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FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Criticizes Companies That Oppose His Efforts To Repeal Net Neutrality Rules (recode.net)
Tony Romm, writing for Recode: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai thinks everyone from Cher to Twitter has it wrong when they say that his efforts to roll back the U.S. government's existing net neutrality rules will spell the death of the web. Instead, Pai said during an event in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that tech giants could pose the greatest threat by discriminating against viewpoints on the internet. "They might cloak their advocacy in the public interest," he said, "but the real interest of these internet giants is in using the regulatory process to cement their dominance in the internet economy." The surprising rebuke came as Pai forged ahead with his plan to end the net neutrality protections adopted by the Federal Communications Commission under former President Barack Obama. Those rules subject broadband providers like AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon to utility-style regulation, all in a bid to stop them from blocking access to web pages, slowing down connections or prioritizing some content over others. [...] He didn't spare tech companies from that criticism, either. Companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter -- speaking through their main Washington, D.C.-based trade group, the Internet Association -- have urged Pai to stand down. In response, Pai sought to make an example of Twitter. He specifically raised the fact that the company at one point prevented a Republican congresswoman from promoting a tweet about abortion, only to change its mind amid a public backlash. "Now look: I love Twitter," Pai began. "But let's not kid ourselves; when it comes to a free and open Internet, Twitter is a part of the problem. The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate."
Those are not the same things.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Film at 11
I've said before the most likely way to save net neutrality would be to cancel your internet service.
If even a fifth of Comcast, ATT, Verizon, Charter etc. customers cancelled their internet service RIGHT NOW citing net neutrality concerns, word might percolate through to their FCC patsies that this really is a bad move that's hurting them in the pocketbook.
But, let's face it, at its core the access to information through the internet is perhaps the most fundamental utility there could be for a sentient being. Cancelling service is nearly impossible. The fact that these blockheads are willfully ignoring this hard reality suggests real malice to an equitable society.
Let this be a lesson.
He's not some old guy who misunderstands technology, and he's not dumb.
This is an act of malevolence.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Because Pai has a billion in cash sitting there growing and really doesn't have ANY real concerns because he's making 100 grand a month for doing nothing is basically the same thing as some Internet company being too big.
So, Twitter is bad because they sometimes block content on their platform, and the solution is to allow the ISPs to block content on their pipes?
Ajit Pai is a tool.
All I know about Net Neutrality I learned from Cher and other entertainers via Twitter. And I am outraged.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Picking on Twitter was easy. It's a social platform where ideas and thoughts are always going to be "shaped" by the owners(controllers) how they see fit.
This is not the issue at hand!
The issue is that by removing the NN protections companies like Comcast, Verizon, etc.. will be able to determine how much it costs for me(and you) to be able to even access Twitter, or how quickly I will be able access it. Whether Twitter is a platform that silences or shapes speech has nothing to do with the current NN regulations.
Somehow they managed to get the alt-right and neo-nazi groups to oppose net neutrality as if it will somehow stop Google and Facebook from censoring them. I'm willing to hear this argument out, but the posts about it I've seen on 4chan and Daily Stormer didn't really make it clear how getting rid of net neutrality would advantage them. If anything it would make it harder for alternatives like Gab or whatever to compete because they will have to waste capital paying off Comcast rents.
If Twitter is part of the problem, is he seriously suggesting that government insert itself further into the process to regulate them? Doesn't this statement contradict the goals of his effort to get rid of NN?
And how does a free and open Internet have anything to do with Twitter discriminating (or not)? Perhaps Pai should promote the idea of a Free and Open Twitter instead? That would seem to make more sense.
This whole statement is a smoke-screen and total deflection of the real underlying issue, which is equal and open access to the Internet and all things on it, simply stated.
He shouldn't even be commenting about Twitter -- at all. Twitter is not in his purview. The service providers are. The ones he is attempting to cut loose from the same type of regulation he seems to imply Twitter should be under. Are we in a Bizarro World here, or what?
Beware of the Leopard.
you are all, as Stalin would say, useful idiots
keep fighting for facebook, twitter and google as if they were 'good guys"
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/do-not-repeal-net-neutrality
And while you're there:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/we-people-call-resignation-fcc-chairman-ajit-varadaraj-pai
Let's cut the cancer out at the source.
This is so off target it barely even qualifies as "wrong" as opposed to simply "nonsensical." Net neutrality is not free speech applied to packets. It is not concerned with the contents of the packets but their origin and destination. Net Neutrality says you can't discriminate based on origin and destination. You can discriminate based on content, for example, you can drop spam or denial of service attacks. You can even prioritize based on content, so for example you could allow all voice chat packets higher priority, but only if you do it for all voice chat packets rather than creating a paid fast lane for certain people's voice chat packets. Stop listening to insane wight wing sources, they are leading you into dangerous places, like a little lamb to slaughter.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Wadda doosh!
I agree with him that poorly phrased net neutrality laws prevent competition. Competition is what will truly keep the internet open and free. Look at T-Mobile and Sprint in the cell phone market. The government motives change and swing, and many of up have no idea what they are. Business? I know what they want, my money. They will do what they need to to make sure they get it. Instead of fighting for net neutrality, we should be encouraging competition, co-ops, open pole access, etc. The cost to market but you can't tell me if it was easy, google and amazon wouldn't do it to protect themselves.
Observational-Thought(s).
So, the free market works with Twitter? Was that the point? Can he then prove an example where any sort of public backlash against Comcast, Verizon, etc has resulted in them changing their policies about bandwidth throttling or providing "more unlimited" access to selective services? Meanwhile, I'd love to know what regulatory aspects Google, Twitter, etc are supposedly exercising to cement their power vs what other companies do? Or, for that matter, why he believes the FCC doesn't have the authority to push for "search neutrality" or the like to combat these regulatory shenanigans.
