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Al Franken's Warning On Net Neutrality
An anonymous reader writes "Democratic Sen. Al Franken weighed in on Net Neutrality over the weekend at the Netroots Nation conference of liberal activists in Las Vegas, calling it 'the First Amendment issue of our time,' and warning against Republican plans for less regulation. More from a blog post on CBSNews.com: 'Speculating on what the Internet could morph into under the Republicans' preferred lack of regulation, Franken asked the audience of bloggers how long it would take before the Fox News website loads significantly more quickly than the Daily Kos website. "If you want to protect the free flow of information in this country, you have to help me fight this," he said.'"
at the Netroots Nation conference of liberal activists
is he just telling them what they want to hear or has he actually done anything to promote net neutrality?
I am a FISH!
"I'm going to die homeless and penniless. I'm still twenty-five pounds overweight. No one will ever love me. I could just kill myself. "
understand that their whole business model is dependent upon a neutral net?
when unfettered access is outlawed, only outlaws will have unfettered access.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Typical elitist liberal agenda. It's pretty much what you would expect from someone like Franken. Hopefully common sense will prevail, but you never know.
This is one of those areas where I WANT the government to intervene. "But they fuck up everything, what makes you think they can get this right???" How about the fact that ISPs already fuck with us, and if left unchecked, they will just get worse anyway.
We should at least TRY to get things under control. The "free market" theory is obviously worth as much as tits on a bull when it comes to ISPs.
Living With a Nerd
But damm.. He's right...
So because one company is willing to spend more for servers to provide their information, they should be punished by the government? I don't watch or read fox news myself, but if they want their sit screaming fast, then the others have the right to do the same, but it is their choice. It drives me nuts that just because you don't agree with someone that you think they should be stopped or hampered in their business.
"If less is more, imagine how much more more would be!" From a Frazier episode which is on point.
In the beginning, the internet was just a series of tubes.
Over time, and much to most people's delight, it morphed into a series of boobs.
Without net neutrality, it will become no more than a series of cubes (ie: Television 2.0)
Someone should tell the folks running the Daily Kos to upgrade to a faster connection. If Fox News loads faster, it will only be because they invest in the equipment to serve up the web pages, and the Internet band width.
The problem with the way that Franken would even the playing field would be by handicapping the side that they didn't like.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Typical in this argument is the 'we vs they' that phone/isp providers are trying to create.
Do not let the phone company dictate the argument. Using democrat vs republican is a good way to polarize your audience.
These companies are playing you by using this tactic. Al Franken has just fallen for it. Instead of talking about what he will do he is talking about what someone *ELSE* will do. Follow the money 'campaign contributions' and you will see how the argument is being dictated by fake 'grass roots' campaigns.
Where was he when the 70 Dems were against NN? Why didn't he warn against "how long it would take before the Daily Kos website loads significantly more quickly than the Fox News website"? Hopefully it just took him this long to learn about the reality of the issue, and he's not just a partisan spew nozzle. I sent the same warning to Rush Limbaugh when the 70 Dems opposed NN, but I never heard him change his tune regarding "Gubmint takeover of the 'Net"
it's been fine up till now. we don't need more government control. 2 + 2 = 5? how does more government control mean more freedom of information? they want to have full power over information. they are shoring up their control of the media and the internet is the last thing in their way.
I am sure the government wants net neutrality as long as the government can shut it off.
Oh, and when the Internet is not shut off, I am pretty sure the government will require it to be completely monitored and filtered.
Just think of the children!
Franken asked the audience of bloggers how long it would take before the Fox News website loads significantly more quickly than the Daily Kos website.
The more likely model of what will happen is not that the internet companies will favor conservatives over liberals, but rather that they will favor companies by size. The cable companies will say that companies need to pay their fair share for bandwidth, and so they'll announce that any internet hosting that doesn't pay a certain amount of usage fees to the ISP will be throttled. So yes, it's likely under this model that Fox News will load faster than DailyKos - and that MSNBC will load faster than the Drudge Report - because those large media organizations will have the cash to give kickbacks to Comcast to make sure that they get full speed downloads, while the smaller bloggers and indie organizations may find themselves unable to meet the ISPs' demands.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Stewart Smalley Saves the Internet!
Monstar L
you won't be able to load Fox News at all. Blogs will uniformly praise the Dear Leader, or they won't be accessible at all.
More government regulation? This country is becoming the Soviet Union very rapidly.
The people get the type of government they deserve. Which is why I did not vote for Al Franken or Barry Soetoro.
Nobody is talking about crippling anyone. Please stop spreading lies about what net neutrality means. Net neutrality only means that ISPs will provide nondiscriminatory service. Fox News has significantly more money than The Daily Kos, and would therefore benefit far more from a non-neutral net (as they could pay for faster service from ISPs across the board) than The Daily Kos would.
