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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! ;-)
The State of Liberty does not represent the freedom for companies with government granted monopolies to do what they please. You completely understand what America is supposed to be about. You should probably go back to grade school.
Improving the practical freedom of the average human has always involved adding laws to the books. Aimless minimization of laws only benefits the most powerful at the expense of the rest of society.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Corporations are not people.
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
But, but, telling other people what they can, can not, and must do is how certain people exercise their own liberty!
The history is rich with examples.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
... 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.
Pointing out similarities between certain segments of society and Orwell's 1984 novel is now considered cliche these days.
Sad.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Baloney. Quite the opposite. Netflix has partnered with Comcast for example. Their app is now built into their cable boxes. You can make damn sure they will make sure the Netflix traffic is higher priority than any competitor they don't partner with. This will eliminate any competitors that don't pay Comcast. You guys are completely delusional.
"Internet"!
censored!
"Freedom"!
"we did it to ourselves!"
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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Someone, quick, tell the New York Times Corporation that they have no right to the first amendment since they are a corporation.
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.
Thanks for the tip.
That's a pretty interesting shift of position. Netflix was one of the original proponents of NN back when it was still building critical mass and wanted to keep externalizing the bandwidth load it was creating on the internet/ISPs. Yes, whilst advocating, it did what it had to do to make sure it would keep appearing in people's living rooms at acceptable bandwidths. But if you think that Netflix wouldn't rather go back to that externalized model, backed by the full force of government and now having had the chance to bake access costs into its subscription price, I submit you're the delusional one.
Very often, both sides in a conflict can shout "freedom" and claim the moral high ground. Remember the Confederate monuments? Those brave Southern heroes were fighting for their freedom -- their freedom to own other people. Freedom and tyranny are in the eye of the beholder.
I agree, saying "freedom from regulation" sounds a lot better than saying "corporations' right to prey on their own customers is more important than the customers' right to choose what information they can access." When you put that way, it's hard to get behind.
For my part, I care a lot more about my own freedom than I do about Verizon's.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
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.
Pretty much true. And also true for Google and Facebook for different reasons. They're too big to block. It's the small companies that can't afford to pay for preferential treatment who will suffer without Net Neutrality — the *next* Facebook or Google or Netflix or YouTube. Those big companies don't support NN because it protects them from Comcast extortion; they're too big to really care about a few bucks here and a few bucks there. Rather, they support NN because it's the right thing to do, and because they recognize the role that de facto NN played in getting them to that point.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Yes, there has been a relatively recent shift in the actions of Netflix as they are now the entrenched incumbent. In the beginning they all wanted an "even playing field". Now that they are on top, they want to keep competitors out. This is exactly why you see Netflix partnering with Comcast and T-Mobile, etc for preferential treatment. Netflix doesn't want to go back. The Internet is changing fast.
The government does not, but the American economy considers the telephone, internet access, and a mailing address to be basic necessities. Do without any one of those and you will be marginalized, and your earning potential will be quite limited.
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.
Yeah, this is going to work really well in a state where telcoms donate roughly twice as much money to its senators' and reps' campaigns as all of the people in the state making less than $200,000 a year put together.
Which is -- wait for it -- most of the states in the US. That's the problem. With net neutrality, the playing field is not level and there are limits on competition that might or might not benefit the consumer. Without net neutrality, the playing field will not be level because there will be no limits on monopoly abuse that will definitely not benefit the consumer because the public utility near-monopolies in question own congress, the president, and will soon own a shit-pile of your money that they will collect as a target specific toll to reach parts of the internet that don't pay them off (and still charge you more to do so).
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Improving the practical freedom of the average human has always involved adding laws to the books. Aimless minimization of laws only benefits the most powerful at the expense of the rest of society.
So by that logic if we pass an addition million laws we will somehow become more free. That doesn't ring true. A certain level of law is needed true but once the basics are covered you get less freedom with each additional law.