Put more bluntly, he's offering a solution for a problem that doesn't exist and citing examples that sort of prove the point of why regulation might be necessary but at least currently doesn't seem to be for certain non-natural monopolies.
According to you and yours, there is a White supremacist in the Oval Office. It does not mean, what you think it means...
That said, I strongly doubt, any of those people "supremacists" have ever told Pai anything like
... or any of the other well-reasoned and sensible arguments collected here.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
So is pretty much every one of Trump's appointees going to follow his model of outright lies as a standard form of communication? This clown is either a fucking moron, or a lying fucking asshole. Which, considering the guy who appointed him is both, seems to be the whole point.
And somehow they keep trying to pull off the lie that the tax cuts are primarily intended to benefit the middle class and not the corporations and the wealthy.
Face it, America, you've been hoodwinked. And now the wealthy and the corporations will pretty much gut your society and dole out the pieces to themselves.
America is truly an oligarchy at this point.
So Twitter tells a Congresswoman that Twitter won't accept money so she can flip off pedestrians. And Pai thinks this is equivalent to allowing telecoms to set up roadblocks in order to collect tolls based upon how much money the drivers have.
This is blatant abuse and corruption to enrich obstructionist sticks in the mud at the expense of energetic, innovative, and industrious people.
It creates a class of information highwaymen.
If I don't like twitter I go somewhere else. ... off-line.
If I don't like my ISP I go
What he says is true but not the point. Maybe he should fix that too.
Simply giving the power to the ISPs to do the same is certainly not going to help...
The big difference to me is that while I depend on Google and other big tech services, I am not obligated to use them and if I wanted to, there are alternatives or I could simply stop using them (like I have done with my cable TV provider). However, I have only one ISP in my area (at least only one that has more than 3Mb/s data transfer rate) so I have no option if I do not like what he does. I am stuck with it and this ISP definitely falls into the definition of a common carrier.
Do you frequently just believe the first thing you read about somebody? Even Steve Bannon's former employee, Ben Shapiro doesn't think Bannon is racist or a white supremacist. Maybe you should do some fact checking before being so gullible. http://www.dailywire.com/news/...
"But let's not kid ourselves; when it comes to a free and open Internet, Twitter is a part of the problem. The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate."
He is not equating NN with Twitter being biased... he is simply pointing out that those who argue for NN ARE behaving biased.ways ... a separate criticism.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Rather than state as his solution that having more and innovative options to twitter to support more view points, as Net Neutrality supports, he just said what about something unrelated. Classic way to deflect those without critical reasoning skills. Personally, I've offended by such tactics. Just be honest, that you believe consolidation of media into the hands of a very few oligarchs for their enrichment and consolidation of power is what you are proposing and be intellectually honest.
Ajit Pai is having an NPD... narcissistic personality disorder. Everybody is wrong except him !!
Let this be a lesson.
He's not some old guy who misunderstands technology, and he's not dumb.
This is an act of malevolence.
Congress mandated that the internet be not be regulated. (1996, Telecommunications act)
FCC tries to regulate the internet (2008-ish)
FCC gets shot down by courts, FCC doesn't have authority to regulate internet (2010)
FCC rebrands ISPs under Title II, then asserts right to regulate. (2015)
FCC changes course, in line with Congress's instructions (2017)
It's interesting how much cheating goes on in the political arena. It seems OK to skirt the rules so long as it gets you what you want, most of the time the cheating is bad in the grand scheme of things but hey... that one polarizing issue got fixed, right?
Now your chickens have come home to roost, because that one good idea you had has to be dumped because you got it by cheating. "Cheating" here is when a federal government overreaches their authority, and goes against Congress's clear directions.
That's bad. That's something that you *do not* want to set a precedent for. That's something that really should be killed with fire, or nuked from orbit.
The *right way* is to get regulation through congress.
What - your congresscritter doesn't listen to you? That's not an excuse for cheating.
What - you can't convince enough other people to make this issue important? That's not an excuse for cheating.
Both of those previous statements are reasons for NOT cheating. Cheating inevitably leads to overreach and misapplication. If it's OK to do it in this one instance, then it's OK in all the other instances.
It's the "rule of man" instead of the "rule of law". It *seems* great in the narrow view of this one issue, but on balance it leads to complete and total corruption.
Fix it the right way, don't let this one good idea get lost because you couldn't follow the rules.
The theater play is for the republican base. He almost certainly does know this is not about free speech, but about money. But he is a (ex verizon) lawyer foremost , and he is spinning and selling a tale to the prole, not to the techie and firms.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Truth: Companies may have, or be perceived as having, biases on various social and political issues. This is true for everyone from Facebook to Fox Entertainment Group to Chick-fil-A.
Truth: This has fuckall to do with rolling back net neutrality.
Nothing posted to
moves the conversation to a broader scope, and then someone chimes in with a detailed critique of how the conversation no longer is about the smaller issue, so the speaker is obviously "wrong"?
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I love Indian people. However, they can be they can be the most corrupt cocksuckers.
He will regret all of this.
Twitter did a thing, and they're in favor of NN, therefore ISPs should control which sites you can visit. It's an airtight argument.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
On his show yesterday, Limbaugh was trying to make the case that NN is a thinly-veiled attempt to use the government to force Netflix to promote Global Warning.(!) I'm serious - this is how delusional these idiots are! We are truly doomed.
Pai has spoken in Pai language.
The weired gargling noises are disturbing.