Palm trees and 8
If this were RedState warning the exact opposite, it would never make front page. It'd be written off as right-wing paranoia.
Here's a little interesting bit of news: the Republicans aren't the majority party. Here's another one: the Democrats are at least as much in bed with the telecoms as the Republicans. Franken's own damn party is as likely to create a pro-telecom, anti-everyone else regulatory environment as the Republicans if their past behavior on... pretty much any issue that concerns Democratic donors is any indication.
The FCC is, at this point, a textbook example of regulatory capture. Like it or not, that's what it is. Stridently defending what could be is not even remotely compatible with what currently is and likely will be if the FCC is given the power to act. The odds are much greater that the FCC will end up fucking Google, Apple, etc. up the ass than maintaining a policy of genuine openness.
When the Internet blows up, you guys are more than welcome to dial up to my BBS and we can play LORD, go back to Fidonet, and enjoy the finer things in life.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
The main problem is that the pro-business argument here (mostly Republican, but plenty of Dems too) tries to predicate this on "free market" principles. But there is no real free market in the ISP sector, because there is no real competition. You have a handful of large broadband ISP's (AT&T, Verizon, Time-Warner, and Comcast alone probably represent about 80%+ of the entire market). And most consumers have all of two (three if they're lucky) choices for ISP. In my area, you can choose between Comcast (cable) and AT&T (DSL) and that's it. If both those companies degrade or block a particular website, that's it. There is nowhere else to go for decent performance (and even AT&T's DSL is inferior to Comcast, so there is really only ONE place to go for anything above 3Mbps).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I always liked the idea of net neutrality, and obviously there is something to be said about one website loading faster than another, but aren't there many more far reaching implications than just "Fox News loading faster than Daily Kos"? Like throttling of any downloading whatsoever unless it's a Fox News PDF or torrents being completely handicapped or something just because they are torrents.
I just feel like he could have used a much more hard hitting example than that.
If the two events were to be truly compared, then the First Amendment should have made anyone with a printing press unable to refuse to print and distribute whatever someone else wants based on content, and that includes the major newspapers of the time - the First Amendment did no such thing, but network neutrality will do if it were to be implemented as trumpeted on Slashdot.
I never thought it was possible, but for once, I agree with Al Franken. But, sadly, the Internet is consistent of many corporations, governments, etc. How are we to think that "Big Brother" hasn't been filtering our Google & Yahoo searches, emails, etc, for over a decade? That would just be naive.
It doesn't seem like a lot of people care about that part, though. It's the "speed" that we care about? Hmm... Confused priorities much?
To quote "South Park", "Rabble, rabble, rabble!"
--Stak
Holy happy hippy crap!
the phrase "Net Neutrality" is political propaganda designed to discredit the debate... similar to "conservatives" vs "liberals"... you can be liberally conservative or fight to conserve liberalism. it's designed to confuse. if you think "Net Neutrality" is a good idea, being neutral about it is probably the last thing you want, and if you think doing nothing is the right move, you probably don't want the suggested neutrality being offered.
please use the phrase "Priority Traffic Shaping" if you'd like to discuss the issue.
For the same reason Republicans protect their own...it's the only way for them to stay politically alive in this country.
I'm not sure who pisses me off more: the corrupt politicians who manipulate the electorate, or the electorate that allow themselves to be manipulated by corrupt politicians.
Living With a Nerd
Nothing more needs to be said. Regulation in the telecom industry, having worked there, has not promoted advancement in any way. CLECs being able to lease lines and equipment from the owners of the physical plant for less than the carrier can provide them to customers for, and then resell those lines to customers for less, isn't competitive. It's competition stifling. A "competitive local exchange carrier" needs to have some investment in the game, rather than just sucking the life out of the Verizon/ATTs out there. Furthermore, the fact that the cable companies are not regulated, don't have to provide service to people that live 20 miles away from the nearest line, serves to extend their advantage. If a CLEC had to invest some amount of money in physical equipment or transmission medium, maybe our broadband infrastructure would be better than it is now.
I suppose my main point is, the government intervening in telecom hasn't helped anything at all, as exemplified by the huge gap between cable and telephone providers, except in the instance of Fios and like services, which are not regulated in the same way.
This summary is is confusing and unclear, how did this make the frontpage like this?
For the last time, folks, it is not censorship if there is no force of law. If you can't make speech illegal, then anything toward that bent that you do still doesn't put you in the same league as real censorship: you're a severe nuisance, yes, but not a censor.
Still, perhaps there should be a word for when non-governmental entities (corporations, religious groups, "the public," etc) try to stifle or otherwise control the flow of information. It's a real problem, but overloading the word "censorship" cheapens it. Any ideas out there?
In an ideal world, we wouldn't need the government to intervene. If my ISP suddenly started loading their "preferred" sites faster, I would simply leave them and go to any of my dozens of other choices. Information on which ISPs were mucking with speeds would be public and well documented for everyone to access in order to make informed purchase decisions.