Horseshit - Netflix has come out in the last few weeks and admitted that they are entrenched and that the repeal of NN would likely do nothing to harm their business, yet they STILL support Net Neutrality (even though they haven't really got skin in the game at this point).
Netflix historically has understood who their users are and has deferred in light of protests (I've seen reversals of policy at least 4 or 5 times just due to public backlash in just the last few years).
Some companies care about what's right and wrong, others care exclusively about their bottom line. The majority of ISPs fall into the latter category, but some (very few) companies do seem to focus on the former.
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Improving the practical freedom of the average human has always involved adding laws to the books. Aimless minimization of laws only benefits the most powerful at the expense of the rest of society.
So by that logic if we pass an addition million laws we will somehow become more free. That doesn't ring true. A certain level of law is needed true but once the basics are covered you get less freedom with each additional law.
I don't think you understand how logic works. "A implies B" does not mean "B implies A".
You might want to brush up on your Boolean Algebra.
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?
They don't force you to buy electricity or running water either. What's your point?
Child like nonsense.
Corporations are legal entities which were created to project a government sanctioned level of protected abstraction from of businesses away from individuals. In exchange for the protected abstraction, corporations must adhere to a set of restrictions. Fundamentally the only reason why corporations exist at all was to create a legal entity that is not a person. Ironically your ignorance actually highlights exactly one of the benefits corporations enjoy in exchange for these restrictions. In your example an person could go to jail, the corporation can not. In exchange for the US not being able to prosecute and imprison every single employee of that cable company for the death, the company forfeits various freedoms.
Heck the US government could force every corporation to be named after ancient Norse mythological characters and be moralistically in the clear as the legal formation and the company is a voluntary action . I think part this whole myth that corporations are people comes from people like CajunArson being completely uneducated about the differences between various legal entities and the motivations/benefits/voluntary restrictions that come with them. For example I highly doubt they know the difference between a LLP and a LLC or LC or a C corp or a proprietorship.
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.
If you believe the shit you're saying equates to freedom in any meaningful sense of the word, you're a fucking moron. This is nothing more than an utterly broken and corrupt form of capitalism which is out of control, and corrupt lawmakers stacking the deck for corporations.
He's a libertarian, that practically means he's a fucking moron, by definition.
There is nothing like an idiot who believes there is one simple solution to every complex problem.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
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.
You may want to reread that particular amendment. It explicitly guarantees the freedom of the press.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
I think part this whole myth that corporations are people comes from people like CajunArson being completely uneducated about the differences between various legal entities and the motivations/benefits/voluntary restrictions that come with them. For example I highly doubt they know the difference between a LLP and a LLC or LC or a C corp or a proprietorship.
No, it comes from Supreme Court rulings that give corporations rights that were previously only held by individuals, like the right to free speech. The Citizens United decision is a good example. Corporate Personhood is not just some internet meme that was dreamed up by conspiracy theorists, it's a long-standing legal doctrine.
For example, in Providence Bank v. Billings, Chief Justice Marshall stated: "The great object of an incorporation is to bestow the character and properties of individuality on a collective and changing body of men."
In section 1 of the United States Code, it says "In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise—the words "person" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;"
Heck, the GOP presidential candidate in 2012 said "Corporations are people, my friend".
Here's a great article on the history and current status: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Enigma
Rightly so! It's not the principle of shareholders having rights that bothers me. It's that in this case, I don't want those shareholders controlling what I can and cannot see.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Restricting the rights of companies to more thoroughly fuck over their customers? Oh, the horror!
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Hope for the best, plan for the worst
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
I agree and to me it seems easier to try and promote competition among different corporations to give you what you want than to limit a right because someone was allowed to have a monopoly when we all agree that monopolies are bad.
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.
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
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.
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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They're not all russian but there is a large paid trolling industry. You're either a paid shill or a moron if you cannot detect this when you visit the comments section on fox news or cnn.
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.