Does anyone have a translator?
Ajit Pai was chosen as a leader because he is incompetent and not able to think logically. He is a pretend leader used to help the rich can get richer.
So only Pai and some ISP's are right? The rest of us are just greedy corrupt bastards. Talk about an alternate reality, its getting really hard to justify his bullshit. But after all is said and done a debt is a debt and and you have to pay the piper.
...maybe it's time to step back and reconsider who the idiot might really be.
Ajit Pai is tone deaf.
Senator XXXXXX,
I urge you to take immediate action against the FCC and prevent them from dismantling Net Neutrality.
Do you like to shop online?
Do you watch Netflix or Amazon or Youtube?
If not you, then consider your family, friends, neighbors and the far majority of the public you represent absolutely do.
I urge you and your congressional peers to block Ajit Pai and the FCC from removing the consumer protections which the current regulations enable.
Ajit Pai is rushing thru with this because he knows the public does not want him, or the FCC, to remove the current regulations. He is moving at unprecedented speeds with this upcoming vote and it is by no accident. Ajit Pai is very clearly still in the back pocket of the large corporations he was previously employed with.
Even today Ajit Pai made some comments...
“Now look: I love Twitter,”. But let’s not kid ourselves; when it comes to a free and open Internet, Twitter is a part of the problem. The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate.” -Ajit Pai
When I read this I hear Mr Pai completely sidestepping the real issue and instead trying to make it out to be a social or free speech issue. When NN has absolutely zero to do with free speech. NN is about ensuring the little man still has road on which to travel. NN is about the independent upstart being allowed to play on the same field as the established players in their space. NN is about ensuring the pathways to reach digital goods and services are free and open and that all 1's and 0's sent over the wires we call the Internet are treated exactly the same way. Don't allow the FCC to enable the big ISPs to discriminate. Your internet traffic is just as important as my internet traffic which is equally as important as everyone else's internet traffic. Don't let the ISPs dictate the digital pathways.
The single biggest argument that Mr Pai keeps attempting to assert is that the current NN regulations prevent the big ISPs from further expanding their networks. Of course we all know why the big ISPs dont want to expand their networks, it is because of all the local and regional laws which the big ISPs have lobbied for all these decades which enable them to have little to no incentive to pursue expansion and upgrades of their networks. When they do expand they only target the areas where the profit margins are largest. Regardless of whether the current NN regulations stay in place or they are removed the "last mile" problem still exists in America - after all we are a largely rural nation.
Please consider this message. I know I am not alone. I know you have received hundreds, if not thousands, of notes with the same message I am attempting to convey now. I hope that by putting this message into my own words, and not relying on some form response which some activist group created, shows that I am informed, educated and of sound reason, am very much behind what I am saying and that I absolutely do believe this message to be accurate and true. Should you like to discuss your viewpoints with me I am ready and able at your convenience.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
-XXXXXXX
Free speech is only for racists, misogynists, sexists, rapists, child abusers, homophobes, climate-change deniers, moon-landing hoaxers, anti-vaxers, flat-earthers, 911 conspirationists, and Trump supporters.
NOT for those who whish to condemn these disgusting pieces of putrid vomit.
The guy is named Ajit Pai and has the power to fundamentally alter the nature of the Internet. If there's so much white supremacy in the federal government, who let this non-white guy call the shots?
Net neutrality is bullshit and he should be doing everything he can to destroy it. I work at project veritas and we are in the process right now of investigating sites like Reddit and slashdot for their pro net neutrality bias.
Your point is?
Actually you're wrong. Snowflake was coined years ago to mock tumblr users endless quest to be the most unique special people in the world. A tumbr user would claim to be a trans-PoC sparkle-gender multiple system with fibromyalgia and they would get mocked for having to be a "special and unique snowflake"
When the term entered the mainstream most people thought it a reference to the trademark sensitivity to everything that these users have but it was actually a reference to their need to be a one of a kind-autistic disaster.
(Invariably these users are well off white girls with internet addiction but whatever)
Since it's now used to describe the overly sensitive individuals of the fringe left, it may as well be used for the fringe lunatics of the right as well. They're nearly identical and seem to trade members readily.
I've never heard this perspective before. Interesting.
There's been so much misdirection about the Net Neutrality thing that I can't tell if you're serious.
The agency overreach thing is the reason that the administration did this. They weren't quiet about it.
Everyone was talking about the *merits* of net neutrality, and no one bothered to listen to the FCC's *reasoning*.
I suppose it's fake news. We can now gin up a sizeable portion of the population over the issue, paint the administration as bad for doing it...
Between all the tech giants, somebody can find some dirt on this guy and get him out of the picture.
On the surface it seems really simple just to say 'Net Neutrality is obviously good because reasons', and I agree with most of the reasons I have found.
But I look a step or 2 deeper and there does appear to be some legitimate questions about competition and internet nuts and bolts type stuff that we may all take for granted.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...
Maybe there are some people here who can give some insight or add some nuance to the 'underbelly' of the Net Neutrality question.
Oh, because someone thinks someone isn't something, that makes it true?
Is that like the con artist saying Putin told him Russia didn't interfere in U.S. elections and the con artist believes him?
How about the pedophile Roy Moore who the con artist also said he believes didn't do what the accusers are saying because Roy said he didn't?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
That logic only works if the government hadn't paid for a huge be amount of the expansion of their Network and if Comcast owned all the land they had built on instead of using government interventions to forcibly allow them to build on private and federal property.
> Hell a firewall breaks net neutrality's basic tenant.
> No, it doesn't. It's almost like you don't understand the principles at all.