In the real world, however, most people have only one or two broadband ISPs. If my cable company mucks with site speeds, I might be able to go to my phone company. If they muck with the speeds also, I have no options. (Actually, I'm stuck after the cable company as Verizon doesn't have FIOS where I live.)
Network Neutrality opponents argue that "the market" will fix any problems, but how can "the market" fix the problem when you have a monopoly or duopoly? I'm not a huge fan of government regulations, but there are places where they should be and this is one of them.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
"Speculating on what the Internet could morph into under the Republicans' preferred lack of regulation,...
Well, just look how well lack of regulation worked with Credit Default Swaps in the financial markets, e.g., these past few years.
Not that I'm necessarily keen on big government, or more regulation.
What will happen when Stossel's or Judge Napolitano's websites load?
Will the talking points that overlap with the Republicans load faster while the ones that overlap with the Democrats will be supressed?
Will the progressive war protestors that went quiet get better bandwidth or the neocons that all the sudden don't think the war is being run right get better throughput?
Will those jornolisters doing the non-journalistic coordination of talking points for an incumbent administration get fatter pipes if they do the same for an incumbent administration of another party?
I wouldn't let someone who touts that dunderheaded fiction of a standard narrative of the big meanies at Fox and "the vast right-wing or x-wing conspiracy" run a roll of toilet paper let alone a network of media subsidy.
All I know is that EVERYTHING that gets handed over to congress gets fucked. In this case status quo would be better than whatever legislative nonsense that would come from the Franken worldview. Or the neocon worldview for that matter.
Franken's argument is exactly why you don't want "net neutrality". Freedom of speech does not guarantee you a microphone or publisher - that has to be earned. Al wants "net neutrality" so he can get the govt to squash opposing viewpoints in the name of "neutrality". Free speech and Net neutrality are opposites. Non-mainstream or controversial ideas will be stamped out in favor of the 51% that rule Washington in any given year. True freedom is one without government intervention. Corporations can't make you do anything... the government can via force and threat of imprisonment. I'd rather butt heads with a corporation than govt any day.
we want more regulation so that the web will not be regulated.
regulation to stop regulation, sounds stupid but it is really the only way to go about it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I can't find the exact words, but I watched a documentary on poverty the other night, and one of the economists basically said this:
"In a purely capitalist economy, the market solution to a famine is a lot of dead people. Demand for food then falls, the supply again reaches a price equilibrium, and then the problem is considered solved."
People always favor an unregulated economy when they are at the top of it.
The insidious thing about "net neutrality" is that the name itself sounds so good, like it's "just what we want/need" for the future of the Internet. But as some of the very founders of the Internet have said themselves (including TCP inventor Bob Kahn and David Farber), the supporters of net neutrality are REALLY saying that federal government DOES have the authority to control the Internet. You're asking them to lay down a bunch of new rules on how traffic should flow, instead of the traditional idea of leaving it open for debate, discussion and trial by software developers and researchers.
The way I see it, it's been FAR from a foregone conclusion that such things are the job of government to manage -- but with the "net neutrality" act comes admission that indeed, they are!
All of this aside though? There's also another "elephant in the room" that isn't really being pointed out here. If you DO pass net neutrality laws and force the big ISPs to give equal priority to the "little guy's traffic", fine. Do you really think they'll just put their hands in the air and say "You win! We didn't want to run our network this way, but since this law makes us do it -- we'll just give up this chance to make extra money making people pay extra for priority over our lines!" ?? No... I think you'll find that they'll just resort to other methods to generate the extra revenue, like implementing tougher usage caps. Net neutrality doesn't attempt to dictate the continuation of "flat rate unlimited usage" packages, after all.
Really, the net has always worked on a system where the content PROVIDERS pay the bulk of the cost of a net connection, while the users/consumers of the data pay far less. (Why do you think cable and DSL broadband services have such slow upload speed limits, compared to their download speeds? They're happy to sell you as much as a 50mbit speed connection, except for the fact that if you start trying to host servers from it, you discover you're capped at maybe 5mbits max. going back OUT. You'll get quoted a FAR more expensive rate for a circuit giving you that full 50mbits of UPLOAD speed.)
When you start passing legislation restricting ISPs from having such *options* as de-prioritizing certain forms of traffic, they're going to lose a potential tool/solution that justified them keeping rates low for the majority of the users.
WTF?!?!?! How the hell can LESS regulation result in taking away of free speech?
And Stuart Smiley needs to realize that any attempt to reduce the amount of control that network providers have over THEIR networks will rum smack into the takings clause of the US Constitution.
Dems support "net neutrality" because content providers are a heavy Dem constiuency (MPAA, RIAA, and even Google), and those content providers want to limit the amount of money network providers can charge for bits to cross their networks.
