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'Face Reality! We Need Net Neutrality!' Crowd Chants Across the Country (arstechnica.com)
ArsTechnica staff took to the streets in Washington DC, New York, and San Francisco to capture rallies in support for net neutrality, a week before the FCC is scheduled to take a historic vote rolling back network neutrality regulations. From their report: Protestors say those regulations, which were enacted by the Obama FCC in 2015, are crucial for protecting an open Internet. Organizers chose to hold most of the protests outside of Verizon cell phone stores. Ajit Pai, the FCC Chairman who is leading the agency's charge to repeal network neutrality, is a former Verizon lawyer, and Verizon has been a critic of the Obama network neutrality rules. The protest that got the most attention from FCC decision makers took place on Thursday evening in Washington DC. The FCC was holding a dinner event at the Hilton on Connecticut Avenue, just north of the city's Dupont Circle area. Protestors gathered on the street corner outside the hotel, waving pro-net neutrality posters to traffic, blaring chants, projecting pro-net neutrality messages on a building across the street, and telling personal stories about what net neutrality meant to them via a megaphone. The FCC's two Democratic commissioners also joined the demonstration, Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel. They both gave brief speeches to the protestors, rallying for the cause and discussing the importance of a neutral Internet.
Chanting does a lot of good. It really changes things, because the government really cares what you think.
If not, Ajit Pai doesn't care about what you have to say. Anti-net-neutrality bot comments are acceptable in any form however.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Internet 2.0 - By the People, For the People, Of The People! ;-)
"Internet"!
"Freedom"!
Then they are probably celebrating the REMOVAL of regulations over the internet, which means more freedom - not less. That is the strangest thing of modern days, the twisting of words to mean the opposite of what they really mean.
Anyone protesting for the government to restrict what ISP's can do with the internet, should be holding up a giant poster of the statue of liberty in bondage with a big smile on her face.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The FCC thinks this should be a matter of law, not policy, so is removing the policy that regulates Net Neutrality. Propose a bill. Get your congress critters to vote on it.
no wonder we're always being coaxed into neutral,, cease fire stand down,, there are moms & babys in every town... put the fire out... thanks.. sing along... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myo9wXrNUP4 ..reality beckons.
Politicians can safely ignore them. And they do.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Improving the practical freedom of the average human has always involved adding laws to the books.
I'm curious what leads you to that conclusion, when in fact what has always brought true freedom to the average human is technology, not law.
All law is Franklin's "Temporary Safety" dressed up in a nice bow, but is not PRACTICAL freedom which relies on the abilities of the individual - abilities which are augmented by technology, not law.
What would be an example of a law that provides practical freedom? Be careful not to specify a law that is merely a loosening of ANOTHER Law that has removed freedom...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
OK, so let's say the proposed change is crafted to increase competition, improve service, reduce prices, and put a chicken in every pot before 18 months are up. All these things are testable. All significant policy changes from any side should come with a test plan, a rollout plan, a success criteria and a backout plan for every stage of the rollout.
And if the effect of the policy change is too small to determine among all the other noise in the system take specific steps to address that by bundling policy changes or testing it in a smaller environment - I believe even the Chinese do that. For example, ask for state governors to volunteer their state as a testbed for policy that they believe is a great idea for the US as a whole.
Nullius in verba
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You completely understand what America is supposed to be about.
Yes. Yes I do.
You should probably go back to grade school.
I have been back - to help teach computer programming to children. You should try it sometime, as it helps ground you in reality.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... also not regulating what people SAY on that open internet. And yet, many of these same protesters would also rally to shut down internet access for [insert unpopular group here].
And we really have not had a "neutral" network since someone discovered their network was saturated by SOMEONE ELSE'S TRAFFIC, and figured out how to make sure theirs had priority.
Undoing 2 years of history?
This just seems like political football.
When vid.me shutdown, it was another piece of evidence that if NN was going to be implemented, it should have been implemented from the ISPs all the way to many of the big tech companies as well. Platform companies are all either platform companies or they aren't. ISPs should not be singled out for discrimination on being "dumb pipes" in terms of not being allowed to discriminate against legal content.
As it turns out, it's even harder to build an unsubsidized YouTube competitor (YouTube would have been bankrupt a long time ago without Google) than a small ISP where the law permits you to build one at all. The economics are much harder to overcome in the former than the latter.
You think BitTorrent or Bitcoin will be allowed on an FCC controlled internet?
But her emails.
You think BitTorrent or Bitcoin will be allowed on an FCC controlled internet?
That didn't vote for Trump are protesting. Folks, you do realize this doesn't matter, right? Steve Bannon might be an unrepentant asshole but he said something brilliant. I'm paraphrasing here but the gist is: if the other side keeps banging on about issue the working class doesn't care about and we're sticking to a message of economic popularism we're going to be in power for the next 1000 years. I know a bunch of liberals who were upset that the 1000 year part was a thinly veiled reference to the Third Reich, again, missing the point entirely...
