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'Red Alert' Protest For Net Neutrality Starts May 9 (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the tussle-continues dept.

Net neutrality activists and websites like Etsy, Tumblr, Postmates, Foursquare and Twilio will post "red alerts" starting May 9 to protest the FCC's effort to roll back Obama-era net neutrality protections. From a report: This latest protest, announced Monday, is set to coincide with the next step in an ongoing process in the Senate to use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to halt the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of the 2015 net neutrality rules. On May 9, senators will present a petition to force a vote on a resolution to undo the FCC's net neutrality rollback. The CRA gives Congress 60 legislative days in which to roll back the FCC's decision. The countdown for the rollback effort began in February when the FCC published its order in the Federal Register to repeal the rules. Further reading: 100 US Mayors Sign Pledge To Defend Net Neutrality Against Crooked ISPs.

7 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. We all know how useful virtue signaling is! by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wake me when there's an actual problem, instead of people postering because they fear their own shadows.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:We all know how useful virtue signaling is! by bondsbw · · Score: 3

      Sure, let's make it easier for ISPs to claim that it's too ingrained in their systems and business model to change.

      You might not worry about the train coming towards us, but don't force me to stand on the tracks with you.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    2. Re:We all know how useful virtue signaling is! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      There is an actual problem. Comcast is slowing down connections. We have about forty employees with home connections that we pay for, and run monitoring when they connect to our VPN. Latency has almost tripled and packetloss increased by near tenfold in the past month.

    3. Re:We all know how useful virtue signaling is! by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You have to pay to play and that's how it is, get over it.

      We've already paid for our internet use, through our ISP. This is about ISPs wanting to make deal with companies to charge you varying amounts (or on top of what you already pay for service) based upon the source of the content. You paid for it, why does the ISP care if that data is coming from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, CNN, Youtube? They want to charge customers to receive the data and companies to send the data, effectively getting paid twice for the same data. How would you like to pay $10 more a month to access news sites (beyond the ones that have already paid to be "included" in the ISPs base package)? $10 more to access Google services (oh, and an additional $5 for Youtube on top of that)? Twitter paid off your ISP, now you can't access Facebook or Instagram. Access to content producers owned by the ISP: free. Access to content producers like Netflix or Hulu? Pay extra (so you are now paying Netflix and your ISP to watch Netflix).

      This is like your water company charging you different rates based upon whether you are using your shower or the kitchen sink or the sprinkler in your yard. You paid for the water, you decide how you use it; you paid for the data, you decide where that data comes from.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    4. Re:We all know how useful virtue signaling is! by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

      There is an actual problem. Comcast is slowing down connections. We have about forty employees with home connections that we pay for, and run monitoring when they connect to our VPN. Latency has almost tripled and packetloss increased by near tenfold in the past month.

      Are there any published stories about this? I am pretty dubious because I ALSO work at home, mostly on a VPN, and use Comcast. I have not noticed any of what you are claiming here.

      As others have said it's way more likely to be Comcast infrastructure issues (which sometimes I HAVE had) than anything like some secret ISP cabal slowing VPN traffic. In any case it would have nothing to do with network neutrally and everything to do with traffic shaping at worst (which the network neutrality regulations that were decided would have done nothing about BTW).

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  2. When I started reading the title of the post.. by Faw · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... I got excited for a moment because a new Command and Conquer was coming out.

  3. Re:They used to say efforts like these were by bobbied · · Score: 2

    'as useful as teets on a bull', but I'll modernize that by coining, "This effort will be as useful as a change.org petition."

    Well, you and I know that this protest will be as effective as that petition... As far as Net Neutrality is concerned, this is pointless.

    HOWEVER, this is about the midterms and democrats keeping their voters ginned up, not about changing Net Neutrality which is going to take an act of congress to change. Even with the best possible outcome for the democrats in the midterms, it won't happen in the next congress.

    Settle in, this is going long term. Net Neutrality is currently dead. Republicans killed it, it's not coming back for at least 3 years, maybe more.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101