It's a pissing contest between content providers and network providers over who gets to charge you for access to information. Right now, the content providers are sucking hind tit because the network providers own the networks, so the content providers are throwing gobs of cash (mostly at Dems) to try to get the US government to kneecap the network providers.
It is most definitely NOT for your benefit.
I just loaded Fox News and the Daily Kos........oddly enough fox news seemed to load faster already.........
but social software and social networking are all dependent on a neutral net that makes it easy link and combine. It is also true that ASP and SaaS business models are also dependent upon a neutral net.
This isn't simply that some websites will load slower than others. It will literally segregate the internet. Sites will load so slowly that you'll no longer be able to visit them at all. ISPs will use this to put companies that compete with them like Netflix, Hulu, Vonage, etc.. out of business. Don't doubt for a second that if your ISP sells phone or TV services that the ONLY phone or TV service that will work adequately on their network will be their own.
One of the first things people need to understand about Net Neutrality is that it is to keep the internet like it is today and prevent a corporate take over of the internet. If you hate convoluted phone bills and crap cable tv plans then you support Net Neutrality.
I was going to agree with you, but then I went to NewsCorp's website, and can't find any reference to any tier-1 or tier-2 ISP there. Which one am I not seeing?
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
The best way to maintain internet neutrality is with government regurgitation.
It worked for China and I believe in my heart of hearts it can work for the US as well.
I am so glad everyone on Slashdot is in agreement with this wonderful idea.
You said, "Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals."
I'd just like to correct that flawed statement. I know *no* libertarians who think that, at all. Nowhere do they say private businesses should be "stronger than governments". In fact, a fully functional Judicial system is critical to keeping a business economy working properly. The problems we see today are largely caused by government CORRUPTION, where a big business is able to buy influence in government. Government essentially "partners" with said business instead of performing its proper function as a "referee", who allows the "Free Market game" to continue, unimpeded, until/unless a player starts breaking one of the rules. Big business, as we now know it, is pretty much like a major league football game where the refs can be bought off easily by any team's manager who wants to work a deal with them. The ones with the most money can cheat their way to victory, game after game, with impunity. (And to extend this analogy, we've got a bunch of attendees of said games who know something's wrong and are angry - but don't always realize WHY it's happening. Therefore, some of them are screaming that the rules of the game need changing to fix the problem ... instead of realizing the corrupt referees need to be ejected!)
but I don't understand why the web 2.0 crowd, ASP and SaaS have not spoken out about net neutrality. Collectively they have some serious money; but for whatever reason seem complacent.
was elected by a razor-thin margin thanks to the vote of some felons. Hey Stewart Smalley, it's illegal for felons to vote! Not that Democrats ever care about vote fraud when it benefits them. Just ask LBJ!
I think the population would go in hysterics if the big four ISPs started asking the million of website owners to start ponying up money to ensure their site would load as fast as possible. After a big portion of users and businesses leave in protest, the policy of site "protection" would go away. If all the big ISPs did colude to do such racketeering and no laws were erected, some ISPs would be touted as neutral and money from subscribers would flock to them.
.25MBps (does not pay)
...
...
... .25MBps (does not pay)
What kind of system degradation would occur for these ISPs to filter millions of websites based on throttle speeds?
web1.com full (pays $10000/mo)
web2.com 4MBps (pays $10/mo)
web3.com
web214553421.com 12.54MBps (pays $20/mo)
web214553422.com
etc.
What unseen problems would occur once laws start being made to make sure the net is "neutral". There will be no magic bullet law that would suddenly make these ISPs suddenly think "well, we did want to charge website owners/operators some money to ensure their wesite access was safe, but that law now makes unable to. guess we will just continue to charge access to our internet switches for downloading what the users want." Once laws are in place, some people will find out where the line is drawn and push it to the limit. Then it will become acceptable to go to the line, where ever that currently is. It will take more laws to refine and punish, but that cycle will not ever stop.
If there were to be laws regarding net neutrality, the simpler the better I would think. Maybe make it stand that ISPs are just charging for access to their switches to allow subscribers to download. The packets being transfered cannot be tampered with, or even analyzed. But again, once you start down that path it is a slippery slope. It is probably better to let users and influencers (like slashdot readers) decide if companies are pushing the limit and how to properly take care of it. The net has been doing well so far with that kind of influence, we just need to keep doing what WE are doing. If we hand it over to laws and lawmakers, it is out of the hands of the dynamic and intelligent and into the political and corruptible.
Oh boo hoo! The propaganda wing of the Democrat party will wither and die, just like Air America! Whatever shall we do without liberals forcing their views upon us! Oh noes!!!
I was all for net neutrality before Al Franken's comment. At that point, I realized there must be a problem with it. Instead of the ISP's and corporations dictating what you can do, it will be Al Franken. I'll take the free markets, thank you.
