Democrats Introduce 'Save the Internet Act' To Restore Net Neutrality (cnet.com)

As expected, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House and Senate Democrats on Wednesday introduced the Save the Internet Act, which aims to restore open internet rules that were repealed in 2017. From a report: The Obama-era rules, which lasted from 2015 to 2018, banned broadband providers from slowing or blocking access to the internet or charging companies higher fees for faster access. Democrats in Congress have said the repeal allows for large broadband and wireless companies to "control people's online activities." "86 percent of Americans opposed Trump's assault on net neutrality, including 82 percent of Republicans," said Pelosi during the press conference on Wednesday. "With 'Save The Internet Act,' Democrats are honoring the will of the people." Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey tweeted out a copy of the bill on Wednesday, saying nearly every Democrat in the Senate had joined him to introduce it.

Comments

Slashdot introduces have more dupes act

[Anonymous Coward]

To have more dupes

"Trump's assault"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, let's just ignore the giant legislative loophole that allowed this problem to develop in the first place.

Re:"Trump's assault"

[Anonymous Coward]

I can use the Internet as well as before. What is all this whining about?

Re:"Trump's assault"

[arkane1234]

You haven't touched the right thing, or been a target in any way shape or form then. Congrats, you've been invisible for the most part.

Re: "Trump's assault"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but all your browsing data is being sold. Hope you don't mind.

Riders?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't want anything positive to happen during a Trump presidency. Trump asked congress to introduce such a bill to codify NN into law, not executive policy.

This is way too close to collusion, it's almost cooperation!

What progressive horseshit are they going to tack onto this bill so they can deliberately tank it and blame Trump?

Re:Riders?

[Ksevio]

It's only 3 pages long, read it yourself: https://twitter.com/SenMarkey/...

Trump was the one that got rid of net neutrality through his appointments to the FCC. Let's not pretend that he's in favor of it. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't need a bill.

Re:Riders?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is created by "a pen & a phone" dies by "a pen & a phone."

Many tried to warn those on the left the precedent they were happily allowing to be created under Obama... we got called racist instead.

Enjoy your comeuppance.

Maybe it’s time to have a serious discussion about executive overreach... regardless of who is President?

Re:Riders?

[Anonymous Coward]

What horseshit. Someone you don't like introduces a bill for what you want. You're so biased (prejudiced) that you cannot even be bothered to decide for yourself that it's not what you want. You just expect someone else to regurgitate the canned response you want to hear.

Do you also complain about biased media? Maybe you should do research for yourself.

Re:Riders?

[Zak3056]

It's only 3 pages long, read it yourself: https://twitter.com/SenMarkey/...

You're begging the question, here. What you've linked to just says "put it back the way it was under Obama." The guy you're replying to said "Trump asked congress to introduce such a bill to codify NN into law, not executive policy."

So in the end, this is still executive policy, but it's even worse than that--because the legislature (who is supposed to make laws) is not doing their job, they're telling the executive what their rules are supposed to be. It's not supposed to work that way.

Re:Riders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, Trump killed it by putting in Pai-hole. It isn't like our pussy-grabber in chief would sign this if it passed. It will be vetoed. But it will be another thing that will be pointed to when it comes to him running for a second term.

Re:Riders?

[alvinrod]

I think it’s fine if you have a special extension of the executive branch make policy suggestions to Congress. Congress is free to ignore them, but it’s not the job of the executive branch (or more specifically the bureaucratic aspects of it) to create the rules. Congress has been irresponsible in abdicating their authority and the judicial branch is perhaps worse for allowing this folly to persist.

Re:Riders?

[Anonymous Coward]

It works that way all the time, in every sector of regulation. Regulators aren't always running 100% on strictly legislated waypoints, they have policies that evolve over time that Congress doesn't step in to regulate more finely.

This is how it is in every bureau from the EPA to the CIA and everything in between. Legislation isn't even the final word, the courts are. The executive is taking an outsized role in the SPECIFIC decisions for PERSONAL reasons though, like for example the ATT situation where he doesn't get good coverage and then tries to intervene in their merger directly... but as far as the FCC having the power to regulate communications, it does. Congress is however not doing their job of oversight generally in terms of the day to day evaluation of the FCC, as Ajit Pai lying to investigators about chatbot comments and hired PR firms come to light there needs to be a very hot spotlight on that kind of mismangement. Still, as long as the idiot is in the seat, he does have that power.

Did the Founding Fathers consider all these digital details? Of course not. The laws are interpreted to kind of suss out where the FF would have intended there be regulations for common sense (Paine...) reasons.
And there's no question interfering with interstate commerce like throttling internet access willy-nilly for competitors, that would have ended up in court and lost on the basis of common good faith contract law.

If people want to privately rent out subnetworks on their OWN LINES that doesn't touch the public right of way, that's their business, but privatizing the commons should not be allowed (and therefore NN or similar law must be the policy to prevent it) because the public internet wasn't built by AT&T, it was built by the US government and CAL University system and heavily invested by a bunch of different groups since then to make it what it is. It'd be like Tesla buying roads up and telling non-electric cars they had to go around. Byzantine fiefdoms and toll roads would eventually replace what is now open to anybody for any legal reason.

Those corporate masters would be risking some Belgian pistol duels if they tried this crap in the 1770's. Rant over.

Long story short, NN keeps the floor level.

Re:Riders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there something not for twits?

Like a source that is not twit'ter?

Re:Riders?

[ShanghaiBill]

Maybe it’s time to have a serious discussion about executive overreach... regardless of who is President?

There was no executive overreach, by either Obama or Trump. If there is no law that says otherwise, them the president can set FCC policy as he pleases. This legislation is an attempt to fix that.

Unfortunately, the probability of it becoming law is 0%.

Re:Riders?

[dgatwood]

It's only 3 pages long, read it yourself: https://twitter.com/SenMarkey/...

The amazing thing is that they took three pages to basically write "The FCC's reversal of its existing policy in [declaration number] is hereby reversed."

This bill stinks on ice. It doesn't actually enact net neutrality, but rather weakly allows Internet services to be regulated under a section of FCC code that would allow the FCC to regulate net neutrality if it so desires through rulemaking. The bill makes no attempt at defining net neutrality, nor any attempt at defining what constitutes reasonable rulemaking, leaving it entirely up to an unelected body (the FCC) to make those decisions.

To be fair, I'm not saying that they shouldn't pass this. It's an okay stopgap measure, except insofar as Pai's FCC is unlikely to actually issue any meaningful rulemaking to protect net neutrality, which makes this bill largely an empty gesture. But this isn't the end of the story. It is barely even a beginning.

What we actually need is an Internet Users' Bill of Rights that lays out what is and is not acceptable behavior by ISPs in concrete terms. Until we have that fundamental framework, merely having the authority to regulate ISPs over net neutrality concerns still doesn't buy us a whole lot.

Trump was the one that got rid of net neutrality through his appointments to the FCC. Let's not pretend that he's in favor of it. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't need a bill.

Pai wasn't his appointment. President Trump just promoted him to the top spot.