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Wasn't the whole justification originally for not treating ISPs as Title 2 that their services weren't really a necessity but more of a curiosity, used only for casual email, promoting, etc? If that's true then that justification has long since vanished, as massive amounts of commerce, government business, financial business, and communication now take place over the internet. But somehow the justification has completely shifted? Now we need to allow ISPs to do whatever they want to "protect innovation"?
Seriously, fuck it. Hopefully ISPs will start charging advertisers (the only people with money to actually pay the extra charges) so people stop putting 20 fucking external domain references in the simplest of pages through the more mainstream ones, causing page load times to border on 10 seconds simply because the browser is looking up all the damned DNS entries and external resources. Hell, apply a $100 fee per KB on external domain traffic and the internet might finally be as fast as it was before Obama took office again.
Ajit has made clear he doesn't believe in government regulation (net neutrality), and instead argues that a pro-market approach (competition) is best. Appeal to that. Don't stop at repealing net neutrality. Repeal the government-granted service monopolies which take away people's choice of cable company and phone company.
There are two ways to lick this problem. Either complete government regulation, or complete free market (any ISP which tries to throttle Netflix unless Netflix paid them would be shooting themselves in the foot - their customers would cancel and sign up with an ISP which didn't throttle Netflix). Either is preferable to the current situation where the existing government regulations (cable and phone monopolies) have the sole effect of stifling the market and empowering the ISPs to do stupid things like set up paid Internet fast lanes because they know their customers are captive and can't leave.
Has anyone considered the possibility that instead of fighting the loosing battle on moral grounds we should instead take the opportunity to devise a better protocol with fixes like putting the top level domain first in the URL and such, release it under a license that has net neutrality provisions included and abandon the old Internet in favor of the new one that big media, big ISP, and big Data can't fuck with without challenging the same one sided contract law that their own shenanigans depends on?
In the meantime there is barely a blip on news networks. Between the news networks being owned by the 'big boys' and possibly a lack of effort of trying to connect with the non-IT crowd, there is a risk the message is just going to be lost in the noise of everything else trying to grab headlines. I don't want to be negative, but I really feel the money won and the people lost, and the FCC failed to uphold what it was meant to stand for.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Allowing trains to cut through private property (leeways) isn't stupid. In the long run, property will mostly be privately owned. Most connections between centers of competencies, production, & consumption will be separated by private land. The benefit to society to connect these centers far out ways the loss felt by the smaller owners.
I am not going to explain the public lands aspect. The very purpose of which is to benefit society.
Here is how the real world works no matter how you decorate it: The Will and Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Send all your upset chants in packets to the IP addresses of the devices of the people who aren't listening to you. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
This is, of course, a stupid decision by the FCC. The better way to protest is to call your local representatives and ask them to support legislation. Especially if they put out some narrowly tailored legislation like requiring ISP disclosures on data caps and fees, it would highlight much of the hypocrisy in their opposition to Net Neutrality.
NN is easy for them to be against because they spin it as a giant ball of regulations and most people don't understand it. Break it down into several simple measures regarding specific idiotic ISP practices and requirements for non-discrimination and they should have a harder time in opposition.
When the way the telecoms were planning to screw us all was first unveiled, we were all united. Since then, lobbyists have worked to divide us in how to respond to it. We can't let them do that. We should focus on the bottom line: none of us really want to be screwed over by the monopolies. If we can push our representatives to put in some basic roadblocks, it will be harder for them to screw us.
We also should push for the broader fix: public infrastructure, private services. In other words, the government should own the lines/conduits to everyone's houses and anyone should be able to set up services with that.
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We didn't create laws to do that here in the US. Maybe in Europe, but not the US.
In the US, we simply gave the train companies the land where they wanted to run their tracks. USGS handed out an 80-mile-wide swath of land around every train right-of-way. This continent was so full of nothing(*) that it was no big deal(#). Train companies sold off huge tracts of land for a profit much later. After they founded towns(^) along the rails for a profit, of course.
(*) "Nothing" = native americans, buffalo, and all that other stuff that white people didn't care about until they were shamed into it.
(#) "No big deal" = except to the "nothing", which got mercilessly slaughtered by the robber-barons running the train companies.
(^) Towns like the ones near where I live: Union, MO and Pacific, MO. They're maybe 30 miles apart and are both sitting trackside, along the Union Pacfic (duh!) line going west out of St. Louis.
Go to bed ivan I have no rubles for you today
You need the discipline to stop paying for services that do not serve you. You need the social skills to organize boycotts and to generally represent your own interest through unionization.
You can't run to your mommy to make a rule to fix your every problem. You have to get your hands dirty and solve your own problems by a refined set of principles - not bloat and mutilate your principles so that everything you don't like has to be made illegal.