When did liberals start listening to comedians for their politics .... oh guess that been every sense pelsoi and friends have been a joke of a government.
You know, it took me a second to even register Al Franken as a comedian. I mean, mostly I remember him from old SNL episodes, "Weekend Update" (or whatever they called it at that point) where he mostly seemed to talk about himself. I was a kid last time I watched that bit so I don't know if I didn't get it or it just wasn't funny. Though, I guess (thinking back) he also wrote those polarized-partisan-pundit books - "Lying liars" and so on. He must have done other stuff as well <shrug>...
So reading your comment I thought you were bringing Jon Stewart into this discussion. I was a bit confused as to why. :)
And, I have to point out that both "sides of the aisle" have their favorite pundit clowns. They write books, host radio or TV shows, and just generally spit venom of such potency that, listening to them, you'd hardly think the proponents of the opposing viewpoint were human, let alone intelligent or sensible. I hate it. All that garbage has about as much resemblance to actual, productive debate as a brawl between Red Sox and Yankees fans. People pick their team and then switch their brains off - it's probably the worst thing that could happen to democracy as a viable way of directing a government... Unless you take a cynical approach, in which you suppose that all the political show serves an important "Bread and Circuses"-type role and that most of the population isn't really qualified to make decisions about how the government should operate...
Bow-ties are cool.
by Democrats that dissent was the highest form of patriotism - that questioning their love of country was sacrosanct? Well here we all are a couple of years later, and now that they're in charge and the rest of us are holding on for dear life like passengers in the car of a drunk driver, you'd better just keep your mouth shut or risk being labeled a *ghasp* racist! Newsflash, folks: democrats are the ones with the racial fetish. Their entire universe revolves around dividing people up and placing them into narrow little categories, and if you object to that then it can only be because you are a racist! Well, the jig is up, democrats. We all now know that you hurl this charge willy-nilly like an angry bum throwing an empty liquor bottle, not because you believe it, but because you intend to smear the character of people who honestly disagree with you and cause them to waste time on reputation damage control instead of pointing out your blatant hypocrisy and intellectual and ideological failure.
If a news site cannot load quickly enough because they cannot afford to pay, then they are fringe. They will load though. Those packets eventually do get routed. And for a site with only 10k hits or fewer a day it doesn't really matter.
Why shouldn't Google, Fox, CNN, Netflix, etc would pay their fair share by buying higher priority packets? I can't find some sort of ethical issue with doing that, as long as us little folks can still use the internet I see no issue.
On the otherhand I'm against what is ultimately a money grab by carriers to charge us little people more for our internet access. But you don't have to solve that issue with some bill to regulate what ISPs can do. It is simple really, just regulate how much they can charge! Set a base line and don't let them cross over it, and don't bother adjusting for inflation so that the service has to get cheaper with inflation to light a [small] fire under them.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
n/t
With BitDefender parental block blocking Fox News but not MSNBC out of the box, I allready have a taste of what Mr. Franken might be fighting for.
I don't care who the ruling party/class is, I just do not care much for being "ruled".
I can't imagine what could possibly go wrong with giving the government more power to regulate the Internet.
It's a good thing only the republicans engage in fear tactics.
The USPS was, at one time, the only reliable nationwide letter and parcel delivery means. Maybe the ONLY means.
Then along came UPS. Parcel delivery, door to door, always a signature (back in the beginning), and reliable. Less damage. Fair price. Good deal.
Did the USPS try to kill UPS? Well, that's not clear, but the USPS enjoyed a postal monopoly from 1792 to 1825, limited and then expanded it from 1825 to 1872, and again from 1872 to 1979, with some intervening changes. UPS was not permitted to delvier 'letters', but parcels were and are their mainstay, along with RPS and DHL. Fedex and DHL got into the 'emergency delivery' business, and survived when the definition of a 'letter' allowed them to provide service.
Imagine that the USPS has been allowed to require competitors to deliberately downgrade their service, for instance requiring Fedex to deliver overnight packages as reliably as USPS? This would mean making their service both uneconomical (costs more than USPS, same delivery just as good/bad, darn) and without any advantage. No more Fedex.
Net neutrality would require ISPs to NOT favor one content provider over another, or to not favor one form of content over another. Imagine, as pointed out elsewhere in this thread, that Fox News was purposefully throttled while CNN was not. Well, if your ISP had a deal with CNN, they may have a business reason to do that. If your ISP is your cable TV company, do they have any reason to not permit Hulu, for instance, to send you data as fast and often as, say, their own Internet-based on-demand video service? Or imagine they tell you that you need the more expensive tier of Internet service to reach sites like Disney or Nikelodeon, but somehow they provide their own kid-centered web site in the basic tier? Or do they just sell a tiered service as an 'enhancement', when in fact they are privately throttling sites arbitrarily, to create demand for an 'improved' service? I personally would like to see that regulation be in place that would require ISPs to dislose how and when they throttle or otherwise interfere with data delivery, and under what conditions. My hope would be that in markets where there is more thna one ISP, at least one would offer 'better' service. This would at least for now be cable v DSL, but if a truly useful broadband wireless service comes up, that gives subscribers at last a chance to buy service with an informed judgement on the usefulness and true capability. Letting your ISP throttle silently deprives you of the leverage of information.