If President Trump even has a position on Net Neutrality, I would expect it to be extremely superficial, limited strictly to what his advisors have told him is the best policy. After all, even fairly tech-savvy people consistently misunderstand what net neutrality means and/or deliberately try to coopt it to suit their own desires. There's essentially zero chance that President Trump understands it at all, even superficially, because almost nobody does.

That said, I very much doubt that he has any position on Net Neutrality whatsoever. He probably doesn't even know that the controversy exists. After all, it doesn't have anything to do with his reputation and it doesn't benefit his business ventures, so why would he care about it? Just saying.

But I guarantee if we could create a really well thought-out bill and name it the Donald J. Trump Net Neutrality Bill Of Rights, he would not only sign it, but would insist that Congress pass it. :-) Just saying.

Re: Riders?

[Ensign_Expendable]

Why is this modded to troll? So much anti-trump has turned out to be bull manure.

Re:Riders?

[drinkypoo]

Pai wasn't his appointment. President Trump just promoted him to the top spot.

They both appointed him to different positions. That doesn't make him not Trump's appointment, it makes him a shared evil decision.

Re:Riders?

[Anonymous Coward]

OMGZDRUMPFLITERALLYHITLER! Sure, everyone else is prejudiced.

So woke. So edgy. Make haste, there's another article requiring your virtue.

Re:Riders?

[WaffleMonster]

Trump was the one that got rid of net neutrality through his appointments to the FCC. Let's not pretend that he's in favor of it. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't need a bill.

I disagree with the premise.

Even our hero at FCC Tom Wheeler didn't want what went down regarding Title II reclassification. His hand was forced into it as a last resort either reclassification or nothing after losing Verizon lawsuit.

Best possible outcome was always a legislative fix imposing meaningful NN and competition without all the ancient POTS era title II bullshit.

When faced with an opportunity to address a problem the democrats elected to sit on their asses and squander it by creating an act that simply reverses Ajit Pai's bullshit.

Re:Riders?

[Darinbob]

ya.... I read this, it feels weird. It isn't what it says it is and is not legislating net neutrality which is what should have been done. Instead it's a repeal of an FCC rule, it forbids adding the rule back, and it puts the earlier rule in its place. It's a cheesy way of legislating something.

I think they could have created a law that required net neutrality. That would have been a sign that the legislators for FOR something. Instead it's a dig directly at the executive and ordering that the executive take a particular action. Ie, a sign that the legislators are AGAINST the executive. So they felt that had to stick some hand slapping in the bill which is totally unnecessary to achieve the goal of net neutrality and is just low level politics.

I very much prefer legislators when they can be positive and for something, but am disappointed that today's politics is all about being negative and against something.

Re:Riders?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is just a wishy washy way of not doing any work.

NN is basically pitting us the customer against one of two 'evils' either the evil ISP or the evil data providers.

They are both a set of asses looking to rip us off through monopolistic practices, lock in, double charging, scraping our data to sell to advertisers, and locking out competitors. Notice nothing I said their only applies to one or the other? Because they are both doing the same things. Just in different levels of degree and shenanigans. They are then asking us to choose which side to be on.

The NN that was enacted was a love letter pretzeling of the law to the data providers. The current rule ripping away is a love letter to the ISPs. Honestly at this point I am boderline thinking the ISPs are better. The FAANG group is showing they can not be trusted with any of our freedoms. They will sell us for a buck faster than a crack whore would sell their ass for a rock. The ISPs at least have to pretend they are beholden to title II.

Can I pick neither?

Re:Riders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obamas biggest flaw was that he tried to be bi-partisan in cases he shouldn't.

Pai was picked by Mitch McConnell. Obama just signed him through.

Re:Riders?

[e3m4n]

That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. The president should not be making laws to begin with. Executive orders suck. Ever hear of COBRA? FMLA? FCRA? HIPAA? Are you starting to see a trend here? If any of those were an executive order they would ebb and flow from one president to the next, constantly changing or disappearing entirely. It was congress’ goddamn job to pass this thing to begin with. They need to stop fucking blaming the president when it was their fucking failure to get it done in the first place. They had total control of both the House and the Senate., and if it is as popular as this article suggests that should not matter. However, they seem to think we’re electing a fucking king not a president. It takes a lot of nerve to cover up dropping the ball, and then turn around and spin it as if theyre some kind a fucking hero for doing the job they should’ve done in the first fucking place. I said the exact same thing about the deffered deportation policy. When something becomes a law it takes a body of people to overturn or change it. When it’s an executive order the whims of a single person can change anything at will. This is citizenship fundamentals 101.

Re:Riders?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean I had eight ISP to choose from under Obama. How the hell did I miss that?

Re:Riders?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Any other rule that was repealed..." That could include anything from bonuses to stations owned by women or minorities, for example, or pretty much anything else. So, those 3 pages can refer to hundreds of pages of other stuff.

Re:Riders?

[dgatwood]

It is just a wishy washy way of not doing any work.

Pretty much.

NN is basically pitting us the customer against one of two 'evils' either the evil ISP or the evil data providers.

Not remotely. Net neutrality actually favors both consumers and small content providers. If an ISP decided to throttle Netflix, YouTube, or some other big content provider, they would get death threats. It has happened, and because those companies are big enough, they got enough consumer complaints to get a lawsuit on Sherman anti-trust grounds.

The main companies NN protects are startups — companies where consumers would never be able to know for sure if the problem was throttling by the ISP or the content provider simply not being able to keep up with traffic. By throttling those companies, ISPs can prevent new, interesting tech from ever happening while the ISPs decide how they're going to respond (e.g. by providing a similar service in-house), or kill it entirely to protect one of their other businesses, or give special "fast lane" access to Netflix in exchange for a kickback, while throttling every new service that's trying to start up and compete with it.

For example, suppose someone comes out with 3D video chat. The ISPs don't have that ability currently, but they could add a camera to their own cable boxes that, when attached to 3D TVs, provides 3D video chat. But they can't do that if somebody else beats them to market too badly. Of course, if that third-party service never takes off because of throttling, they can say that they decided to build their own service because the third-party service wasn't good enough, and consumers might never even know what was happening.

So the anti-NN folks are actually doing a favor for those big companies like Netflix, Google, Hulu, etc. It's unclear why so many of those companies support NN, given that it hurts them. Maybe it's a sense of altruism — the whole "if the Internet hadn't been neutral in the beginning, we wouldn't be here today" thing. Or maybe they're concerned that the "not big enough to look like throttling" problem might apply on a per-service basis, rather than a per-company basis, and might hurt some theoretical future plan. Either way, NN definitely risks increasing their exposure to competition in their existing businesses.

There is absolutely no way that NN favors any big corporation over smaller ones. That's completely implausible at a fairly fundamental level.

Purely political

[Anonymous Coward]

What Obama did with a pen Trump undoes with an eraser.

Save the Clock Tower!

[bobbied]

Here we go again.. They want to have *another* run at net neutrality...

Have at it guys, but we all know what is going to happen. It *may* make it out of the House, but it is dying in committee in the Senate. Nothing but the next election can possibly change that and by the looks of things, that's rapidly slipping into a snowballs chance of surviving in a very hot place....

Maybe if you had a time machine.....Naw, after 3 movies, we all know how that ends...