Western civilization is way too 'liberalized'. We are doomed. Us who see it coming better band together quick so we have something in place to pick up the pieces.
My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
I doubt you're even a real slashdotter if you can't tell the internet is shit now. As I thought you entire comment history goes back to the early 2010s when online shilling first started up. Not a single technical comment in the entire mix. All stupid shit straight off fox news.
Seems like over the years you stopped caring about climate change. Did you change your mind or did Exxon drop your ad firm as a vendor?
There are a lot of things they COULDN'T predict but being tracked on the internet is some shit that 4/5ths of slashdotters have cried about since the site launched.
Kohath is showing his true colors.
For example, every single car is being tracked. Yes it is, I've seen the system in action.
Nice try. They have had the ability to track most cars since the 1990s but the AMPS system lacked the bandwidth to track all of them. I remember being a hacker in the 90s, we thought that the government had massive capabilities way beyond our own. Turns out we were way better at breaking into computers than the NSA or CIA was. They're still struggling to catch up.
I've talked with numerous friends who went on to contract for the NSA, they've said disturbing things but they certainly aren't in awe of our electronic spying capabilities.
You don't talk like someone who has seen the beast with their own eyes. Because when you see it, it's bad, it's big, it's bad and it's laughably incompetent. The only ones I've encountered who are impressed are OUTSIDERS from the law enforcement, intelligence, military, and diplomatic communities. Real nerds roll their eyes.
Funny, I couldn't hear them.
When I was told that I had to pay my witholding on line (small business), that was the day the internet became a Utiltiy. I could not pay at my bank...who used to take tax deposit. I cannot pay by check to a mail address. No, I must, must, must pay on line. If I have to pay on line, then it is a utility, like the post office, or a common carrier, like the Bell System. Back in the day when they couldn't monitor traffic, the phone co wanted immunity for any illegal acts for which the phone was used....so common carrier helped them. Now that they expect to packet sniff every transaction, they are greedy for fast and slow lanes.
Pai only cared about legal tender arguments. Cash has spoken, now bend over and pay up America.
The working class isn't going to care about having absolute shit service from Comcast for $200 a month???? There's a wee bit of a disconnect between your premise and your conclusion.
It's that sheer, Biblical level of entitlement that led to Trump in the first place, as it makes you a dumber and bigger asshole than he is. Republicans could drop all their gerrymandering laws and simply hire people like yourself to go door-to-door and "advocate" for the Democratic Party.
Most of the worst policies in modern times have come from Democratic presidents, not Republicans. And outside of the rich donor class, there isn't a single Democratic constituency that the party hasn't stabbed in the back, pistoled whipped in the face, and kicked in the balls. Over and over again. Republicans are honest in their contempt for people who work for a living - Democrats will be all smiles until they stick the rusty shiv into your liver, spend the next few months twisting it around, and then get completely outraged when you don't promise them your vote for the next election, unconditionally.
So make sure to send an invoice to the 2018 RNC election campaigns, and the 2020 Trump committee for services rendered.
If you don't care so hard why did you come here and talk about it?
Whoever voted me down is an idiot. Our right wing crazies never sound like this guy.
God bless them they post proudly with their name attached like DNS-and-BIND.
Plus DNS-and-BIND is at least intelligent.
Anonymous Ivan is an obvious shill
Only delusional fools blame Russians for everything they dislike.
Screwing over the general public is what Soros and his hapless minions have been doing for decades.
What happened to the supposed MILLIONS of pro-net neutrality activists out there? Only .00002% of them could be bothered to show up to this supposedly huge rally? Pretty hard for them all to show up when they do not exist.
Most of us have jobs or school to attend. Don't worry, though, I'll take time to vote.
attention. They're trying to get yours, and everyone else's, in the hopes you'll change out the government to one that _does_ pay attention.
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Things were terrible and needed to be fixed just two short years ago? Did anyone notice after it was passed?
Impact to me - my bills went up as everything else did under Obummer. More people out of work, GDP was a joke, lots of needless regulations, spending money like there was no tomorrow (14 T dollars!). Obama was THE WORST.
because they were promised Good Jobs by Donald Trump, and will easily be able to afford that fee. This is what the believed, or at least what they were willing to take a chance on. As it stands most of them can't afford the $80-$100/mo home internet costs. The rust belt isn't called that for fun. They literally don't care what you raise the price to. If the price of a yacht triples I don't care. I couldn't afford one when it was a third the price.
Abandon your working class and they abandon you. The Germans learned this. The French learned it. I sure wish Americans would learn it.
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Now I support Net Neutrality, because there's a rhyming chant.
No need to think it through any more.
Thanks, chant composers! You provided a great time-saver!
Mind-changer time-saver!
Golly! Now I'm a sophisticated public policy analyst, too!
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.