Slashdot Mirror
Cloudflare Might Be Exploring a Way To Slow Down FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's Home Internet Speeds (twitter.com)
Late Wednesday night, TechCrunch reporter Josh Constine pleaded to tech billionaires to purchase local ISPs near FCC chairman Ajit Pai's home and slow down his Internet speeds. One of the responders to that tweet was Matthew Prince, co-founder and chief executive of Cloudflare, who said: I could do this in a different, but equally effective, way. Sent note to our GC to see if we can without breaking any laws. In a statement to Slashdot, Mr. Prince said: Probably the easiest thing would be to slow down requests from the FCC's IP ranges. Or put up an interstitial whenever someone from those IPs visits a site behind us. I think it's less likely we'd do it across the board ourselves, more likely we'd implement it as an option our customers could opt in to. Basically taking this a step further.
This childlike tendency to focus on people instead of ideas reveals a herd mentality. Then again, that is typical of democracy.
If you cannot beat him in the realm of ideas, no amount of protests, slogans, and stunts will help.
You need a better argument for net neutrality than "they might charge me extra for midget porn." You need to address the fact that "fast lanes," by prioritizing traffic, have done -- using our knowledge of relativity here -- the same thing as slowing down all other traffic, especially as infrastructure improves.
Ajit Pai is just the figurehead. Very few people have looked into the issues underlying this issue, and so they are relying on masses of warm bodies to make the argument for them with a heckler's veto. That sets a precedent that benefits no one.
Alternative Right.