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Obama FCC Caves On Net Neutrality
An anonymous reader writes "...the rule, which will be voted on during tomorrow's FCC meeting, falls drastically short of earlier pledges by President Obama and the FCC Chairman to protect the free and open Internet. The rule is so riddled with loopholes that it's become clear that this FCC chairman crafted it with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists, and not defending the interests of the tens of millions of Internet users."
Money rules this world...
No clue. yesterday, I was advocating Net Neutrality in a discussion here on Slashdot, and I continue to advocate for it. What the FCC is showing here, however, is not what I and other like-minded folks are advocating. I think the first post has it right...money runs things.
PS: Sincere apologies to those who told me to read up yesterday...now that I have, I can see why you're calling bullshit. Please note that my support of Net Neutrality stands, but not this version of it.
Living With a Nerd
The ace in the hole for net neutrality is the latest crop of cheap TVs with built-in Netflix and other online services. My in-laws just purchased one a few months ago and they use Netflix constantly. These are dye-in-the-wool, Ann Coulter-reading, FOXNews-watching Republicans. I mentioned to my father-in-law about net neutrality being a big issue. He had never heard of it. When I explained the ramifications for their Netflix usage, his response was to immediately support it. It will be interesting to see this shake out. This is another chance where we can see if FOX and Rush can convince more people to act against their own self interest in support of some bastardization of "freedom."
Next move is the pitchforks and fire... Or we could just smile and take it as we are sold out again.
Obama's net neutrality pledge was one of the reasons I voted for him after voting for Republican presidential candidates for so many years. (That, and attempting to right the wrong of voting for dubya--twice.) It is now clear to me that they are ALL a bunch of lying hypocrites. And that I'm just not as smart as I thought I was...
A clever person solves a problem, A wise person avoids it. -Einstein
Two words... Dumb pipe... That's what we're supposed to be demanding here.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
As soon as e911 was allowed by VOIP, this concept died.
You cannot drop a 911 call because there's a particularly intense Halo deathmatch going on, or your neighbor is streaming Harry Potter in HD.
We could at least have low priced, fast, and fair service like most of the rest of the first world has. How about, oh I don't know, instead of charging us more, they reduce their profits to a fair and reasonable level? Why is it always the little guy who has to tighten his belt?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I am a bit demoralized nowadays about all this -- and I'd love to take action but I don't know how. So while we as nerds who normally argue, bitch, and complain can actually stand up and figure a way to do something about this (short of something 4chan would do), then I'd be all for it. Let's strategize. Let's plan. And let's execute in the perfect ways I know that we can do thousands of lines of code, deploying hundreds of servers, or anything else "IT" that we do.
I'm here to start the call to arms, I just don't know what to do after that.
This is my problem, too. Telling the government what we want and what is right hasn't worked. Voting hasn't worked. I'm certain there must be a few more steps we can take before attempting to shoot government leaders is the right answer, though. I just don't have a clue what those next steps might be.
The people of the USA could have stopped it if they were actually interested in performing their civic duty and not just in bread and circuses. Our political obligations don't end with voting. Do you seriously think that any anti-net neutrality legislation would be rubber-stamped if even 1000 people gathered outside of the capital and refused to leave until their voices were heard? 10,000? 100,000? A million? The country is a fading empire; history is repeating itself, and the country will fade just like Rome did.
Government doesn't exist to protect the rights of citizens who are consuming over those who are producing.
This is absurd. The government should exist to serve only the needs of people. Treating a corporation like any other citizen is ridiculous, especially when you promote the interests of a corporation over those of the actual people.
You want to know what to do? Vote for candidates that both sides of the aisle don't like. You know, the candidates who are fundamentally incompatible with corporatism. And no, this doesn't mean libertarians. Libertarianism is useful idiocy for the wealthy, which is why hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of hours of video are shovelled at Tea Party candidates while the Greens have to make do with table scraps.
You wanted hope? You wanted change? You should have voted for Nader.