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[thevirtualcat]

Well, they know that. It's the same as when the Republicans put bills on Obama's desk to repeal the ACA. They knew he'd veto it and that they wouldn't be able to override it. It's about signalling to the voters "this is what we'll be able to do if you put us in charge." It's not a new phenomenon.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[Anonymous Coward]

Democrats are conservative and republicans are progressive. What is this world coming to!

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[Anonymous Coward]

A faggots' game, none the less. Politicians fuck you hard and you beg for more of the same.

More dick! More dick! Keep fucking me for all my worth! -The American Voters

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[alvinrod]

I don't know if Net Neutrality is a big enough deal to most voters for it to matter. The Dem's would be better off pushing things like gun control, protections for abortions, and other things that their base cares about if they're just signalling. If you want to signal that you're rich, you get a flash car and a gaudy but expensive looking wrist watch. That's going to be more effective than buying a $50,000 fountain pen because most people won't be able to pick up something like that as a signal for wealth.

Also, without both houses of Congress to even push bills to Trump's desk, there's no way to stop things from getting killed in the Senate or just so laden with excess bullshit that when they come back to the House they don't end up getting killed. That doesn't mean that there isn't signalling to voters to be done, only that there's different ways to go about it that are more effective in this case.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[ClickOnThis]

Well, they know that. It's the same as when the Republicans put bills on Obama's desk to repeal the ACA. They knew he'd veto it and that they wouldn't be able to override it. It's about signalling to the voters "this is what we'll be able to do if you put us in charge." It's not a new phenomenon.

The Republicans tried to repeal the ACA 54 times when Obama was in office. IIRC, only one of those times did a bill make it out of Congress and to Obama's desk, where he vetoed it. So I think it's "bill" in the singular.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[bobbied]

I don't think playing the abortion idea is a good one.. It may shore up the base but if the polling is any indicator, it's a net loss for democrats as the overwhelming majority of voters do NOT support unlimited right to abortion past viability (say about 22 weeks), much less up to the moment of birth. And I believe that the polling is about 50/50 for abortions just before a detectable heartbeat.

It may play better in heavily democratic areas, and shore up the base, but abortion is an issue that inflames the other side of the debate too, so I'd be *really* careful about that issue as a democrat running for a national office. It could hurt the overall stance of the democrat party nationally, using this issue in local elections.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[thevirtualcat]

It doesn't matter if it gets killed in the Senate or vetoed. Sure, the veto will have more prominence in the news cycle, but the House passing a bill that gets killed in the Senate will still make the rounds in the relevant publications. (Here we are talking about it, right?) There are many ways for them to signal their agenda to the voters. This one in particular has the advantage of putting them on record as supporting whatever the policy is while forcing their opponents to go on record opposing it.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[thevirtualcat]

I thought they'd managed to do it a couple of times in 2015-2016 when they controlled both houses, but I guess not.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have been aborted. You're dumb trash.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[Anonymous Coward]

Gun control has been losing the Democrats supporters for years. I swear some of you just aren't paying attention. According to most Democrats I know countries in Europe are doing everything better. Feel free to fucking move.

For my part, I hope they push it. I want an American revolution in my lifetime. It's time to cut the deadwood and send those fuckers away for good.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[ShanghaiBill]

I don't know if Net Neutrality is a big enough deal to most voters for it to matter.

Hillary lost Wisconsin by 0.6% and Michigan by 0.23%. A small shift can mean a lot.

The Dem's would be better off pushing things like gun control, protections for abortions

These are loser issues for the Democrats. Most people agree with them on abortion and guns, but the passionate single-issue voters that actually turnout are on the other side.

The Democrats learned this from the 1994 Republican landslide after they passed the Brady Bill. When Obama tried to close the "gunshow loophole" after Sandy Hook, many politicians in his own party refused to support him.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you....14 years old?

There is no "for good." If you round up every single person who wants strict gun control, and export them overseas....

within 10 years a whole new crop of people will replace them.

You can't eliminate an opinion by eliminating the people who hold it. It comes back. It always comes back.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[tlhIngan]

I don't know if Net Neutrality is a big enough deal to most voters for it to matter. The Dem's would be better off pushing things like gun control, protections for abortions, and other things that their base cares about if they're just signalling. If you want to signal that you're rich, you get a flash car and a gaudy but expensive looking wrist watch. That's going to be more effective than buying a $50,000 fountain pen because most people won't be able to pick up something like that as a signal for wealth.

Also, without both houses of Congress to even push bills to Trump's desk, there's no way to stop things from getting killed in the Senate or just so laden with excess bullshit that when they come back to the House they don't end up getting killed. That doesn't mean that there isn't signalling to voters to be done, only that there's different ways to go about it that are more effective in this case.

It's the least controversial and yet important enough subject with who the democrats are trying to attract - new voters who just turned 18 and got their ability to vote. And it's the "digital native" era, so these people have grown up with the Internet around them, and it's quite important to them.

Abortion is controversial, even among the liberal side there are controversies. As is gun control - this issue is so highly nuanced it's impossible to fit even part of it in a tweet (that's why it's easy to claim "they're going for our AR-15s" because that's simple, when instead you want some aspect controlled but not an outright ban.).

In fact, those issues are generally nuanced enough that you help rally your base and your opponent's as well because your rallying cry becomes their rallying cry.

But Net Neutrality is different - it's not hard to imagine a world where you have to pay a Netflix fee with your ISP, and it's easy to fight for without rallying your opponents. (What, they going to argue that Verizon needs you spending $5/month to watch Netflix? Or that Comcast will go bankrupt without that $5 so you can use facebook? Not going to generate much sympathy with the public.) That's why opponents are always promoting stuff like "it will increase investment" and other vague things. Especially easy since telecommunication companies are basically the most hated companies of all.

Cheap political points to be had here.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[ToTheStars]

Well, they know that. It's the same as when the Republicans put bills on Obama's desk to repeal the ACA. They knew he'd veto it and that they wouldn't be able to override it. It's about signalling to the voters "this is what we'll be able to do if you put us in charge." It's not a new phenomenon.

And then the GOP won the House, Senate, and White House and...didn't repeal ACA. (Okay, they're working on it...sort of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...)

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[liquid_schwartz]

The Democrats learned this from the 1994 Republican landslide after they passed the Brady Bill. When Obama tried to close the "gunshow loophole" after Sandy Hook, many politicians in his own party refused to support him.

Looks like they didn't learn that lesson. Citation: https://www.npr.org/2019/02/27...

Re: Save the Clock Tower!

[Cmdln Daco]

So you're saying that the direction things are going is that people who use Netflix and other streaming stuff will have to pay more for the huge additional portion of the pipe that they use? So my cost will be less?

Re: Save the Clock Tower!

[Cmdln Daco]

Killing the individual mandate was sufficient. Now the thing can die on it's own.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[Darinbob]

If it passes, I suspect it will still have some legal issues given how it is worded. It is essentially micromanaging decisions by the executive branch (repeal and restore regulations) rather than being new legislation that requires net neutrality. If the legislation stands it would be problematic as it will freeze the Obama era ruling as it is unless there is further legislative action, meaning that regulators could not tweak any rules in this regard even if they become out of date or have problems.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[Anonymous Coward]

It may shore up the base but if the polling is any indicator, it's a net loss for democrats as the overwhelming majority of voters do NOT support unlimited right to abortion past viability (say about 22 weeks), much less up to the moment of birth.