> NN deals with ISPs and other public network operators. It has no bearing on how you secure your own boundary.
That makes sense. If you have no idea how spam, DOS, etc work.
A very typical DOS attack has the attacker sending small DNS requests to ten thousand different servers. The servers reply, sending the (larger) answer to the apparent source of the request. The source IP has been forged, though, so the replies all go to the victim. There are two good, easy solutions to amplification attacks, and then a bad solution that doesn't really work.
First, best solution:
By the time the request packets hit an internet backbone, the routers see that the source IP header doesn't match the network that connect to that port. In other words, they are forged. The backbone drops the traffic as it tries to enter. The packets therefore only exist on the attacker's side and maybe his local ISP - he's really just DOSing himself, using up his own resources in a failed attack.
Second best:
The backbone sees the flood of DNS requests coming from 40.8.10.213 and recognizes the attack. They drop DNS traffic, or all traffic, from the attacking IP. Once again, the attack doesn't get much past the attacker's network, so it does little damage other than wasting the attacker's time.
Failed "solution":
The victim sees they are being flooded with 100Mbps of DNS responses filling their internet connection. The packets are coming from all over the place. They start blocking the IPs where the packets came from (the servers of major web sites) at their local firewall. All that accomplishes is that their users can no longer access any of the web sites which the attacker bounced packets from (thousands of legitimate web sites). It doesn't solve the problem that their internet connection has become useless because it's filled with reply packets that the attacker triggered. Blocking at the local firewall only makes things WORSE for most DOS attacks. The victim blocking at their firewall also doesn't help their ISPs network, which is being flooded. In fact, if the firewall is set to reject the flood packets, that's even worse for the ISP, who now gets to handle a bunch of icmp reject notices coming back.
Spam is similar. Spammers don't send all their spam directly from their office IP to the destination. That would make it trivial to block them, if all the millions of spams they sent out had the spammer's IP address. Instead the spammer's send their millions of spams through millions of open relays, proxies, bots, etc. You'll never be able to block every infected desktop that's being used to send spam. What someone (who operates a backbone) can easily block is the offices of the company that sends millions of spams, blocking them so they can't send the spam TO the open proxies, bots, etc. That block has to happen BEFORE they reach the millions of proxies - the spam office can't be allowed to send traffic across the backbone in the first place. One they've reached their 100,000 proxies or bots it's too late - it's 100,000 harder to stop at that point.
In general, it's several thousand times more effective to stop attacks and spam close to the source. It's just not possible for every internet user to daily update the millions of bots and relays that the bad guys use - and it wouldn't work of they did, because the DOS would still flood their internet connection offline.
--
Random text because Slashdot doesn't like posts which use the same words repeatedly. Therefore I now utilize some distinct ones which are not above. Horseradish tile shampoo towel Coca-Cola Mountain Dew mustard. Ketchup mayonnaise latex phenylketonurics and pulmonary restriction of the sciatic nerve. Tobacco products odorize gaseous atmospheres indoors. Communication protocol standard required committee approval meeting. Duplicative processes corporate requirements. Pumpkin fruit pie Thanksgiving whipped cream. Lemonade soda coffee tea. Marshmallows swimming in hydrogen monoxide soften quickly. Queso Blanco will be a good snack after I write arbitrary sentences to get around something silly.
he needs a wake up call
> In the UK BT owns the phone lines.
No one cares about your tiny little island or the tiny little outlying fragments that cling to the moldering remains of its now-defunct empire. Don't you have a big-brother camera to go stare into about now? Toddle off.
Seriously, way to deflect criticism and act like you have the high ground. You have just aliented rich companies in favor of other rich companies, and you have yet to explain what value your propositions have to the customers of those companies. And you won't, because they have no value except to rich companies, and in specific: the specific rich companies that your "viewpoint" feels should have that power.
So Comcast have a broken market model where they sell more bandwith than they actually have (or they over sell it) and you think that some 3d party should pay Comcast for the difference? Remember that Netflix is only serving Comcasts customers, they are not forcing their data down Comcasts throat.
"Now look, I love Twitter as much as the next person. But..."
And then Trump goes postal! Right snaky, "Your Fired! Bam! Get him outta here!!"
You cannot speak ill of Trump's always listening, never judging, Twitter mistress. And the Twitter winds cried, "covfefe..."
they actually have (or they over sell it) and you think that some 3d party should pay Comcast for the difference?
Yes, once the data exceeds peering agreement limit, which it has, someone has to pay. Maybe Comcast can become a charity and eat the cost of transmitting the extra data from Netflix's CDN. Or maybe Netflix's CDN, Level 3, can become a charity and pay Comcast for the extra bandwidth. Or maybe the bandwidth and data transferred should be free.
Remember that Netflix is only serving Comcasts customers, they are not forcing their data down Comcasts throat.
How can Netflix serve Comcast's customers without forcing data down Comcast's throat?
Ok, Comcast PR guy... We're already paying you a shit ton of money monthly to deliver bits to us. Take the money you make from your customers and apply it to the cost of providing service to those customers, including level3 bandwidth costs, like every other fucking company in the world, and stop trying to make life suck more.
Comcast already charged 60 bucks per month to millions of people. Are we supposed to pretend that's charity? Is that money legally required to go straight up their noses?
Nice try. You guys are on, what, season 4 of Friends over there, comrade? Spoiler: Joey and Rachel don't end up together.
Twitter is part of the free and open internet, enabling Russian government operatives to participate in the 2016 US elections.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Comcast already charged 60 bucks per month to millions of people. Are we supposed to pretend that's charity?
