Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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?
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
Typical elitist liberal agenda.
Ensuring that ISPs can't discriminate against the little guy (such as myself) is elitest?
What the fuck are you smoking?
Living With a Nerd
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"
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.
Given what he said in the summary (which i'm sure you read carefully) it sounds like he's asking for help fighting the cause.
Stewart Smalley Saves the Internet!
Monstar L
What about someone like me? I run a little website because I enjoy it and because there is a small cadre of people out there that enjoy reading what I have to say.
Now let's say Comcast says that unless I pay them $10 a month, they will slow down people browsing my site through their ISP. Then say Verizon tells me the same thing. And Cox. And Time Warner. Suddenly, my little $120 investment per year in my hobby is an order of magnitude bigger, and I can no longer afford it.
THAT is why net neutrality is important. It isn't to protect the big guys, it's to protect the little guys. ::generalization time:: I find it funny that republicans say they are always "for" the little guy, yet net neutrality is some kind of boogyman amongst them, waiting to come and murder their children.
It's really weird. And hypocritical.
Living With a Nerd
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
you are a fucking moron.
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.
Ahem.
It's not about their servers -- how many there are, or how fast they are -- it's about them colluding with the ISPs to throttle other sites.
In a pure capitalist, free market, collusion happens, and I suppose everyone is okay with it.
But the internet was originally built with my tax dollars, and I don't want rich pricks colluding to slow down some content and not others.
how does more government control mean more freedom of information?
How did government control of the postal service mean more freedom of information (getting a letter from A to B in less than several months!)? How did government control of highways mean more freedom of movement (Fewer highway robbers and turnpike toll bandits)? How did government control/regulation of telegraph, radio, television, telephones mean more freedom of information? NN is not about "make content fair", it's about "make queuing/lining up for service fair"
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.
If this were really such a cut & dry partisan issue, why have 70+ democrat members of congress also asked the FCC to drop it's plans to impose net neutrality rules?
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/05/73-democrats-tell-fcc-to-drop-net-neutrality-rules.ars
I'm not a big fan of the FCC having this power, and not because "I'm a republican," (I'm actually not, in point of fact), but because I see what moronic regulations the FCC has imposed on television & radio. If you look at the "content controls" they've enacted on those formats, is it all that hard to imagine that they'll soon be tasked with "content regulation" on the internet as well, in the form of mandatory parental controls & staggering fines on sites deemed to violate some obscure and arbitrary FCC ruling?
They do it with TV and radio today. If you give them the same control over the internet, I won't be surprised to see them attempting the same regulations there within a few years. I'm all for the concept of net neutrality, but I'm not convinced the FCC is the body best suited for 'regulating' a 'free and open' internet. I'd like to see a dramatic limitation of their powers to impose anything more than "thou shalt not filter or shape traffic," at the very least.
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.
If this were really such a cut & dry partisan issue, why have 70+ democrat members of congress also asked the FCC to drop it's plans to impose net neutrality rules?
Likely because they have doners or other special interests that would be negatively affected by it, just like any other politician working for themselves and not the people.
That being said, I referenced Republicans insofar as the overall party, elected and electorate. It is kind of a moot point though...for every person that understands what Net Neutrality is about, there are a BUNCH of people that have either no idea or an inaccurate idea.
Living With a Nerd
"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.
To the Republicans, the "little guy" is Enron. The Big Guy is the government.
You are not the little guy. You are less than nothing.
This isn't an issue of Fox News paying more for their servers. That's a fair way to improve infrastructure.
The fear is that without Net Neutrality there will be pay-for-play. Let's use something less politically involved so that it's easier to look at the real issue. MySpace has lost a lot of market share to Facebook, so they decide to pay AT&T 'x' amount to make sure that Facebook doesn't load well for their users. Perhaps they block a style sheet so the site becomes visually unusable. It's basically an ISP protection racket.
There's a substantial difference between fair (upgrading servers, buying more bandwidth, etc.), and unfair (paying to cripple competition).
And remember you shouldn't get up in the politics of whether you like Fox News or not. If you happen to like Fox News just imagine MSNBC does this to Fox on your internet connection.
Your analogy is deeply, misleadingly, and vexatiously flawed. Net neutrality legislation doesn't enjoin people attempting to produce content, as do the printers of your example. It enjoins people attempting to take part in a public infrastructure which transmits that content to would-be consumers. As it happens, the founders did have an opinion about that, and the US Postal Service was established in an attempt to give equal access to that service.
For a lot of reasons that should probably be obvious, I don't think that the USPS makes a very good point of comparison with the Internet. But your analogy is simply ludicrous, unless you think that the passage of Net Neutrality is going to force, say, HBO to produce my four part special on toe cheese.