No Democrat have ever argued for such a thing either.
That concept is something Republicans claims that the Democrats want to make people hostile towards it.

What the most extreme people in favor of abortion wants is that abortion should be allowed in all cases where the pregnancy threatens the mothers life.
Instead of both the mother and child dying it should be allowed to kill the baby to save the mother.
And that is the most extreme advocates.

Re:Save the Clock Tower!

[Anonymous Coward]

More to the point, if the gun fanatics would quit murdering people, there wouldn't be nearly so many bereaved friends and family to take up the crusade. If you mix in police reforms to ensure that black people and other "liberal" constituencies actually get to enjoy their second amendment rights without having to look out for rabid cops, you'd win the issue without having to get in bed with the tyrants to do so.

Don't think the law was ever enforced

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast never stopped running Sandvine, did they? Verizon definitely is man-in-the-middling DNS, I can see that from home - and despite promising to provide alternative DNS servers for the small number of customers able to understand their chicanery, those "alternative" servers are unreachable from my FIOS connection.

I switched to FIOS because Comcast was chopping my SSH sessions after a certain period of time regardless of whether they were active or not. This made it very hard to work from home. Hijacked DNS was a relatively small issue, I just use Google's public DNS servers.

Pelosi's grandstanding is all very well, but it would be nice if there was some way to enforce this sort of legislation, and currently there just isn't. Providers do what they want regardless of laws, and there's currently no way to stop them.

real comedy in all this

[arbiter1]

Is as much as Democrat's claim NN stops ISPs from controlling activities it gave exemption's to companies like google and Facebook which did exactly what they are claiming their rules are preventing. The vast majority of censorship we seen on the internet happened while NN was in place from said companies. On top of all that they let Obama pretty much turn control most essential part of the internet over to the UN who lets be real that countries that have most strict control over internet information is in control of.

Re:real comedy in all this

[KixWooder]

The internet is not owned by the United States, therefore we shouldn't have full control of it. No country should.

Re:real comedy in all this

[Anonymous Coward]

that feel when you can't differentiate between a carrier and a content provider because they both offer you a service.

>_>

Re:real comedy in all this

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Partly correct, but the UN is a shitty choice. And insofar a it is partially controlled by non-free countries, you are flat out wrong.

Re:real comedy in all this

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless, ceding control of it was a very stupid move.

Re:real comedy in all this

[ClickOnThis]

You are confusing content providers with service providers. Intentionally, I suspect.

Re:real comedy in all this

[mcl630]

Google and Facebook are not ISPs (except for Google Fiber, which is subject to NN).

Re:real comedy in all this

[Anonymous Coward]

When Google or Facebook hosts your content, they are paying to host that content. When I pay for an Internet connection, I am paying for that Internet connection, and it better fucking give me the content I request at the fucking rate I paid for.

Re:real comedy in all this

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't suggest an alternative, shitty choice wins until it commits treason and dies in prison.

Re:real comedy in all this

[AHuxley]

The alternative would be for the USA to get on with more of the internet. With its freedom of speech and freedom after speech.

Let communities bring in their own community broadband free of new federal NN rules, laws and regulations.
Gentrified communities can then get the most advanced and innovative new networks without having to wait for federal NN approval.
Lots of great new network creation all over the USA to get past the federal NN rule protected monopoly telco.

Re:real comedy in all this

[jeff4747]

it gave exemption's to companies like google and Facebook which did exactly what they are claiming their rules are preventing.

Google and Facebook are not ISPs. Net Neutrality never applied to them in the past, and would not apply to them in the future.

Net Neutrality requires ISPs treat all similar packets similarly, regardless of origin or destination. That's it.

Re:real comedy in all this

[thegarbz]

The vast majority of censorship we seen on the internet happened while NN was in place from said companies.

Please read up on what censorship is and what NN is so that in the future you won't ever put these completely different things in the same sentence.

What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing 99.99% of people haven't noticed any difference at all. What about the Internet is Nancy saving again? Someone please explain pros and cons of each side so my little brain can understand it?

Re:What's the difference?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

ISPs are promising you a data rate for a given fee from you, and they are demanding a cut of what you pay Netflix or Hulu on top of it, or they will deliberately break your connection to Netflix or Hulu so it sucks.

This is fraud.

Re: What's the difference?

[Cmdln Daco]

They should quit promising a data rate and just publish the tier rates. Sorry, torenters and streamers. You get to pay for your proportion finally. I can pony up a few bucks when I want to download an ISO or a bug game install. And you can pay for that fat pipe of mainstream shit culture that should be multicast, not streamed to individual clients.

The point is to change how _you_ vote

[rsilvergun]

by bringing light to an issue that's being ignored. The hope is you'll see this and turn out in the next election and give them a Democratic Congress (House & Senate) and President so we can pass it in 2 years.

The only question is, what will you do? Me? I'll be there at the primaries voting for Bernie.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't still have a Bernie bumper sticker on your car, do you?

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[bobbied]

Bernie?

Yes PLEASE, give us Bernie, the guy who embraces the crazy left wing of your party... PLEASE! Talk about an entertaining election, the old aging socialist on the left and Trump standing clearly in the middle making Ole' Bernie look like the hypocritical leftist he is every day. It will be a land slide to the right, both in the House, the Senate AND the Whitehouse. It will be fun to watch... You do know that he's already behind in the polls right?

In fact, I may need to send Bernie a few dollars, just to make sure he has a chance this time.. That the Democrat party doesn't cheat him out of the primary win again with all their "super delegate" creative accounting and slight of hand.

I hear Hillary hasn't ruled out running yet... That would be fun too.

Seriously, if you think "Net Neutrality" or "Save the Internet" or what ever you want to call it today is going to help your chances, bring it on, power to you, whatever, just know, it's a show vote and nothing more. Also know that when push comes to shove, by the time the democrats get back into power this will be about as relevant as all the "blue laws" from the 60's are now.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[drinkypoo]

Yes PLEASE, give us Bernie, the guy who embraces the crazy left wing of your party... PLEASE!

Polls suggested that Sanders could have beat Trump, and that Clinton couldn't. And lo, she didn't.

Sanders' popularity has led every other Democrat towards the left, because he showed that centrism is not the winning strategy.

At least some (if not many) people who voted for Trump claimed they would have voted for Sanders, because they wanted to shake up politics. It is likely that those people will vote for Sanders if he makes it through the primary. They might well be enough to swing the vote.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[bobbied]

That was then...

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/elections/

THIS is today.

I do hate to tell you this (ok, not really), but by all appearances, Trump would win the election today with Sanders as his opponent with far fewer competitive states than the previous election with Hillary. The one you want on your ticket is Biden.... He's polling the best of the flock right now, even though he's not actually IN the race officially yet. But the star player doesn't take the field until near the end anyway as they don't have to, they already have the donors lined up and willing to give, they don't have to do the "generate excitement" thing with the media.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is going to have the Mueller evidence land on his head like a ton of brick-shaped indictments, you're a moron lol. The blue wave hasn't even gotten started, you're so fucked lol. 35% isn't going winning jack shit, traitors Drumpf.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Bernie thinks it is totally fair and reasonable to take millions and millions of dollars away from rich people, just because they have it. This is not income, and it is money on which they have already paid taxes. But Bernie thinks they simply have too much, and so he wants to take it away from them.