It is, if you're using your internet connection to replace TV, because TV content takes up a lot of bandwidth. Replacing a broadcast medium like satellite or cable tv which consumes little bandwidth (because it is shared), with a point to point medium like a netflix webserver uses a million fold more bandwidth because nothing is shared. That's gotta cripple/slow down any internet.
So you need to pay $10 more to Comcast to handle the additional load.
Yeah, and like you just said, that peering agreement is between level3 and Comcast, not Comcast and Netflix. If Comcast is no longer happy with that agreement, they are free to renegotiate it with level3, which will then likely pass on the additional costs to its customers, including Netflix. They can also throttle the bandwidth coming from level3 to enforce the agreement, which wil adversely affect all of level3's customers, including Netflix. And then level3 can then choose to do something about that, maybe by enforcing bandwidth caps, for example. Netflix can respond to that by paying Comcast to host their CDN, which would be cheaper (maybe) than paying level3's bandwidth cap penalty. Etc etc...
All of these are perfectly fine free market contract adjustments, where the contract service is defined as "connection to the Internet to send X data and receive Y data for Z price." If at any time the terms of the contract are exceeded, or one member of the party wants to change the contract, there is nothing wrong with that. The problem is that Comcast does not have a contract with Netflix and wants to force them into one so that it can make money off of Netflix's successful business. It is quite literally a protection racket ("those are some nice bits you have there...wouldn't want anything to happen to them, eh?"), and that is what net neutrality is meant to stop.
First of all, let me say that I have no evidence for what I'm about to say.
Consider the following:
If you were a president of the USA who wants to enact a lot of internal governmental change that you know the public would not be happy about, a logical thing to do is create some kind of distraction/smokescreen to hide what you are doing.
Following on from that, knowing that the majority of the voices of dissent will likely come from the internet, and that internet users also care a lot about their online freedom, it stands to reason that distracting this group of people from whats going on is going to have the biggest impact.
Understanding that, can you think of a better way to distract the public than by informing your newly appointed head of the FCC to repeal laws that were passed by the recent administration and that were fought for long and hard by the people in general?
In doing this, you distract this entire base into focusing on repealing (or not) net neutrality, and move the focus away from 'the people vs. the government' to 'the people vs. corporations'
Meanwhile you are free to work toward whatever backhanded agendas you want as people (and corporations) vehemently fight it out over repealing net neutrality.
Don't get me wrong, Net Neutrality is important. But that's exactly why it works so well in this situation.
From the way I see it, Net Neutrality protects an ISP from being responsible for the contents of the packets it carries. Once neutrality goes away, that protection goes away. So, once any company develops tech to selectively deliver packets, all ISPs will be expected to be able to filter out content that would be illegal, such as child pornography, or any pornography in a township that has declared such as illegal, or liquor ads in dry areas. Of course, the case(s) would need to make it to court. A small town mayor in a dry town may consider trying to figure out the logistics of passing a law in that town that fined telecommunications providers each time a liquor/beer ad makes it to a computer screen in that town. Enforcement against the big telecommunications providers might be an issue for the town, but the local providers might not fare as well.
Civil action would also be very likely. Companies could file lawsuits when malware (especially ransom-ware) makes it past the ISPs filters; as net-neutrality would be dead, a good lawyer could show that as the telecommunications provider had the opportunity and ability to filter packets and did not do so, and passively let damage occur to the plaintiff, the telecommunications company was negligent and therefore responsible for the thousands of lost hours of productivity that the corporation lost. Individuals in dry areas could file civil suits stating that they were offended by advertisements which are offensive to their faith.
Once the lawsuits start, the telecommunication companies would likely start blocking anything that could be offensive to anyone, or have a page display that asks that you acknowledge that the telecommunications provider is delivering content requested by you and that you agree not to hold them legally responsible for delivering the content that you are about to see.
The fact that Pai hasn't figured this out indicates that he has other motives or is not that bright. In either case, he needs to be removed from his position. Stockholders from the major telecommunications companies may want to start unloading stock shortly after the bill passes as the "this is good for me, right?" peak hits before everyone figures out that the telecommunications companies were not careful in what they wished for. Their CEOs and boards (if they supported this), may need to be voted out at the next stockholders meeting.
Or, I could be wrong. It is up to you to decide.
The Ajitator.
FCC tries to regulate the internet (2008-ish)
FCC gets shot down by courts, FCC doesn't have authority to regulate internet (2010)
FCC rebrands ISPs under Title II, then asserts right to regulate. (2015)
Verizon fought to be regulated under Title II when it was convenient for them.
What does your rant have to do with reality?
It's a very different thing between what content goes on the computer systems themselves and what computer systems you can reach for the dollar that you pay.
This fool has no idea what he's doing and doesn't belong in that position.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai thinks everyone from Twitter to Cher has it wrong when they say that his efforts to roll back the U.S. government’s existing net neutrality rules will spell the death of the web.
“but the real interest of these internet giants is in using the regulatory process to cement their dominance in the internet economy.”
Dude,
Yes, the regulatory process you are championing is cementing the dominance of these giants because they will be only the information providers that can pay to play. If you don't think this will kill the web, then what sort of zombie web do you think should live?
Clearly your idea of a thriving healthy Internet is way different than that of anybody I know.
Could you explain further where you think the Internet should go and why?
Once again Comcash is trying to screw their customers and double-dip at the same time. Their customers pay to consume the content---wherever it comes from. Comcast is just pissed off that they don't have something as popular as Netflix to send back the other way on Level 3's network.
Oh, by the way: Fuck Ajit Pai and Fuck Obama for appointing an ex Verizon lawyer to the FCC.