Not government control - government regulation, just as they do for any number of other products and services. It can be done.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Didn't you get the ads?
Dunno about your neck of the woods, but my ISP options include:
Comcast
ATT DSL
4G/WiMax from Clear and Sprint
3G from ATT, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile
That's at least 6 options (2 or more flavors of some), not including dialup, nor others getting into the game soon.
And if I really don't like the options, I'm free to start my own. I'm thinking an ad-hoc network of home wifi routers would rock (surprised Linksys et al haven't pulled this off yet).
What part of this isn't "free market"?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Didn't nine times as many Democrats say no to this? Here's the link http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/05/73-democrats-tell-fcc-to-drop-net-neutrality-rules.ars
Fear the power of NTie!
I for one, relish a foxnews site that loads quickly.
"We're gonna need a bigger boat"
The First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
It does not say "Congress shall make laws abridging the freedom of Internet service providers..."
Hypocrite-- harping on the fears of the left, who couldn't give a crap if the opposite scenario happened. Listen, it doesn't matter who's in office. Right now, the Democrats can pretty much pass any legislation they want, yet we don't have net neutrality yet. Either this means the Democrats are self-interested mega-capitalists too, or they are also fearful of a less-free internet that's heavily regulated by the government. If some loser ISP decides to throttle Kos, do you really think that deep-pockets George Soros won't start up or buy a competitor? Are you all buying the rhetoric of the progressives that all of our problems are caused by "conservative" capitalists, while ignoring the Eco-capitalist carbon credit corporations run by Soros and Gore? They would love to silence dissent, as well.
When in doubt, don't give the government more power.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Shush. Don't be picking on his strawman, he spent minutes carefully crafting it such that the inference the reader makes is so damning they have no choice but to become a reasonable left winger full of hope for what the government, if we can just get it right, can do for us.
What happened to you, SlashDot? You used to be cool, kind of a libertarian (small 'L', though there were a few "privatize the roads!!" nuts here and there, but they added some spice) live and let live kind of place. Now you're a smug left wing pit of boredom.
I kid, I kid... you were never cool.
"Free Market" is a fantasy created to convince citizens to act against their own interests. There have never been free markets, and indeed they could never exist. The term "Free Market" is used by corporatists to make the redistribution of wealth from the lower 90 percent of society to the top 10 percent sound more palatable to people who are unable to think the concept through.
Free markets have never been tried in any domain. If you are in power and you have a real sweet scam going, you refer to that scam as a "free market" or as being "pro-free market" and it shuts everyone up. If anyone questions your scam, you refer to them as being "anti-free market" and it shuts them up. Any government policy that endangers your sweet scam in any way should be referred to as "anti-free market" or "anti-freedom" or "anti-liberty" so it will rile up the rubes and prevent anyone else from considering getting in the way of your sweet scam.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I don't know about your experiences, but my experience with libertarians is that they consistently believe that any restrictions placed on business by the government - in terms of hiring practices, sales practices, or any interaction with the public - serves as a detriment to the market. The market would be stronger and more vibrant if government simply got out of the way. If you advocate for a government that cannot pass laws restricting the unethical behavior of a company, that a business should be able to do what it wishes without government intervention, then you are essentially advocating for businesses that are stronger than government.
When I ask libertarians who would punish a business that particpates in unethical practices, such as trapping customers into misleading contracts or participating in sexism or racism in pay practice, the standard retort has been that the employees will find work elsewhere and the customers will stop shopping there, thus putting the company out of business. This is essentially believing that businesses will be weaker than individuals, that individuals will be able to contain businesses that harm the country without the aid of government, through the use of boycotts and protest.
That is what my sig means, and considering that most curbing of unethical business practice has come from government regulation, and that I have no personal ability to boycott Halliburton, Blackwater, AIG, or Goldman Sachs as a consumer that has no relation to those companies but feels that those companies are harming the structure of our country, I consider this to be an error in the logic of libertarianism.
In fact, a fully functional Judicial system is critical to keeping a business economy working properly. The problems we see today are largely caused by government CORRUPTION, where a big business is able to buy influence in government.