And does he plan to give it to the rest of us? NO! He is going to shuffle it right over to the medical industry, which has a fee structure that drives the vast majority of that money to the various layers of administration.

I just can't get behind this. Simply taking money away from people is immoral, and if we want to make health care more affordable and available then we need to do something about the ridiculous cost structure it has.

Lastly, if you really need more tax revenue, close the loopholes that allow businesses like Amazon to pay zero dollars in taxes on a billion dollars of revenue. THAT I could get behind.

Re: The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd pay for a Trump Biden debate. It'd be Biden rambling incoherently for the RIAA and Trump standing there with his patent smirk while hours of footage of Creepy Uncle Joe sniffing uncomfortable kids plays.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like the polls that had her winning in an electoral landslide the morning of the election?

Re: The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why we need approval voting. So the Republicans and Democrats can nominate whoever they want to, and the voters can tell them both to fuck off. Currently can't do that, and we all lose as a result.

Re: The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Billly Gates]

Trump is unqualified and unstable to be president. Bernie can easily win. FYI Bernie is pretty centrist to the average European. Only on shithole America where people die and go bankrupt from curable diseases who actually have health insurance actually consider him radical. America is so extreme right and corrupt that it needs Bernie more than you can imagine

Re: The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Biden doesn't debate Federal prisoners. Sorry traitor.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[DMJC]

I kind of agree with this point, I think the thing that always gets lost in this discussion is that individual wealth gets diluted across children/generations and poor investment decisions. The biggest threat to the US economy isn't wealthy individuals (Remember that Jeff Bezos is still a mortal man, and he has four children who will likely split his wealth upon his passing). It's the government sanctioned monopolies such as Amazon which are far more dangerous. How can you allow one company to be more than 50% of online retail, when online retail makes up about 10% of the US Economy. Worse, how can you allow a company to become worth a billion dollars if it relies on government welfare for it's employees to make a living wage? (food stamps). If that happened in Australia the government would shut them down and ban them from trading. One company should never be allowed to be 5% of the entire nation's economy. It's obscene. The RICO act, and the Anti Trust act need to be reinvigorated and enforced. The government departments responsible for enforcing them need to be let loose on America's predatory companies. It's the only way to save the US economy and boost living standards and wages across America.

Re: The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Europe. Owned by islamists within 50 years. Have fun with that fuck face.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Darinbob]

Hillary was doomed to lose from the start because the far right was bitterly opposed to her from the first day that she said she didn't like to bake brownies. This is a continuation of the whole whitewater fiasco where they failed to get an impeachment and they're continuing to follow the crusade started by Gingrich (who turned out be even sleazier than Bill). The conspiracy theories have been going strong for a couple of decades. I don't think there's anyone living that the far right base hates more than Hillary.

The trouble is that she was in a bubble (just like Trump for that matter) where she only heard positive things about herself and didn't see the huge tide against her. Never mind the whole optics of looking like she was pre-ordained to be the candidate.

If Democrats want to win, they need to put forward a moderate and centrist candidate. Ie, a Bill Clinton without the baggage. And if Republicans want to win then they have to do the same thing. Otherwise we'll have yet another election with two extreme factions all struggling to attract the sane people in the middle.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[drinkypoo]

Never mind the whole optics of looking like she was pre-ordained to be the candidate. If Democrats want to win, they need to put forward a moderate and centrist candidate.

Sanders earned the nomination (which, as you note, he didn't then get) by not being those things. That's not what liberals want. What we want is a genuine leftist, not another corporation-appeasing, warhawking centrist.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Darinbob]

But Liberals != Democrats. And liberals are a small subset of people who did not vote for Trump. The problem is having only two valid parties both of which are controlled by the extremes in their party, then they get to the general election and the general public don't want the extremes. Maybe we need a centrist party so that the sane people have someone to vote for?

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[drinkypoo]

Maybe we need a centrist party so that the sane people have someone to vote for?

There's nothing sane about the status quo. Corporatism will kill us all.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[thegarbz]

Polls suggested that Sanders could have beat Trump, and that Clinton couldn't. And lo, she didn't.

Which poll suggested that Clinton couldn't have beaten trump? The poll of Fox and Friends newscasters? You don't get to arbitrarily re-write history. The past election was typified by one truth: No representative poll predicted that Trump would beat Clinton, and that the pollsters generally didn't have a clue.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump in the center? That show's what a moron you are.

Re: The point is to change how _you_ vote

[bobbied]

Trump is unqualified and unstable to be president. Bernie can easily win. FYI Bernie is pretty centrist to the average European. Only on shithole America where people die and go bankrupt from curable diseases who actually have health insurance actually consider him radical. America is so extreme right and corrupt that it needs Bernie more than you can imagine

I'm discussing polls here. In the polls I'm seeing right now Bernie loses to Trump, even worse than Hillary did. Also, don't forget the incumbent advantage goes to Trump this time. But we are nearly 2 years out from the only poll that counts, actual voting and ANYTHING can happen.

I actually think that until Biden gets in or announces he's not running, the polling is generally useless. If Biden is in, he's going to suck all the air out of the room and the other democrat hopefuls will start to drop like flies. Until that happens, it's a jump ball for the democrat nomination and any polling between the "unnamed democrat" and Trump is not worth the paper it's printed on.

Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote

[bobbied]

Trump in the center? That show's what a moron you are.

Ok, Ok.. He's LEFT of center... Certainly LEFT of me. But I voted for him because he was absolutely RIGHT of Hillary on the issues I care about.

The right answer hasn't changed

[Anonymous Coward]

*State control*.

Sadly it gets nearly zero support in Congress because it doesn't increase the power of politicians on either side.

Yummy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Another big bite of nothingburger...

You're mixing up Neutrality with forum moderation

[rsilvergun]

Intentionally I think. It took me a second to realize you were conflating Net Neutrality with Google (YouTube) & Facebook kicking right wing pundits off their platforms for questionable (and let's face it, violent) rhetoric and commentary.

Honestly if you left it at that I think you coulda got a +5 out of your troll post, but that bit about the UN ties in with all sorts of off the rails conspiracy theories. The key to a good shit post is knowing when to stop. It helps to have some honest belief in what you're posting. And you're not gonna convince me or anyone else that you believe that malarkey.

A meaningless gesture

[timholman]

This vote is every bit as meaningful as all those votes to defund Obamacare prior to 2016, when the Republicans ran the House - in other words, not meaningful at all. It's very easy to take a stand when you know the bill will never pass the Senate, or survive the President's veto. It gets much, much harder when the vote actually stands a chance of passing. Note how quickly the support to defund Obamacare evaporated the moment the Republicans controlled both the House and Senate.

Now the Democrats are playing the same game. No one cares about meaningless symbolic gestures. But if the Democrats had control of the Senate, suddenly a great many of them would be getting visits from lobbyists for major telecom companies, reminding our elected representatives just who is calling the shots, and net neutrality would suddenly be taken off the table.