LOL! Obama "claimed" to support net neutrality. Trump has put net neutrality in his gunsites. Both wanted Ajit Pai. What's wrong with this picture?
Wow, they pulled the discrimination card...
> It is, if you're using your internet connection to replace TV, because TV content takes up a lot of bandwidth.
I don't think you understand how Comcast's digital cable TV gets to customers.
Hint: It's digital video over IP.
So when you have cable TV it's like Comcast is sending 140 HD video streams to your house at the same time 24 hours a day.
Exactly HOW does eliminating Net Neutrality and allowing ISPs to block or slow web site access prevent Facebook or Twitter of repressing other opinions??? Either he is stupid, or a an outright liar. (My money is on LIAR.)
Umm, just... no.
Itâ(TM)s like they are sending 1 Digital stream to their customer. You change the channel and get a different stream.
If Comcast canâ(TM)t afford to send me 100mbps constantly all month then they shouldnâ(TM)t have sold me 100mbps speed.
They should have sold me 25mbps and said, âoeit can occasionally go as high as 100mbpsâ if thatâ(TM)s the case.
I could give a rats ass what Comcast thinks of the data iâ(TM)m consuming. I didnâ(TM)t sign an agreement to use x type packets. I agreed to use the internet and they agreed to be the wire carrier. Simple as that.
Because the (non-jew) whites are too stupid and incompetent to get anything done.
Even an arsonist needs some discipline and techical skills. Running your car into a tree means you're able to start and drive it in the first place.
Bringing about the ruin of great country ("deconstruction of the administrative state") is a big task, and Trump, Bannon &co need the assistance of minority fellow-travelers.
He's a smart guy and is not confusing anything. He doesn't care. It is likely he has been coached on how to defend this stuff and given specific examples. His playing of victim card is typical of Trump's minions.
He is saying he is just returning to the rules that existed for most of the life of the net when it was vibrant and grew just fine.
He then points out to the useful idiots who've been conned into supporting the "net neutrality" gimmick by a handful of megacorps with PR teams that these very companies who talk about freedom and openness and all data being treated equally are in fact muzzling all sorts of speech they oppose and treating all sorts of data differently based on whatever arbitrary criteria they choose. The people in silicon valley who are making billions spying on people and selling their data are pushi9ng people to support cheap and relaible transport for their data with completely illusory and hypocritical arguments.
Try actually reading the whole statement.
and no one brave enough to shoot the motherfucker.
Is that Pai a carbon copy of Trump? You disagree with him and he throws a tantrum, rolls on the floor, starts screaming, and declares that everyone else is just a dirty liberal spewing fake news? Man...maybe I should be more like an obnoxious ass, seems to be the key to a big career.
5G Technology solves the problem Net Neutrality tries and fails to do, but 5G can't exist (in the U.S.) while Net Neutrality is in place.
https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/fcc-s-plan-to-toss-net-neutrality-a-win-for-5g-analyst
Why would Chewbacca want to live with Ewoks?
What freeloading? Someone does pay, and they pass those costs onto to their customers. Comcast wants Netflix profits, not peering charges, so they'll do what they can to undermine the hypothetical peering agreement with Level 3.
make better peering agreements. why should I care if the traffic is only one-sided? how could I be held accountable for their infrastructure/agreements? the contract I signed with the ISP does not mention any clauses about netflix.
When you have as many things "connected" as you do plugged in, ISP's should be considered a utility. When having a safe, fast and reliable internet connection is increasingly as important as having a phone line or electricity, these companies should be regulated in similar ways. The electric company isn't allowed to charge some people more because they run a certain business. Gas companies shouldn't be allowed to offer better gas for certain customers.
Even Steve Bannon's former employee, Ben Shapiro doesn't think Bannon is racist or a white supremacist.
For what it's worth, I don't believe Steve Bannon's a white supremacist. However, he is using the white supremacists to achieve his political goals which are strongly isolationist, xenophobic and nationalist. The racists and the white supremacists don't like immigrants, and that makes them useful to Bannon and his political goals, so he's now in the business of telling them what to think and who to attack.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
A few selections from Ajit Pai's speech today: ...First: what will the plan do?
When you cut through the legal terms and technical jargon, it’s very simple. The plan to restore Internet freedom will bring back the same legal framework that was governing the Internet three years ago today and that has governed the Internet for most of its existence.
Let me repeat this point. The plan will bring back the same framework that governed the Internet for most of its existence. If you’ve been reading some of the media coverage about the plan, this might be news to you. After all, returning to the legal framework for Internet regulation that was in place three years ago today doesn’t sound like “destroying the Internet” or “ending the Internet as we know it.” And it certainly isn’t good clickbait. But facts are stubborn things.
And here are some of those facts. Until 2015, the FCC treated high-speed Internet access as a lightly-regulated “information service” under Title I of the Communications Act. A few years ago, the Obama Administration instructed the FCC to change course. And it did, on a party-line vote in 2015; it classified Internet access as a heavily-regulated “telecommunications service” under Title II of the Communications Act. If the plan is adopted on December 14, we’ll simply reverse the FCC’s 2015 decision and go back to the pre-2015 Title I framework.
Now, I’m sure some of you out there are still thinking that there must be more to it than this. And I’ll confess that once the plan to restore Internet freedom is adopted, one thing will be different compared to three years ago. Consumers will be empowered by getting more information from Internet service providers (ISPs). My ISP transparency rule will be stronger than it was in 2014.
That’s the “what.” Next: why? Why am I proposing to return to the pre-2015 regulatory
framework? The most important reason is that it was an overwhelming success.