--srj/mmv
I don't think people are surprised, but very let down. "Expect the worst, hope for the best", right? Everyone expects corporate money and influence to win, but hoped nonetheless that this guy they elected would take a stand or that the internet would be a bastion of relative freedom.
No one likes have having his hopes crushed.
Could we actually get an article with some details, rather than an editorial about what the policy MIGHT contain?
Commenters here and at Huffington Post are seriously suggesting we have a second American Revolution because you didn't get everything you wanted on a Net Neturality policy change?
Jesus, get some perspective! I hope most of you realize that this is the first time Net Neturality is being tried in the US. At all. Anyone spending more than 5 minutes looking into Net Neutrality realize its a complex issue that can't be solved with "Don't discriminate." There are unintended consequences for any action they take.
You do realize that policies can be changed at a later date, right? They aren't written in stone. These policies make more sense than the alternative of doing nothing, and they make more sense than being heavy handed and creating more problems then they solve. If problems crop up, they can be dealt with.
Is this "news for nerds" or "news for lusers"?
There is a tech solution. Invent it. Build it. Patent/open-source it. Sell it. Get it out there.
But DON'T just sit there whining that ulterior-motive politicians and bureaucrats won't do things your way.
One solution:
Build a cheap, open, legal, spread-spectrum, compact, no-setup, easy network relay box. Set broadcast power within legal no-license limits. Make a gazillion of them, plug 'em in wherever you can. Make a giant ad-hoc network. You know what I'm getting at.
Heck, this should already be in place between the innumerable cellphones & wireless routers out there. Get the ad-hoc network big enough, and the individual load should be minimal and the total disruptions minimal. TCP/IP is intended to circumvent network failures, so long as there is a path. Make a path.
And stop expecting powermongers to give you freedom.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
I hate to break it to the corporatist crowd, but the ISPs built those networks with our money, from government subsidies. They received those subsidies to enhance our national infrastructure. If monopolists have the same property rights as everyone else, the free market dies. And if monopolists control infrastructure without oversight to ensure equal access, democracy dies.
Former US House candidate, TN-5
By owning a corporation you don't magically lose the protections you enjoy as an individual. Having the money to invest in corporations should not buy you more representation than those that can't afford to, or choose not to, own corporations. It's not that groups of people deserve less protection; it is that they don't deserve more protection - the whole "Equal Protection under the Law" thing you mention. Corporations already provide protection from certain liabilities - we really don't need to be granting them full citizen rights as well.
The more the government regulates the more powerful corporations become. It's really easy, fight government regulation. Work to reduce the amount that government regulates economic activity. Government regulations always favor larger companies over smaller companies. I am not arguing for no government regulation, but for minimal government regulation.
There are too many people who agitate for government regulation to fix problems created by government regulation. The solution to problems created by the government is to get rid of whatever element of government caused the problem, not by creating new government regulations.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Your lawmakers didn't put any conditions on those subsidies that allow you to dictate terms.
We don't need to have put conditions on those subsidies. If the cable companies don't play nice with their toys, we will take them away. We, the people, make the rules. If they are not behaving in a way that benefits society, we can change the law to deal with that.
Or to put it another way, those subsidies didn't come with any restrictions, but they didn't come with any promises either.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I'm still glad he won, given the screamingly terrifying alternative, but we all knew Obama was a corporate camp-follower when as a Senator, he voted to give AT&T a free pass for gleefully breaking wiretapping laws when asked by the NSA (who seemingly answers to no one).
... because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taking actions which implied that certain risky actions were being guaranteed against failure by the government.
Yes, and that explains why foreign real estate markets crashed, too.
A nice right-wing talking point not born out by the facts. In fact, FNMA and FMCC did not start taking large percentages of high risk loans until well after private firms did. And why did they? Yes, politicians on the left were asking them to make homes more affordable. What is missed by the conservatards is that politicians on the right were doing the same thing - they called it spreading the American Dream - and they thought that if the GSEs were raking in the kind of money that Countrywide, et al. were, they wouldn't need to fund them at as high a level. So yeah, blame them all you want - you'll be stupid doing so, but go ahead.
That is all.