   

Re:A meaningless gesture

[Anonymous Coward]

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/364528-poll-83-percent-of-voters-support-keeping-fccs-net-neutrality-rules - 83% of voters support it. So it's not politically meaningless. It proves the GOP is liars again, before an election.

Not sure what you don't understand about this... it's politics, and they're going to push this until they have the power to make it the policy. Mitch is on his way out and Trump is about to die in prison. Get ready for it.

The Blue Wave added 40 seats last time, what's it going to do when MUELLER brings the EVIDENCE out?

Re:A meaningless gesture

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, 40 seats? The Red Wave during the Obama regime was nearly 70 seats at 68.

The "blue wave" was more of a "blue trickle." You lost seats in the Senate, which is a somewhat more representative body of how states are actually trending, and barely took back the House in one of the smallest "waves" elections in recent history. And even then, some of the elections that Democrats "won" are looking mighty suspicious, and at least one election is being done over due to rampant cheating.

But yeah, go on talking about the "blue wave" that matched your average midterm election.

Re:A meaningless gesture

[Anonymous Coward]

So WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MUELLER PROVES TRUMP IS A TRAITOR ? You ran from the whole point of the conversation. Obama didn't commit treason, Trump provably did. Trump will hang, Obama will golf.

You lose, faggot traitors. Trump Jr. will die in prison too. The system works, it's there for a reason. Obama approved this message, sorry traitors!

Trump hangs, traitors hang.

Re:A meaningless gesture

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mueller report that's been coming soon for well over a year now and that so far has only managed to charge people with lying to the police, the traditional "we wasted a whole lot of time and money on this and now we have to show it accomplished something" charge?

Keep dreaming.

Also I yet again have to point out how rude and crude the left is, and how willing they are to fling words they insist are "slurs" around. Words that used by people on the right are used as justification to get people fired and have their lives ruined. Yet they're more than happy to just use them themselves.

Re: A meaningless gesture

[Billly Gates]

First off only deep red southern states were up with the exception of a few like Wisconsin which went blue and kicked out Walker even with Gerry mandering!

Ted Cruz barely even broke even in deep red Texas. Florida was cheated and so was Georgia where the candidate was in charge of counting the freaking votes! This shows the rest of the nation would have been quite blue

Re: A meaningless gesture

[Cmdln Daco]

You're responding to a crapflooder who probably doesn't believe in anything. Gibbering hollow nothings. It's sad that they can get a response from any of us.

Re: A meaningless gesture

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never met a leftist in real life, have you? They're actually like that. They inject their TDS into everything and shout things exactly like those posts. I can guarantee you that it's a true believer behind them. The left is really that deranged and detached from reality.

Re:A meaningless gesture

[thegarbz]

No one cares about meaningless symbolic gestures

Actually people do. It shows what each side is likely to do should they actually get in power. It's why these symbolic gestures are repeated time and time again.

Re: A meaningless gesture

[Anonymous Coward]

Wisconsin which went blue and kicked out Walker even with Gerry mandering!

You can't gerrymander a governor's race and the Republicans still have legislature due to gerrymandering.

ATTENTION TRUMP FAGGOT TRAITOR

[Anonymous Coward]

TRUMP is the "pen and phone" president. Congress said he couldn't have money, he tried to invent a BS "emergency" to go around them. He's a traitor, Obamacare was passed by Republicans. Go fuck yourself, moronic racist traitor.

Re: ATTENTION TRUMP FAGGOT TRAITOR

[Anonymous Coward]

That is lit yo! SO MUCH baloney! Net neutering is that the idea?

Re:ATTENTION TRUMP FAGGOT TRAITOR

[Anonymous Coward]

TRUMP is the "pen and phone" president. Congress said he couldn't have money, he tried to invent a BS "emergency" to go around them. He's a traitor

Try again, Ivan. People are dying right and left from drug overdoses and the mexican drug cartels are bringing in tons of the stuff. There is a real emergency and Trump is the only legit president we've had in a long time.

Re:ATTENTION TRUMP FAGGOT TRAITOR

[Anonymous Coward]

THE DRUGS COME IN THROUGH PORTS OF ENTRY, AS EVEN DRUMPFTARD'S OWN BORDER AGENTS READILY SAY ALL DAY LONG, ILLITERATE TRAITOR SUPPORTING FAGGOT WHO DIES IN PRISON.

Trump is the only RUSSIAN AGENT PRESIDENT we've EVER HAD, and he'll be the only President in US history to die in a jail cell or at the GALLOWS.

You should hang too, you're not supporting and defending the Constitution. You are the enemy, you will be destroyed, traitors.

Re: ATTENTION TRUMP FAGGOT TRAITOR

[Anonymous Coward]

Human trafficking doesn't go through ports of entry, and it's a big problem that few pay attention to.

Read the actual bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook and Amazon are big supporters of this bill. For that reason alone I'm skeptical.

Re: Read the actual bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Both benefit from net neutrality. Why would they oppose it?

Comcast, AT&T, verizon, sprint, t-mobile, cox, are the ones that benefit from no net neutrality. Literally everyone else benefits from net neutrality except ISPs.

Re: Read the actual bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Both benefit from net neutrality. Why would they oppose it?

Comcast, AT&T, verizon, sprint, t-mobile, cox, are the ones that benefit from no net neutrality. Literally everyone else benefits from net neutrality except ISPs.

Lack of net neutrality would allow larger companies to enter into fast lane agreements which would put them at an advantage.

Re:Read the actual bill

[pauljlucas]

Of course they are. They don't want to be charged extra by ISPs. If the ISPs supported it, then I'd be skeptical.

Re:You're mixing up Neutrality with forum moderati

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing to conflate. Net neutrality advocates complain about discrimination while being the most discriminating groups on the Internet. They want government-mandeted access to the infrastructure of others while denying access to their own.

Good. Now Stop Twitter/FB Censoring Conservatives

[Anonymous Coward]

That needs to happen - I'm sick of the techno-fascists in san Francisco.

Oh no no no

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump asked congress to introduce such a bill to codify NN into law, not executive policy.

When asshole? When?! Before the midterms?

Listen asshole, the REPUBLICANS are against NN because their corporate masters do not like it. Got it asshole!?

TRUMP's administration doesn't like it because HIS corporate masters do NOT like it! Got it, asshole?!

So listen up, Asshole, the Republicans have done NOTHING - EVER - for us little people and it's obvious that they serve no one but their big money backers because they are lying corrupt assholes.
ESPECIALLY Trump!

Yes, Clinton would have been better for us little people - by a small margin.

So fuck you! Republicans do not serve my interests at all. Why? Because I'm not a billionaire.

And all of the Evangelical "Christians" are all asshole moron flakes who are more concerned with their fairy tales than the reality of the people they pretend to care about. Goddamn them all to their mythical Hell!

Re:Oh no no no

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell us how you really feel...

Re:Oh no no no

[Anonymous Coward]

TRUMP's administration doesn't like it because HIS corporate masters do NOT like it! Got it, asshole?!

HAHAHAHAHA! Lolz... Trump has corporate masters? HAHAHAHAHA!!! The dude is independently wealthy. That's why we voted him into office - he has no "corporate masters" to answer to. The guy answers to no one, no one except perhaps the voters who might re-elect him in 2020.