Think back to what the Internet looked like in 1996. E-mail was still the killer app. AOL was the most visited website. The top 20 sites included the homepages for four universities (Carnegie Mellon, Illinois, Michigan, and MIT). Forget about YouTube; just downloading a static webpage took 30 seconds, and you paid by the hour for access. And being online also tied up your phone line.
So how did we get from there to here?
As I said at the outset, a huge part of the answer is the Telecommunications Act of 1996. As part of this landmark law, President Clinton and a Republican Congress agreed that it would be the policy of 2the United States “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet . . . unfettered by Federal or State regulation.”
They deliberately rejected thinking of the Internet as Ma Bell, or a water company, or a subway system. Encouraged by light-touch regulation, the private sector invested over $1.5 trillion to build out wired and wireless networks throughout the United States. 28.8k modems eventually gave way to gigabit fiber connections.
U.S. innovators and entrepreneurs used this open platform to start companies that have become global giants. (Indeed, the five biggest companies in America today by market capitalization are Internet companies.) America’s Internet economy became the envy of the world, and the fact that the largest technology companies of the digital economy are homegrown has given us a key competitive advantage.
But then, in early 2015, the FCC chose a decidedly different course for the Internet. At the
urging of the Obama Administration, the FCC scrapped the tried-and-true, light touch regulation of the Internet and replaced it with heavy-handed micromanagement.
It did this despite the fact that the Internet wasn’t broken in 2015. There was no market failure that justified the regulatory sledgehammer of Title II. But
These pompous celebrities learned nothing from the fact that they got THRASHED in 2016.
Middle America does not care what Hollywood thinks. Making a lot of money by writing music or acting does not make your opinion any more relevant than a janitor or mail room clerk.
...
Perhaps the most common criticism is that ending Title II utility-style regulation will mean the end of the Internet as we know it. Or, as Kumail Nanjiani, a star of HBO’s Silicon Valley put it, “We willnever go back to a free Internet.”
But here’s the simple truth: We had a free and open Internet for two decades before 2015, and we’ll have a free and open Internet going forward.
Many critics don’t seem to understand that we are moving from heavy-handed regulation to light-touch regulation, not a completely hands-off approach. We aren’t giving anybody a free pass. We are simply shifting from one-size-fits-all pre-emptive regulation to targeted enforcement based on actual market failure or anticompetitive conduct.
For example, the plan would restore the authority of the Federal Trade Commission, America’s premier consumer protection agency, to police the practices of Internet service providers. And if companies engage in unfair, deceptive, or anticompetitive practices, the Federal Trade Commission would be able to take action.
This framework for protecting a free and open Internet worked well in the past, and it will work well again. Chairman Ohlhausen will soon offer further details.
The plan would also empower the Federal Trade Commission to once again police broadband providers’ privacy and data security practices. In 2015, we stripped the Federal Trade Commission of that authority. But the plan would put the nation’s most experienced privacy cop back on the beat. That should be a welcome development for every American who cares about his or her privacy.
Another concern I’ve heard is that the plan will harm rural and low-income Americans.
Cher, for example, has tweeted that the Internet “Will Include LESS AMERICANS NOT MORE” if my proposal is adopted. But the opposite is true. The digital divide is all too real. Too many rural and low-income Americans are still unable to get high-speed Internet access. But heavy-handed Title II regulations just make the problem worse! They reduce investment in broadband networks, especially in rural and low-income areas. By turning back time, so to speak, and returning Internet regulation to the pre-2015 era, we will expand broadband networks and bring high-speed Internet access to more Americans, not fewer.
Then there is this critique that offered by Mark Ruffalo: “Taking away #NetNeutrality is the Authoritarian dream. Consolidating information in the hands of a few controlled by a few. Dangerous territory.” I will confess when I saw this tweet I was tempted to just say “Hulk . . . wrong” and move on.
But I’ve seen similar points made elsewhere, including in one e-mail asking: “Do you really want to be the man who was responsible for making America another North Korea?”
These comments are absurd. Getting rid of government authority over the Internet is the exact opposite of authoritarianism. Government control is the defining feature of authoritarians, including the one in North Korea.
Another common criticism is that after the plan is adopted, the Internet will become like cable television, and Americans will have to pay more to reach certain groups of websites.
George Takei of Star Trek fame recently tweeted an article claiming that this was happening in Portugal, which doesn’t have net neutrality, and that this would happen in the United States if the plan were adopted.
There are a few problems with this. For one thing, the Obama Administration itself made clear that curated Internet packages are lawful in the United States under the commission’s 2015 rules.
That’s right: the conduct described in a graphic that is currently being spread around the Internet is currently allowed under the previous Administration’s Title II rules. So, for example, if broadband providers want to offer a $10 a month package where you could only access a few websites lik
Some comments from Ajit Pai's speech:
First: what will the plan do?
When you cut through the legal terms and technical jargon, it’s very simple. The plan to restore Internet freedom will bring back the same legal framework that was governing the Internet three years ago today and that has governed the Internet for most of its existence.
Let me repeat this point. The plan will bring back the same framework that governed the Internet for most of its existence. If you’ve been reading some of the media coverage about the plan, this might be news to you. After all, returning to the legal framework for Internet regulation that was in place three years ago today doesn’t sound like “destroying the Internet” or “ending the Internet as we know it.” And it certainly isn’t good clickbait. But facts are stubborn things.
And here are some of those facts. Until 2015, the FCC treated high-speed Internet access as a lightly-regulated “information service” under Title I of the Communications Act. A few years ago, the Obama Administration instructed the FCC to change course. And it did, on a party-line vote in 2015; it classified Internet access as a heavily-regulated “telecommunications service” under Title II of the Communications Act. If the plan is adopted on December 14, we’ll simply reverse the FCC’s 2015 decision and go back to the pre-2015 Title I framework.