So would it be ok then if say, the phone company randomly disconnected phone calls to Bill's Plumbing Service because Sven's Super Plumbing Depot paid them extra for premium service? Or what if they paid the phone company for an exclusive service, and all phone calls to any plumber in the state were redirected to Sven's, would that be cool with you? How about the liberal phone CEO who drops all calls to GOP fundraising lines, and vice versa? How about a Christian phone company exec deciding to block all calls to planned parenthood, phone sex lines, and synagogues?
If this type of neutrality regulation is needed for phone companies, why is it supposedly so evil for the internet?
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.
How about setting the precedent that the government can?
First it will be FCC's "Net neutrality", then it will be a mandatory proprietary iCHIP for parental controls in every ethernet adapter.
Based on what information? This sounds an awful lot like the "information" Glenn Beck is spewing. Just in case that is where you get your "facts," you should know that when Glenn Beck did his show about Net Neutrality, everything that he described as being part of Net Neutrality actually has nothing to do with it. He didn't cover what it actually is, he just listed a bunch of "Marxist" stuff and falsely claimed that that's what Net Neutrality is.
I guess he feels like he can get away with it because it's all stuff that supposedly could happen, if you take the least probable things Beck says at their most far-out extremes as absolute fact.
You're a fucking idiot. It's precisely because of government intervention that you're capable of carrying out a safe, happy, healthy life.
That is, unless you want the government to cease all regulation with regards to transportation safety standards, food safety standards, building codes, etc. I suppose that's all typical liberal elitism too, eh?
Actually I think a system like this could work pretty well. And then if you have any disputes, you settle them in the Thunderdome.
Bow-ties are cool.
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.
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!)
Right, my point is that painting it as some sort of partisan issue is kind of misleading when elements of both parties are actively fighting it. Franken is doing this, and your commentary on the "republicans say..." does this too. It distracts from the real issue at hand, which is that the telcos are throwing money at everybody they can to make sure this goes away.
Once again, I like the notion of net neutrality, but am reluctant to believe that the FCC won't abuse its regulatory power down the line as soon as some well-intentioned PAC says "but think of the children, there's boobies on the internet!" And suddenly, rather than shaped traffic, we have websites being fined out of existence for "harming innocent children." I would prefer that - if FCC gets control of this - that Congress explicitly limit the FCC's charter in this space to simply be "imposing net neutrality, with no extra authority to impose future regulations or restrictions not authorized by Congress."
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.
Actually I think a system like this could work pretty well. And then if you have any disputes, you settle them in the Thunderdome.
"My body consumes all waste materials...it's like the Thunderdome in here! Only, two men enter, no man leaves." -Meatwad
Living With a Nerd
What are you talking about? Net neutrality is basically about -preventing- content discrimination by ISPs. Comcast can't go throttling your traffic based on the content of the packets - whether that content is political or, as is more likely, based on how much the host server owner has paid Comcast.
How you go from that to "the govt [will] squash opposing viewpoints in the name of neutrality" is a mystery.
you are really confusing your agendas.
The FCC, via congress, is already capable of something like the iChip. Such things do not come from net neutrality, they come from a special interest from the far right religious lobby. Independent of Net Neutrality, the FCC is being lobbied for parental controls and anti pornography policies. The religious freaks in Massachusetts are trying to get a bill passed that would make internet pornography illegal. But that is another story.
There is still this conflict between limiting liability of common carriers and giving the carries the right to control content. If carriers had give up limited liability then they would like move towards neutrality. Let Comcast deal with a few 100,000 law suits over content and they would quickly rethink their strategy.
If you think the net neutrality is is about regulating the Internet then you should rethink your position. Net neutrality is about who controls the content. Is it you, or Comcast and AT&T?
Keep in mind that democrats == republicans anymore. There is little difference in stupidity asshole factor
Net Neutrality == internet providers are regulated to provide fair and equal access to the 'net for everyone == Very good for all
Dems may wish to tax the internet, to much resistance from the general public
But Republicans want to deregulate the internet, which is double speak meaning circumventing net neutrality. This is very very bad!
Historically, every time Republicans deregulated a public service or utility, the service has turned to shit. Costs go up and service goes down.
Support Net Neutrality
Oppose Internet deregulation. Don't let them do it!
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
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.
Except that your argument is a bit flawed, since it isn't the FCC that determines the regulations in regard to decency, they are only tasked with implementing the rules. The FCC can fine folks for showing a booby during the Superbowl, because Congress passed a law not only giving them that ability, but REQUIRING that they do so. The FCC has no authority nor ability to levee such fines, unless directed to do so by law. They take laws enacted by Congress, and determine a standardized set of rules that will apply to enforce that law.
Lets also note that the FCC was not behind the COPPA regulation, or any of the other regulations ALREADY put on the books, designed to save the children from boobies.
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.
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.
Yes, you are a fucking moron, too.