So listen up, Asshole, the Republicans have done NOTHING - EVER - for us little people and it's obvious that they serve no one but their big money backers because they are lying corrupt assholes.

As one of the "little people," I was quite relieved when Trump and the Republicans repealed Obamacare's individual mandate.

Doesn't do even define net neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the problems of this bill is that is doesn't even define net neutrality. Because of this it doesn't even specifically say which changed rules should be changed back, or why those changed rules have any effect whatsoever on net neutrality.

Besides real net neutrality is neutrality of content, not of service levels and speeds for different types of uses.

Re:Doesn't do even define net neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much this. They should just call all their bills "ORANGE MAN BAD" from here on out. At least then they'd be honest about their motives.

Re:Doesn't do even define net neutrality

[J053]

Besides real net neutrality is neutrality of content, not of service levels and speeds for different types of uses.

Wrong. Net neutrality has nothing whatsoever to do with the content of packets - it's all about the delivery of those packets. The principle of net neutrality is that all packets, regardless of their source or destination, *within the same QoS tier* are given the same priority on the wires. That's it. (percieved) censorship/"deplatforming"/whatever is an entirely different discussion.

Re:Doesn't do even define net neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost right; just delete the "*within the same QoS tier*". QoS itself is arbitrary and discriminatory, and just moves the problem into the definition of tiers, which creates an enormous loophole and encourages disguising traffic. Traffic is impossible to classify fairly, and there will always be an inherent bias for established protocols, making the very idea fundamentally flawed. If you want QoS or "fast lanes", create a private network, and classify your own traffic.

The concept of true net neutrality is so basic, that the entire bill should fit in a tweet. Something like: "Deliver unmolested data as addressed, in order of receipt, and do not discriminate in any other way."

It might also be useful to ban caps and other billing abuse; connections should be advertised clearly and sold by minimum guaranteed bandwidth, with available excess shared fairly. Data is not a consumable resource; the fundamental unit is bandwidth, not bytes, and billing should reflect that reality.

Re: Doesn't do even define net neutrality

[Cmdln Daco]

All packets CAN'T travel 'equally' like that. Unless you want services that die when there is latency to cease to exist. Your VOIP traffic needs to travel by vastly different means than some cached pop culture bullshit that a streamer is consuming.

Re:Doesn't do even define net neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why it's important to read the f'ing bill. The problem with "net neutrality" is that it means different things to different people. There is no standard definition, just a feel-good slogan that can easily screw us all. Like the Patriot Act that wasn't patriotic and Affordable Care Act that wasn't affordable.

The first red flag is that they aren't specifying anything in the bill, just referring to old FCC regs that are outdated and helped Big Tech become Big Tech and crowd out any new competition. If Congress was serious they need to start over. Define what a "packet" is (in law) and start from there.

Re: Doesn't do even define net neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. QoS can be set on the user's side. The ISP should be prohibited from picking and choosing which type of packets get preference and more importantly which packets FROM WHERE get preference..

So it's not real

[SuperKendall]

All this bill does is restore the corporate written FCC regulations that existed previously, that did NOTHING to support real network neutrality.

Give us one example of a problem since that was repealed. One.

Re:So it's not real

[jd]

Ok.

Comcast quality of service has gone down, network speeds in general have gone down, Verizon cut off multiple firefighters tackling wildfires endangering the lives of crews and civilians, telemedicine has become unsafe.

That should be enough.

Either admit to being wrong or don't bother replying.

Re:So it's not real

[mcl630]

https://potsandpansbyccg.com/2...

Re: So it's not real

[Cmdln Daco]

The firefighters should have been operating on a completely different tier and on different channels. They should not have been allowed to be sold a bill of goods by SV hucksters who want everything 'on the Internet'. The fucks who designed and sold the "cheap" tools for the firefighters should be punished, not the carriers that the hucksters assumed would be 'good enough.'

If you trust Pelosi

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably have epic problems.

Re:You're mixing up Neutrality with forum moderati

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh you might want to watch the latest Joe Rogan podcast where he had Tim Pool VS the CEO of Twitter where they admitted throwing people off for things like "using the wrong pronouns" and even feminists for daring to say that Transwomen shouldn't be making policies for biological women.

You really should watch it to see just how bad of an echo chamber exists between these social media companies and far left activist media, its pretty damn scary and this is coming from a former Bernie Bro.

Oh God no

[rsilvergun]

now I know you're trolling. Joe Rogan? And what do pronouns have to do with literally _anything_. Come on, I expect better bait.

Throwing in the part about being a former Bernie bro was a smart move though. It'll throw some of the progressives off your scent. Again though, you really need to step up your game if you're shooting for even a +3 around here. That shit might fly on reddit but /.? We're old men. We saw this crap on Usenet.

Re:Oh God no

[Anonymous Coward]

Deflection, personal attacks and change of topic when presented with an argument. I wouldn't expect anything less from your kind.

Re:Oh God no

[Anonymous Coward]

You really are a true believer. Committed to the cause.

Re:Oh God no

[serviscope_minor]

now I know you're trolling. Joe Rogan? And what do pronouns have to do with literally _anything_. Come on, I expect better bait.

It's ironic that his bait isn't very good since he's clearly a bit of a master baiter.

You know nothing about this illiterate Kendall.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you're too lazy and uneducated to read about and understand any of this doesn't mean it's anyone else's job to un-retard you. Google and educate yourself you lazy illiterate nazi propagandist.

https://www.ozarksfirst.com/news/outrage-over-verizon-throttling-service-to-firefighters-during-wildfire/1390190474 - Related directly.

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-15-24A1.pdf - Related directly.

Hobbling the delivery of all video across the board isn’t a worst-case scenario for the end of net neutrality, since it doesn’t necessarily give one video provider an advantage over any other. But selling internet plans with slow lanes for specific types of content might have violated the old FCC rules, which specified that “if a broadband provider degraded the delivery of a particular application,” it would “violate the bright-line no-throttling rule.” Likewise, California’s law, if it goes into effect, will forbid broadband providers from degrading entire classes of applications.

Besides, data collected by researchers at Northeastern University from volunteers using apps that test connection speeds show that the carriers don't always apply these video speed limits evenly. David Choffnes, who leads the Northeastern University research, says Verizon throttles YouTube but doesn't throttle the video service Vimeo. It’s not clear if the different treatment between video providers is deliberate or if carriers are simply not identifying some video traffic. The carriers didn’t comment on how they handle video.

Educate yourself, then spout moron.

Re:You know nothing about this illiterate Kendall.

[SuperKendall]

https://www.ozarksfirst.com/news/outrage-over-verizon-throttling-service-to-firefighters-during-wildfire/1390190474 - Related directly.

Read again. That is related to network neutrality, but the FCC regs would have NOT stopped that.

Note also that without the FCC regulations, that action was stopped. So why did we need the regulations again?

This is exactly what I mean. All of the NN advocates act like we lost anything real at all when the bill was repealed, but it didn't protect anyone but companies, and certainly nothing has happened since then the bill would have actually covered - you just THINK it would have.

