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Net Neutrality Protests Move Online, Yet Big Tech Is Quiet (nytimes.com)
The New York Times: Protests to preserve net neutrality, or rules that ensure equal access to the internet, migrated online on Tuesday, with numerous online companies posting calls on their sites for action to stop a vote later this week. Reddit, Etsy and Kickstarter were among the sites warning that the proposal at the Federal Communications Commission to roll back so-called net neutrality rules would fundamentally change the way the internet is experienced. Kickstarter, the crowdfunding site, cleared its entire home screen for a sparse white screen reading "Defend Net Neutrality" in large letters. Reddit, the popular online message board, pushed in multiple ways on its site for keeping the rules, including a pop-up box on its home screen. But the online protests also highlighted how the biggest tech companies, such as Facebook and Google, have taken a back seat in the debate about protecting net neutrality (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; syndicated source), rules that prohibit internet service providers like AT&T and Comcast from blocking or slowing sites or for charging people or companies for faster speeds of particular sites. For the most part, the large tech companies did not engage in the protest on Tuesday. In the past, the companies have played a leading role in supporting the rules.
The megacorps won't be very negatively affected by a tiered Internet, they could even benefit. They'll get shaken down by ISPs, but in return they'll receive massive barriers to entry, protecting their empires from any scrappy new startups forever.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Do you really think facebook or google care whether the pipes are open or not, when they already own most of the effluent that runs through them?
Perhaps they have been negotiating with the ISPs for great deals if they keep quiet? Or perhaps they are considering going into the ISP business themselves?
I don't think anyone here would be surprised to see Google or FB switch sides if they could earn more money by doing so.
"Do no evil" hasn't been on the charter for a long long time after all.
The large tech companies like FB have already made arrangements with Comcast and the other pipe-owners. They will happily pay a premium for their bandwidth, as it will make it harder for newer, less flush rivals to compete against them. What good is an Old Boys' Network if you can't use it to squash the young pups?
They can afford to bribe ISPs for preferential treatment, and shut smaller competitors out of the market.
Oh No
We aren't beholden to their interests or support, this is our fight, for us.
So what we should do is fight for what we want. I suggest everybody cancel their ISP, for whatever period you can be comfortable.
They need our money. We can and will live without them.
The big tech companies all voiced support for Net Neutrality because it was good PR or aligned with their interests. At this point, however, the cause is lost, and, frankly, they’re accepting that while it’s not an ideal situation, it will actually work out okay for them.
For instance, if ISPs decide to “tax” companies like Netflix, they’ll have to do so in a consistent manner lest they run into other regulatory issues, but those sorts of fees would basically establish a higher bar for entry that would prevent new competitors from entering the field against Netflix. Sure, Netflix will have to raise its prices, but so would anyone else who’s just trying to get started, so in the end it works out okay for them.
If there was something to be gained by voicing opposition to these changes, they’d be doing it, but there’s nothing to be done now and nothing to be gained for them by remaining in opposition, so they’ve tapped out.
The entrenched big tech corporations are now looking to eliminate potential competition. For example Netflix bundles their app on Comcast cable boxes. They want to make sure that their traffic is prioritized over their competitors. Of course, Google will want Youtube prioritized, etc.
All it will take is 1 money man to control it all & buy up all the ISPs out there (yes, it's doable - monopoly laws = shit now) to control what is said, seen, & heard.
* Welcome to the 'gated community' that is going to be nothing more than a cattle herding brainwashing system to CONTROL THE MASSES!
(Masses who often don't think for themselves which IS excusable as they're only products of their environmental inputs believing what they're told as I was myself as a boy believing they actually TELL THE TRUTH - no more of that here in "garbage in/garbage out I/O data of the mind")!
APK
P.S.=> ... & what do the controllers DO if you tell it how it is & they have no VALID response? This -> https://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11467749&cid=55717933/ TRYING TO HIDE IT!... apk
1. The way the FCC imposed net neutrality rules is dumb. When broadband first rolled out, the FCC tried to regulate it by pretending it was the same as cable TV. That didn't work out, so now they are regulating it by pretending that it's the same as the telephone system. That's also stupid. The internet isn't a phone, or cable, or satellite TV, it's the internet.
