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The Right's War On Net Neutrality
jamie writes "To understand the debate being waged in the United States over Net Neutrality, it's important to understand just how drastically one side has been misled. The leaders of the American Right are spreading the lie that Net Neutrality is a government takeover of the internet, with the intention of silencing conservative voices. (Limbaugh: "All you really have to know about Net Neutrality is that its biggest promoters are George Soros and Google.") This may be hard to believe to those of us who actually know what it's about — reinstating pre-2005 law that ensured internet providers could discriminate on the basis of volume but not content. Since the opposing side is so badly misinformed, those of us who want the internet to remain open to innovation and freedom of expression have to help educate them before the debate can really be held."
I'm pretty right-wing... but I have some awesome arguments about this with other right-wingers.
Some of them can't seem to evaluate the situation for themselves so they just go with whatever their media talking head tells them.
None of them can explain how the Internet is supposed to work, nor how companies are screwing it up, nor what net neutrality means.... but they are pretty sure that gay socialists are going to take over the internet.
I usually paint it like this:
What if ISPs and common carriers started deciding to block FoxNews.com because they didn't like the message? That seems to get thru to some of them.
The right-wingers have one point though:
Liberals usually work incrementally. It starts with simple net neutrality rules. Then later on, they add some more rules. And more. And more. A Killswitch and some hate-crimes legislation later and before you know the government is all up in your intarwebs.
Now before you liberals get all self-congratulatory on your enlightened position.... none of my liberal friends can think for themselves on several liberal bandwaggon issues either.
THL phish sticks
The truth is that Net Neutrality is the government taking over the Internet, while a lack of Net Neutrality is big business taking over the Internet. Sorry little man, but you can't win; what we have now is both sides being too stupid to realize that somebody has ground rent up to now on a large piece of land somebody else had a cabin on, and now they're negotiating on whether to pay the rent or buy the ground while we've been playing in the part of their back yard they didn't realize was theirs until now.
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Please note I'm quoting this from memory.
The actual videos can be found on google.
When the Democrats issue statements like, "We need a Fairness Doctrine for the internet. For example maybe you'll visit foxnews.com and a popup will ask if you want to read democrat.org too. We need to include that as part of net neutrality and other FCC regulations." Or "We need to pass a law to remove MSNBC and FOXnews from cable television." The latter came from a Congressman Kennedy who is a nobody, but the first came from one of the White House "czars" who directly advises the president and the FCC Chair. i.e. A powerful person.
And then of course there's Obama himself who gave a college speech advising them not to read the internet news sites and only listen to WH press releases as "trustworthy" sources of information. (Please note I am Libertarian, so any comment about how I am a "Bush lover" or whatever would be pointless.)
And the more-recent act where TRUtv was ordered by somebody in the White House to pull Governor Ventura's show about FEMA internment camps off the air. i.e. Censorship of a private channel. So if there's confusion by Republicans, it's because of what they are hearing coming out of the Congress and White House own administrators. The message they are sending sounds like anti-free speech rhetoric. Maybe they should stop doing that.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
This has been the most infuriating aspect of this debate for me. Every time I'm challenged by people who listen to Limbaugh on the subject of Net Neutrality, they think it's all about keeping porn off the Internet and allowing the Government to censor websites. So yes, my opponents are horribly misinformed on this issue thanks to that bombastic blowhard.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
While the idea that net neutrality is about turning the internet into a liberal nanny state is, naturally, unmitigated hogwash, there is a certain twisted "logic" to its appeal...
First, of course, is the "zOMG, only governments are capable of regulation and/or oppression, free markets are free as in freedom, all historical evidence to the contrary!" brigade. There are people who think that "free market" is some sort of god-given default state, not something created by the interesection of specific culture and rule of law. This tends to lead to a view where "free market" is what happens with no regulations, and every subsequent regulation is a brick in the road toward socialist fascism.
Second, where do conservative commentators have their greatest strength, in terms of market penetration, viewership numbers, etc? Radio and Cable. On the radio, there is pretty much Right win talk, apolitical top-40 pop drivel, and NPR coming in a distant third. On cable, you have the rabid ideologues on Fox, and the slightly more respectable-looking "centrist" corporatistists elsewhere. The left pretty much has comedy central.
Now, given that, there is an obvious ideological and economic alliance of interests between team Cable, RF broadcasters, and the major entertainment and "news" figures whose fortunes are alligned with theirs.
The ideological alignment helps; but even if Limbaugh were host of the "Glorious People's Revolutionary Communism Hour", he would probably be dismissing net neutrality as a plot of the capitalist running-dogs and their international banking masters of deceit. Cable and Radio are two media where right wing figures have played particularly well. The fact that they are standing in defense of their bread-and-butter medium against the unfettered internet access that would(through a mixture of streaming video and pressure to re-allocate spectrum toward wireless IP networks rather than AM/FM/UHF/VHF broadcasts) cut into that medium's viability seems entirely logical, even without the ideological component.
Companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T want to be able to not only charge their customers for internet access, but also charge the companies like Google, Amazon, and Netflix for the traffic that their customers generate when accessing those sites. Look at the recent move Comcast made against Level3, "Hey guys, nice work on getting that Netflix account, oh by the way we're going to charge you more to connect to us because you are supplying connectivity for a company which competes with our OnDemand services, thank you for choosing Comcast". What would have happened if Level3 said "meh....I don't think so" and turned off peering to Comcast. Who would have suffered? Mostly us, the consumers. Awesome.
It's also about being allowed to prioritize network traffic for hosted services over competing third party services, although beating voip providers on price (ala bundling) has pretty much destroyed most of the third party VOIP providers. Being able to provide a better quality hosted product is real easy when you de-prioritize competing services traffic on your network. A few months of poor performance and customers will be switching to hosted services in droves. I think we can all agree that this would fall into the "anti-competitive practices" category. The thing is, they might be doing this already, except that its technically not illegal, or at least its difficult enough to prove that plausible deniability plays a significant role and there is no legal precedent set to file suit on. Net Neutrality laws would make this illegal and at the very least require them to disclose that they are doing it.
Anyone can see that charging Google or Microsoft money whenever a customer accesses the site is wrong. Somehow they have twisted this into them getting a free ride on their network. Nevermind that the customer is paying for access to the internet and that the site being accessed is also paying to be connected to the internet.
I am all for traffic shaping based on volume to ensure equal access to all traffic, but if you are using public funds to prop up your infrastructure, you better have full disclosure available.
THIS is what they are really talking about and it has nothing to do with the government "taking over" the internet. Of course they tend to screw up most things they touch so I have very little faith that even if they do try to regulate things, that they will do a decent job.
On a side note, many people on both "sides" like to blame de-regulation for the banking problems we have had, and then argue against any other forms of regulation on the basis that regulation is bad and against the free market.
First off lets get one thing straight, there is no such thing as a free market. Whether by government hands or private hands, someone will ALWAYS be manipulating the rules in their favor. We are not free, but merely have the illusion of freedom so long as we don't piss the wrong person off.
First, of course, is the "zOMG, only governments are capable of regulation and/or oppression, free markets are free as in freedom, all historical evidence to the contrary!" brigade.
I'm not quite sure I'm reading this right, but you do know that our government has had a history of selective oppression, right? Japanese Americans during the last World War, the Native Americans... to name the two big ones I can think of. That's not even getting into the whole new "Terrorism" and Gitmo side of things. If they can tie something to National Security, they can/have get away with far too much.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
This article misses the point of the debate, and completely mischaracterizes the reasons why the Right is concerned about the current net neutrality power grab. There are several issues here, which the Daily Kos completely glosses over (which, being the Daily Kos, doesn't surprise me much):
1. The power grab by the FCC is illegal and has already been repudiated in court. The 111th Congress did not implement net neutrality rules (despite a slight push for them by the Obama administration) and so the FCC decided they would just create the regulations out of the blue. The problem is that a federal court shut that down, stating in a decision that the FCC didn't have the authority to regulate the Internet. So, the new stunt is to reclassify the Internet such that it falls under FCC jurisdiction (under a 1930s law designed to regulate monopoly telephone services). This will probably get thrown out in court, but the Right is correct to point out that this is a violation of the rule of law.
2. The argument about blocking political speech is not really part of the issue (asinine comments about Rush Limbaugh notwithstanding). No service provider can block out half of the political speech on the Internet (for either side) and stay in business, so proposing net neutrality as a solution to this non-problem is, well, a solution looking for a problem. We haven't had market failure in this area.
3. Government is notoriously slow and inept at regulating emerging and ever-changing technologies. How many articles have you read on Slashdot that underscore this fact? Laws are static, and the democratic process is reasonably slow (by design) to get things done. Therefore, regulating a fast-changing space is likely to cause more harm than good. This particular administration is likely to cause even more spectacular damage, given its record of accepting only "expert" opinions that line up with its preconceived notions (consensus by tautology) -- see, for instance, the EPA's behavior during the Gulf spill -- and so it's pretty likely that whatever it churns out will be particularly damaging. This doesn't even cover the fact that the FCC isn't going to make the rules public until they're already final. If you want to discourage investment in this market, that's a great way to do it. No wonder unemployment is still 9.8%.
4. Americans are impatient by nature; if companies foolishly and needlessly throttle services that people really want, they'll just drop the company. The only thing that somewhat prevents this is....wait for it, the FCC, which has allowed and encouraged telecoms to have a monopoly within a municipality, which means less competition for consumers. So, this law is government regulation designed to combat the result of a separate government failure.
Being 'against everything the left like' is a pretty goddamn shitty political position.
OTOH, it actually is the Republican position. Just the other day, they were against a bill to attempt to reduce 'child marriage' around the world. ('Child marriage' actually means 40 year old men purchasing 13 year old girls from their parents, 'marrying' them, and then, when their female children are old enough, selling them off to other men.)
