to throttle down the speeds at which people can access my free content. Over time he makes it a pain to access and even find my content and more people turn to his content which they have to pay for. Because he is more powerful, he uses his wealth to increase his power and consequently, his wealth. His content becomes canned crap and mine is no longer available. It gets worse from there. That is the loss that comes with today's decision.

The ability to access free quality content just suffered a blow. The change will not happen immediately. We will experience it in the same way that you successfully boil a frog. You don't toss a frog into boiling water because they will jump out. You put them in cool water and slowly raise the temperature until they are dead.

The FCC changed the rules in the 90s to allow ownership of multiple broadcast outlets within a market area. Companies like clearwater communications bought up thousands of radio stations and consolidated them for increased profits. Eventually it became possible to drive from one market to the next and not tell any difference because all the content was created somewhere else and distributed nationwide. The local radio station was effectively dead and with it an important part of our communities. We lost quality of life and wealthy investors gained big profits.

The process continues but I fear the loss of our radio stations will seem quaint in comparison to the loss of our open and free internet. Oh well, google and others already killed much of what was amazing about the internet. The period of 2000-2006ish will be considered the golden age of the internet. There was lots of content but google hadn't quite turned it into the marketing behemoth that it has become. Searches used to find content but now they find advertising while mining your searches for their future use.

I'm rambling......

 

[Diver0001]

If I understand correctly, an example would be the illegally posted copyrighted content on You Tube. But defining ISP's as utilities, they can't be sued for that illegal content. So, if a studio got mad about their content being uploaded to You Tube, they'd go after You Tube or its owner, and You Tube couldn't try to pass the buck & say the ISPs should be blocking it. Interesting.

Yes. That is exactly what I am saying.

The point that yle is making about censorship is interesting as well so now that people are understanding my point, let's deal with his point.

Proponents of net neutrality generally see it as a mechanism by which to force ISP's to "play fair" by not either giving priority to some content or charging more for it. Let me explain why "fair play" will never become an issue about "censorship".

Commercially, ISP's presently do business with end users. A couple of years ago Verizon started playing with the idea of opening up a new commercial "market" for ISP's by also charging content providers. They would still charge their end users for their internet service but what Verizon wanted to do and what net neutrality blocked, is Verizon wanted to charge the content providers for delivering their service. The more the content provider paid, that faster their data would be delivered.

This was never about screwing the end user. ISP's need happy end users if they don't want to lose business. But when Verizon started seriously tabling this idea the big content providers like Google, Apple and Netflix saw a huge risk of being "squeezed" by the ISP's and they went screaming straight to congress because of that, claiming that it was not fair.... and net neutrality was born.

The reason why a deal whereby the ISP's are putting the squeeze on content providers would never become a censorship issue is because when the ISP's are making money on two fronts by charging end users AND the content providers then it makes no commercial sense not to provide a service. They wouldn't make any money by blocking content and if they blocked content then end users would walk away and do business with another ISP that WASN'T blocking that content. Once again, ISP's need happy end users because that's their revenue stream.

In other words, any attempt at censorship by ISP's would kill their business. Even without Net Neutrality ISP's could block content if they wanted to but they don't. They don't because it is not in their best interest to do so. You don't need regulation to stop an ISP from NOT doing what they ware already NOT doing. The free market forces at work were doing a perfectly good job of that already.

So there is never a censorship issue.

R..

 

[Diver0001]

No.

What I am saying here is:

1. I read your previous post. You claimed that the "end-game" of net neutrality is Chinese government level censorship.

2. We have had net neutrality in the US for years, with no apparent loss of access to content that you claim is censored by the Chinese government.

These are the the only two things I said, and they are simple facts. I also asked you if you were okay making the argument in fact #1. You deftly sidestepped the question. Kudos to you.

Ah yes. Now that you summarized it I did say that. I still believe it. Government regulation means government calls the shots. Without net neutrality we have a much better chance of open internet because the market will cause that to happen all by itself. WITH net neutrality, the government has it's hands on the steering wheel. In China the government actively micro manages ISP's. I believe you when you say that government (as yet) hasn't been doing that in the USA.

My point is that there will be a time when it becomes politically expedient to do so and when that point comes you don't want government involved in the internet. The only guarantee that we can possibly have that government will not censor content is if they literally can't.

That was the point I was trying to make, albeit somewhat clumsily.

R..

 

[RayfromTX]

Net neutrality rules don't give the government control over the internet. If they want control they will justify the need and they will take it. If we allow the ISPs to have more control over how content is delivered we will actually make it easier for the government to come in at some future crisis time and seize control over the mechanisms that will now be implemented to control what can easily be uploaded and delivered via the internet.

The free internet press and bloggers that would be the first sounds of alarm will be more easily silenced when the fast lanes are limited to those centralized paying content providers. This is about centralizing and consolidating content providers so as to create a mechanism that can generate revenue for those that have control over the switches and levers of power. The system that allows the ISPs to generate a revenue stream will later be available for any centralized use, some of which we may not be able to currently imagine. Decentralization of utilities of any type has a cost in efficiency loss but perhaps has a benefit in resilience.

I think these issues are a bit complex to discuss in this forum. I know I have 3 thoughts for every one point I get onto the screen and it makes my points seem a bit disjointed. A real discussion about these issues and consequences would fill a book and have a massive bibliography.