Usually what I hear libertarians say about this matter is that if government was small and unobtrusive in the market, then there would be no way for business to corrupt government. There would be no reason for them to buy access into government because government would be unable to do anything for them. The logical error here is that if government were that small, then that would imply that big business would be able to do whatever they wanted. A small government wouldn't need to be corrupted and bought out - you could just do what you want without them. What good would a strong judiciary be if the legislature had no power to pass laws that the judiciary could rule on? This is the first time that I have ever heard the words "strong judiciary" from a libertarian, made even more poignant by the number of times I've heard the words "activist judges."
Big business, as we now know it, is pretty much like a major league football game where the refs can be bought off easily by any team's manager who wants to work a deal with them. The ones with the most money can cheat their way to victory, game after game, with impunity.
In a freer market, the ones with the most money could still cheat their way to victory - except it wouldn't actually be cheating since there wouldn't be any rules in place. For example, financial businesses could have financial ties to the advisory boards that rate their bonds, influencing the ratings that their derivatives earn. That's what libertarians call "self-regulation" from within the industry, which they generally prefer to government regulation. Any large business is going to spend its resources to influence the people who might restrict it, government or private, so unless you're calling for the breakup of large businesses (which would not be very libertarian), that is something that you're not going to solve by getting government out of the regulation industry.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
There has been much confusion regarding "Net Neutrality". Much of it, I contend, deliberate on the part of politicians and government bureaucrats.
I'm all for "Net Neutrality" if it's defined as fair practices in traffic shaping, throttling, routing & etc, PERIOD. A bill to accomplish that would only need to be a few pages long at most.
The problem (and the reason I oppose the current iterations) is that what Congress is contemplating is a (relatively) huge piece of legislation that expands government control over the internet using "Net Neutrality" as cover for a power grab.
Those like Franken are hoping people are stupid enough to not look past the title to see what is actually in the bill and what it actually accomplishes.
Don't be as stupid as those in Congress think you are. There's too much at stake.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
So to summarize, you believe net neutrality regulation is unnecessary because although ISPs could theoretically mess with content providers, they haven't done so yet. You warn against net neutrality regulation because the FCC could theoretically move towards regulating content despite showing no indication doing that. In other words, the dangers of not regulating net neutrality are only theoretical so we should ignore them, but the dangers of implementing net neutrality regulation are theoretical so we must be afraid of it.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I am a FISH!
I am a JEW! Oy Vey!
What a dope....people of Minnesota (or whoever bought his election), should be ashamed of yourselves for allowing this idiot in DC, along with the other 434 idiots that "control" us.
I have to say that the argument for net neutrality is patently absurd. People are afraid that a few powerful ISPs will be able to control how information is transferred across the internet, so the solution they've come up with is to hand that authority to the Federal government?! I'd rather take my chances with the ISPs.
the Fox News website loads significantly more quickly than the Daily Kos website.
The FCC will have to get serious about getting broadband out to every trailer park and cabin in the Montana woods.
Have gnu, will travel.
That's what will happen - Fox News traffic will be given priority by your ISP... Al Franken should go back to being a somewhat funny comedian.
... and then overcharge them for a drink.
Why do ISPs not have the right to run their networks however they want? Internet access isn't a constitutional right. Please, please stop expanding government's role in absolutely everything.
Neofact 1: All things have only two possible states: GOOD and EVIL
Neofact 2: Current system of government regulation is dysfunctional
Neoconclusion: All government regulation is EVIL.
Comment from the sheeple: (sip, sip, sip...) More please!
1 Entities have the ability to choose products as they see fit with no restrictions (Yeah, ISPs fail that one today)
2 Entities have the information they need in order to make informed decisions. (Hmm, this one is probably a fail too)
3 Entities make rational decisions. IE they make decisions to maximize any money they make and minimize costs
So unless you have a situation where everybody has the ability to make choices, the information to make those choices, and are rational so they can use that information to make choices you don't have a theoretical free market.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Yes!!! Please, please stop resisting! For the sake of all that is good and righteous, let us have our billions and control you dumb-masses!!
Sure, we may enslave you, perhaps even kill you, but it's all part of God's plan!!!
Resistance is futile anyway - we just have to bribe harder.
They're out to fuck us on both sides of the aisle.
No sig for you!!
...let's be honest here. Franken wants what all liberals do - they want to control everything you see and read. To them "net neutrality" means on-line and radio are to become all liberal all the time. Talk radio, the internet, and FOX are the only media outlets not controlled by liberals - and "net neutrality" is how they are going to fix that. If you want proof of this, ask Mr. Franken how he feels about net neutrality with respect to tcp/ip protocols. You will get either a blank look (he's not a bright man) or you will see a sudden and savage about-face to race to protect "intellectual property" loaded with assumptions about who should get such protection by looking at the list of contributors to his war chest.