A simple bill that uses already existing US development programs to help break the cycle of abuse by simply attempting to educate women, and requires countries that get our aid to explain the status of this practice in them, and was only $108 million dollars. (To compare, we just passed a $858 billion tax cut extension, which is, oh, 800,000x more. The damn 'bridge to nowhere' was $223 million.)
The joke used to be that the Democrats should come out against raping children, and see what the Republicans do. Horrifically, twp weeks ago, they did, and the Republicans, indeed, came in favor of it. Or at least not against it.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
it is a way of allowing both sides of a story to be heard so people can make informed judgements.
Your opinion on the matter is idiotic and here is why:
There are more than two sides to a story. You obviously mean when YOUR pet-favorite side of the story isnt represented, then 'the other side' should be represented (Should segregationists get equal air time by mandate? How about Anarchists? Do they get equal air time by mandate? What about Furry Fetishists? Pedophiles?)
Meanwhile Fox is delivering what its viewers desire to continue watching (profit motive.. their product is the viewers who they sell to the advertisers), rather than what some special interest wants them to see (control of information motive... they dont have a product, just an agenda)
You and the rest of the supporters of the fairness doctrine are far more evil than Fox will ever be.
The government should stay out of content control. Period and End Of Story.
"His name was James Damore."
I still own and drive my 2001 Honda Insight daily. Its top speed is 113MPH -- that's when the governor kicks in -- and it is truly scary. Particularly WHEN the governor kicks in, suddenly the IMA is whining as it goes into recharge mode at a speed way past what it expects, then since your foot is still to the floor it accelerates the car as hard as it can (which isn't much) until the governor cuts off gas to the motor again.
In truth, about 90MPH is when the Insight gets pretty scary to drive. Ultimately, it's an all-aluminum, incredibly-efficient econo-box that can get out-accelerated by my wife's minivan.
I have never had a problem with freeway speeds (75MPH) in the Insight. The only time it gets scary at that kind of speed is when the road is grooved, like for construction, or uneven. Then the offset between the front and rear tires comes into play, and the car will kind of shimmy around a little in the lane.
So to sum up:
* Max speed of 55MPH? B.S. I've owned my 2001 Insight for nine years now, and drive faster than this all the time.
* Max sped of 120MPH? B.S., by about 7MPH. My sole experiment showed the governor kicking in reliably at 113MPH (which, by the way, is the max rated speed of the tires)
* Anemic performance? Damn right! My hybrid automatic transmission still averages better than 50MPG... and that's running larger, grippier tires than stock. I don't mind getting out-accelerated by trucks at stoplights; I'm playing the high-mileage game, not "who gets their first?".
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
There is one, simple, crucial fact that the right is missing in these debates. There is no free market in broadband access. If you are extremely lucky you can pick between your telephone company and your cable company and they tend to not compete on either price or service and quickly move to adopt the same draconian policies introduced by their "competitors" -- and again, this is if you're lucky, most people are stuck with their cable company. Not even the right will argue against regulating monopolies, we all realize that in the absence of competition monopolies will provide poor service for rates that border on extortion.
If you want to win the net neutrality debate with the right then offer a simple concession: IPSs which open up their network to third party providers can operate without regulation. Those providers that have no competition or only one competitor must put up with regulation.
You can also remind everyone that the government invented the internet (arpnet was a darpa project) so the Internet was never created to be run by businesses anymore than the national interstate system was, but that doesn't resonate nearly as well as shifting this back to a monopoly vs. consumer debate.
I remember when Obama recommended that people check their tire pressure (And maintain their cars.) instead of allowing new offshore drilling during the election.
The Republicans, of course, decided to act like checking your tire pressure was an insanely stupid thing for human beings to do. (Sadly, as Obama was not elected yet, they couldn't act like his suggestion was a government dictate.)
eventually happened with offshore drilling.
Remember my Republican friends, if a Democrat suggests something that would, for the cost of a $10 air pump from Wal-Mart and 5 minutes of your time every month, save you 3% of your gasoline costs, (Which by my math would pay for itself the first time you use it, if you spend at least $33 on gas a month.) why, they're crazy. If they're elected, or even if they're just the spouse of someone elected, they're a fascist.
The government should never attempt to provide information that would make the lives of their citizens better!
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
And what you don't realize is that the right also has its body of ruling elites that it serves with blind and absolute allegiance that more closely resembles deification than mere political affiliation.
Modern democracy is a circus to distract us from the people who are really pulling the strings and controlling our nation and our world.
Left? Right? It doesn't matter. What matters is that there is an elite class of people who are dismantling our nation and siphoning every last drop that they can from the people before our nation collapses under their greed and lack of foresight. Unless something happens soon to change that, our little experiment in liberty will have been nothing but a minor intermission in a long line of authoritarian kleptocracies and America as we know it will not see the 22nd century.