2. Getting rid of "net neutrality" in it's current form, simply means the FTC will be regulating it instead of the FCC. That's good or bad, depending on your point of view.
3. The correct way to fix this is to have congress pass legislation letting the FCC regulate broadband as a service- and connection-agnostic data provider. IMHO they should be allowed to do basic QoS traffic shaping, so on Christmas morning when everyone's console starts downloading 2GB game "patches" it doesn't choke off streaming video, or your VOIP phone.
4. If you are skeptical of the current congress, or any potential congress, doing something about it, you are probably correct.
Just my $0.02.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
the big companies have the money for the fees and this means no upstarts can shut them down. Remember, at the end of the day Facebook is just a website with crummy adverts. All it takes for it to implode is for the teenagers to get bored and leave. Then nobody'll think they're cool anymore and the whole house of cards blows up.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Hmm... getting warm in here. I wonder if someone is trying to boil this here frog.
Sure, the first few months won't see much change. But the change (and restrictions) will slowly ramp up, as people get used to them. Then one day we'll wake up with a completely balkanized internet, and wonder how we got there.
The ISPs can't wait to start charging Big Tech for access to their networks. That is why Big Tech is quiet, they are afraid to rile the ISPs.
The FCC aren't going to listen, you don't have any actual consumer-oriented governance or lawmakers.
You have a corrupt, pro-corporate setup. Foxes running the henhouse. All that. Pai has even been joking about it. Laughing at the peasants.
This is a done deal. Just another glorious benefit of the orange manchild making you 'great again'.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
After all the hoopla and supposedly tens of millions of pro-NN comments online, only a few hundred protesters showed up in person last week.
Wow, a .00002% turnout!
Now unmasked as a facade funded by Soros, the NN zombie army has mysteriously moved back to online protesting where the real numbers are obscured like the Wizard of Oz.
Witness BitZtream getting pwned!... twice.....three times..... four times!
Isn't the Internet designed to "route around damage"? Isn't an old quote here, "The Internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it."?
What, have we all become pussies all of a sudden? Oh, right, the hats...
If people want connectivity under more favorable terms, "Community Wireless Networks" is going to have to become a more widespread effort. Perhaps a simple start - Software to set up a WIFI network using common hardware, offering local services. Get your "Hello, World" service up and running, then think about best-effort global routing on an ad-hoc network of networks (not WIFI ad-hoc, but ad-hoc as the links might not be there and it might be necessary to make use of unusual links, such as a portable device in a car).
Otherwise, we'll only have what corporate power offers.
It's bitztream the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating, Qualcomm-hating, Firefox tabs-hating, Slashdot editors-hating Slashdot troll!
Harold Feld, a senior vice president at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit group that supports net neutrality, said the biggest tech companies were less vocal because they were facing more regulatory battles than in past years. Social media sites have been criticized for allowing foreign actors to interfere in the presidential election of 2016. The biggest tech companies also face complaints from some lawmakers that they have become too large and powerful.
“First, the major tech companies are very aware that Washington has turned hostile,” Mr. Feld said. “In this environment, the big tech companies try to keep a low profile and play defense rather than take positions that draw attention.
“So with the dangers of standing up in D.C. greater, their existential concerns about net neutrality reduced because of their own massive size and a desire not to spook investors, it is unsurprising that Silicon Valley giants have melted into the background and have preferred to work through their trade associations,” he said.
Any non-violent ones, I mean? Because I don't see any. Some very nasty and very rich people and "legal persons" have made very certain that every legal way of stopping all of this is in their hands - and they have no intention of using them.
At this point, unless people start 'refreshing the tree of liberty', kiss that part of freedom - and with it the ability to obtain information other than dedicated propaganda - goodbye.
Does anyone remember how Microsoft threw threw Apple's non-disclosure agreement into the trash so they could make Windows?
Yes, it's obvious that the big players can afford to be screwed by the ISPs: Until the ISPs do a Microsoft (or Apple, who has acted similarly), by forcing customers to use their own version of Facebook and Twitter.
Trump and his base hate SV. If Google, FB, Amazon etc. campaigned to save net neutrality, that would be all the more reason to repeal it as far as Trump is concerned.
How's life in the hypocrite lane?