Do remember that this is the very same political party whose president criticized SCOTUS - in public - for asserting that people, even people in corporations other than unions or political action groups, cannot be held silent by the government since the 1st amendment - whose first and only function IS to protect political discourse - forbids them to do so. Said President then promptly promising to "re-apply" the principle - censorship - once again. Hey, the 1st amendment is not that hard to figure out, they KNEW that law was unconstitutional the day they passed it, and they will know it still when they pass the replacement. Cynically they realize that all they need to do to end-run the Constitution is to pass a law abrogating part of it, and then defend it to the death, appeal, appeal, appeal, delay, delay, delay, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer and when SCOTUS finally smacks 'em down again, go ahead and pass the exact same bill over again with different wording, and let the process repeat. Who cares if it makes lawyers filthy, stinking rich? The Trial Lawyer's Association will insure that only truly liberal viewpoints will be permitted, and they get paid too. Sweet deal.
Do not believe liberals when they say "new neutrality". Please. It's just a code word for censorship. And we are too much like China all ready. We have already hit most of the marks to a dictator-driven social "democracy" - the end of privacy, the disarming of the public, the control over individual lives, regulation of speech and the media, selective reporting, the list goes on and on.
Now I expect this will be modded down troll, but I feel better having at least I've pointed out - again - that we are patching our political dike using handfuls of C4 (all of which we bought with Chinese credit...), so when it blows up I'll be in a cabin somewhere, sitting on a pile of MRE's, cleaning my guns, and watching "Tremors" episodes on my solar-powered DVD - with occasional breaks to look at all the surprised faces when it comes THEIR turn to be rounded up. And I swear to God, when they start rounding up all those liberal Jews who voted for Obama, I am going to laugh myself until I hiccup. Jews are supposed to be smart, but they never did figure out that the only Americans who support Israel are the Republicans.
Fraken as a senator - its surreal to the point of absurdity. He was never funny as a comedian but he's a laugh riot now...
We need internet regulations to stop the ISP's from controlling everything!!!!!
Speaking of dial-up..
Remeber how modems were getting better and better?
Then they all stopped at 56k.
Wasnt there a law or regulation passed at one time limiting the speed of modems to 56k?
What if that had never gone into effect. Would modem engeneers have been able to keep up with cable internet providers?
oldhack: "Security is a waste of money until shit hits the fan. 5 minutes later, it becomes waste of money again. "
Net Neutrality is one of the most Orwellian-named draconian Big Brother government power-grabs of our time! Only individual choice, competition, and the free market can protect freedom of speech. The government is its #1 enemy!
If ISPs want the rights inherent in operating as private networks, then they should bear the responsibilities for the content they privately decide to carry. For example, if an ISP is found to be transmitting child pornography, then as a private network they could be subject to prosecution for distributing it.
If they want to be exempted from such liability like other common carriers, then they should be expected to meet the responsibilities of other common carriers: publish tariffs and treat all cargo within each tariff equally.
Rights and responsibilities--in a civilized society they go together.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
That may be the single dumbest thing I've ever read on Slashdot.
"Oppose Internet deregulation"? When was it regulated?
The Internet is successful because government took a hands off approach. And now people like you think they can make it better by having the government exert control over it? Really? And make no mistake, even a simple set of so-called "net neutrality" regs that you want is a matter of control. Do you honestly think the government will stop there once the precedent of regulating the Internet has begun?
Jesus, you're cutting your own throat and you can't even see it.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
> This is fantastically analogous to Net Neutrality.
I kinda suspect GP might have posted his story for exactly that reason ;)
Who Listens to Al Franken these days? He's a fraud!
... but you posted a great response to my comment, and I wanted to follow up (in the hopes you do read it).
1. Libertarians who say that if govt. was small and unobtrusive, there would be no way for businesses to corrupt it are exaggerating or being a bit unrealistic. I think, however, it's fair to say that with a smaller govt. comes much less RISK of corruption taking hold. With a larger govt. that manages a vast array of things, there are exponentially more motivators for someone to "buy their way in" to the system and corrupt it. (Even at the most simplistic level, larger govt means more people employed in it. The more individuals you have working for them, the greater the chances you've got dishonest workers among them who can be easily bought.)
2. Most Libertarians I know tread pretty lightly when you start talking about such things as a "strong Judiciary" - but that's not because they think it has little value and needs to be rendered weak and ineffective. That's because they see our courts as often re-writing law, under the guise of "interpreting it" (their real job). When this happens, it usually involves bending and stretching wording to give government new powers that weren't really granted it under our Constitution or Bill of Rights.
3. It's important to realize that there are a lot of people with alternate political philosophies out there who often get lumped in under the umbrella of "Libertarianism", too. I've run into quite a few on Facebook, for example, who are really "Voluntarists", "Agorists", or out and out "Anarchists" -- yet many stand in support of Libertarian candidates and generally hang out with a libertarian-minded crowd. This probably dilutes things and confuses the issues too. (A Voluntarist, for example, basically maintains that ANY form of government is by nature a violent one, so the ultimate goal is to strive for a "stateless system".)