Now, I’m sure some of you out there are still thinking that there must be more to it than this. And I’ll confess that once the plan to restore Internet freedom is adopted, one thing will be different compared to three years ago. Consumers will be empowered by getting more information from Internet service providers (ISPs). My ISP transparency rule will be stronger than it was in 2014.
That’s the “what.” Next: why? Why am I proposing to return to the pre-2015 regulatory
framework? The most important reason is that it was an overwhelming success.
Think back to what the Internet looked like in 1996. E-mail was still the killer app. AOL was the most visited website. The top 20 sites included the homepages for four universities (Carnegie Mellon, Illinois, Michigan, and MIT). Forget about YouTube; just downloading a static webpage took 30 seconds, and you paid by the hour for access. And being online also tied up your phone line.
So how did we get from there to here?
As I said at the outset, a huge part of the answer is the Telecommunications Act of 1996. As part of this landmark law, President Clinton and a Republican Congress agreed that it would be the policy of 2the United States “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet . . . unfettered by Federal or State regulation.”
They deliberately rejected thinking of the Internet as Ma Bell, or a water company, or a subway system. Encouraged by light-touch regulation, the private sector invested over $1.5 trillion to build out wired and wireless networks throughout the United States. 28.8k modems eventually gave way to gigabit fiber connections.
U.S. innovators and entrepreneurs used this open platform to start companies that have become global giants. (Indeed, the five biggest companies in America today by market capitalization are Internet companies.) America’s Internet economy became the envy of the world, and the fact that the largest technology companies of the digital economy are homegrown has given us a key competitive advantage.
But then, in early 2015, the FCC chose a decidedly different course for the Internet. At the
urging of the Obama Administration, the FCC scrapped the tried-and-true, light touch regulation of the Internet and replaced it with heavy-handed micromanagement.
It did this despite the fact that the Internet wasn’t broken in 2015. There was no market failure that justified the regulatory sledgehammer of Title II. But no matter; 21st century
--- There are two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it
Trolls work cheap.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
How can Netflix serve Comcast's customers without forcing data down Comcast's throat?
You cannot see the contradiction in your very own statement? Seriously?
Allowing for Comcast to charge $10 extra for more bandwidth is not against Net Neutrality. The problem here is that Comcast is charging $60 for a specified service (i.e a specific bandwidth) that they cannot actually deliver and want an external 3d party to pay for Comcasts faulty market model.
Let's pretend that you start a Taxi service where your market model is that you sell unlimited fares for a fixed monthly cost.
Now way out in the industry district a fancy new disco/pizza/mall/whatever opens (because the rent out there are cheaper) and a lot of your customers use their unlimited fares to go back and forth between this place and their homes several times per day.
This pisses you off since you now realize that selling unlimited fares in the hopes that no one actually would take that up was a shitty market model and instead of changing your business model or charging a much higher price for this service, you try to make congress pass a law that this new hot place should pay your taxi business for your added traffic.
Now you can rename your taxi business Comcast.
petition2congress.com/20010/expel-brahmin-from-usa/
{organization} {jobtitle} {firstandllastname} Criticizes {pluraloforganizationtype} That Oppose His Efforts To {takeacontroversialnaction}
Golly. What a surprise.
I wonder if a person in that position might praise those who support their efforts?
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
The problem is that Comcast does not have a contract with Netflix and wants to force them into one so that it can make money off of Netflix's successful business. It is quite literally a protection racket ("those are some nice bits you have there...wouldn't want anything to happen to them, eh?"), and that is what net neutrality is meant to stop.
That's not the hysteria that people are spreading around, however.
Blocking is dumb. The Internet is designed to route around blocking, and Comcast knows this as well as any ISP employee does. Members of the public are already using VPNs in some place to get around geographic blocks to Netflix in some locations anyway and this use would simply accelerate. Comcast's ISP side are not the same as the Cable TV side and they're aware of this.
The arguments being made are either a) outright "censorship" of bad ideas (which is where Ajit Pai is absolutely right -- Google/Facebook has far more ability to meaningfully do this for the world than your particular ISP does), or b) QoS.
The problem with whining about QoS is that this is a legitimate technical decision an ISP might make for actual, bona-fide, service-provider reasons to ensure reasonable bandwidth. (Do you sign up for Internet on a plane? Congratulations, your Netflix is blocked there. You also don't have a reasonable "choice" at 35,000 feet. Go sue.) Alternatively, look at mobile ISPs -- they actually provide different cost plan structures and bandwidth allotments depending on how you want to access streaming media NOW and the market is healthy. This is a feature, not a bug.
With the added speeds of 4G LTE available in most populated areas of the US, and 5G (whatever tech is used) in the years to come, mobile data services are already able to match what expected broadband wireline services were able to provide only a few years ago -- and certainly within the FCC "broadband" definition in many cases, and at varying price-points.
Yes, truly rural customers might have few or 1 option, but that's been the case forever and is nothing new. Certainly nothing that's changed since 2015 when this rule came into affect.
The dumb, dumb arguments around Net Neutrality even here on places like Slashdot where techs should know better about the actually necessity of the regulation at this time boggles my mind. I'm sure the giant Social Media Services, communication platforms, and Google/Facebook advertising networks (which regulate the financial livelihood of 90% of the commercial ad-supported entities in tech and change policies on a whim) are glad to have the spotlight taken off of their arbitrary and potentially devastating behavior because someone thinks their cable company suddenly cares what website you personally go to.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Social media for the majority is a more an Opiate of the Masses than about free speech.