Re:You're mixing up Neutrality with forum moderati

[Anonymous Coward]

hairyfeet is correct(Watch the interview) and your misinformed about whos being deplatformed. Quite the contrary violent left wing actors are not being thrown off but conservatives are for speech...

Time for a law to force freedom of speech to exist across any public platform over a given size.

Back to the

[AHuxley]

Federal rules and laws that protected NN approved wireline.
Less innovation.
Less ability for gentrified communities to get new networks.
If your telco likes your wireline plan, they can keep you on your NN approved wireline plan.

Re:Back to the

[Anonymous Coward]

^^ Idiot straddles both sides of fence in wacky spoken-word bullshitting session.

Re:Back to the

[jeff4747]

How, exactly, does an ISP blocking your access to a new company improve "innovation"?

Re:Back to the

[guruevi]

Not what this political net neutrality is about. It's not about censorship or equal access, the Dems want to put the Internet back under control of the FTC (which is what Obama NN was) rather than FCC where it has always been.

If it's under the FTC mergers of media conglomerates is easier. The AT&T and Time Warner merger recently blocked by Trump's FCC is what Dems want to pass. Under Obama's rules we saw massive monopolization of news networks, media and information distribution channels, that's what Dems want.

Re:Back to the

[Anonymous Coward]

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner!

Re:Back to the

[jeff4747]

the Dems want to put the Internet back under control of the FTC (which is what Obama NN was) rather than FCC where it has always been.

Uh...no. "Obama NN" was making Internet Service Providers FCC Title II services.

ISPs are currently FCC Tittle III services, and the Republican plan is to let the FTC deal with blocking/fast-laning/zero-rating. However the Republicans have neglected to give the FTC any authority to do so.

The AT&T and Time Warner merger recently blocked by Trump's FCC is what Dems want to pass.

You mean the merger that Trump's administration just approved?
Also, if the Democrats wanted that merger to go through, why did the Obama administration block it?

Under Obama's rules we saw massive monopolization of news networks, media and information distribution channels

You've got your timeline wrong here. The massive wave of mergers happened before 2008. And again, if the Democrats wanted these mergers, why did the Democrats block the AT&T/Time Warner merger?

Name one crazy left wing policy

[rsilvergun]

"crazy" being the operative word.

Medicare for All? The rest of the world does it. Ending the 8 wars? They're pushing 20 years. Green New Deal? It's a jobs program, like we did in the 30s when wealth income equality got as bad as it is today.

It won't help the Dems chances. It pisses off wealthy donors. They'd do better to keep their heads low. They're taking a stand for something. Much like Bernie does with all his policy. That's what leaders are supposed to do.

Re: Name one crazy left wing policy

[Billly Gates]

The one and only good thing about Trump is that he has awakened non right wing Americans. Social media has shown what the republicans have always done sure as this.

There are more sane Americans than you realize. They typically don't vote over the religious zealots, rich, and rednecks combined with redistricting but are starting. Infact obamacare low approval was from people who didn't feel it went far enough!

Bernie might be to the Dems as Reagan was to the right where Carter was the Trump. I think new blood is needed

Re: Name one crazy left wing policy

[Darinbob]

What the election showed is a lot of hypocrisy on the right. The fact that the party that was excoriating Bill Clinton for his lack of character goes and starts bowing at the feet of someone with even less moral fiber, and even the evangelical wing were holding their nose and voting for him. Almost everyone in the Republican party that was bitterly opposed to Trump in the primaries suddenly changed their tune and made Trump their best friend. Trump even insulted Ted Cruz's wife but Ted still goes and campaigns for Trump. And the picture of governor Christie standing behind Trump at a rally looking like a whipped schoolchild said a whole lot. Good solid traditional Republicans are being called RINOs for not kissing Trump's ass.

Sure, the Democrats can be just as bad also, politics is inherently a sleazy field of work to get into. But the cesspool that they wade in seems deeper than it ever was in the past.

Re: Name one crazy left wing policy

[bobbied]

Personally, I never thought Trump could make it though the primaries. I was supporting Cruz. Once Trump had the nomination, I voted republican because there was a chance he'd better support my views.

HOWEVER, at this point, given Trump's track record in office, I'm glad Cruz didn't win the primary. Trump has really knocked it out of the park. I wasn't expecting much from Trump, but he's been consistently delivering well beyond what I dared to dream he would.

Bernie doesn't have a snowballs chance in 2020. Trump is the incumbent. He has exceeded all expectations of the right and has been attempting to deliver on as man of his campaign promises as was in his power to accomplish. The economy is doing fairly well, better than it was before he got elected and we've hit nearly full employment. Bernie has to play up the rich vrs poor class envy, when even the poor are getting richer so the socialist tendencies will not play well.

Biden, though.... He's the candidate that has the best chance if you ask me. But he doesn't enthuse the crazy left in the party because he's closer to the center. I'm not sure Biden can thread the needle, appeasing enough of the left to win the nomination, but not being crazy enough to run towards the center in the general election.

Re: Name one crazy left wing policy

[Darinbob]

The goals of the right were to reintroduce tarifs? That's pretty much the opposite of what fiscal conservatives push for, at least since Hoover days.

Re: Name one crazy left wing policy

[bobbied]

Ah... Well, I've NEVER called Trump a conservative. I've only said that he was obviously better aligned with my views than Hillary was.

Remember, the way you play this game is you vote for who you think will most advance your views in the primary of the party that best represents your views. Then in the general election you vote for one of the two candidates that has a chance of winning.based on how well you think they will represent your views.

So, I supported (and voted) for Cruz in the primary, but then supported Trump in the general based mostly based on his list of judges he was going to nominate from to the supreme court, and not expecting much progress on the rest. Trump has exceeded what I expected by miles, even if I don't agree with everything he's done.

On the tariff question.. I don't recognize tariffs as being either conservative or non-conservative. I see them as a tool that can be used for conservative purposes or nonconsecutive purposes. I think Trump's use of them has been reasonable and for purposes that I generally agree with. But as a tool, they are very blunt and collateral damage is hard to avoid so I'm not saying I like the individual effects of tariffs in all cases.

Mod parent up

[rsilvergun]

Sanders has changed the discourse of an entire nation. We're seriously talking about universal healthcare for the first time since the mid 90s.

Re:Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel compelled to point out that Donald J. Trump was talking about universal healthcare in the 2000s.

I know you are

[rsilvergun]

but what am I?

Perverts

[Anonymous Coward]

One pedophile against another, can't wait.

LEARN _ TO _ READ _ TRUMP _ TRAITORS

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/live-updates/trump-white-house/live-fact-checking-and-analysis-of-president-trumps-immigration-speech/most-imported-heroin-comes-through-legal-points-of-entry/

Lie less often Bill.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Judicial Branch has many many times repeatedly said Trump overreached and overturned his decisions, while Obamacare was passed by the GOP and passed several legal hurdles along the way. It's not really comparable.

Re: Lie less often Bill.

[Anonymous Coward]

There has to be a legal basis for the courts to do that.

Re: Lie less often Bill.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Obamacare was passed by the GOP

Wut? I think one GOP in the house voted for it? I would exactly call that 'passed by the GOP'. Gicen 39 dems voted against it there... are you also going to say it was opposed by the dems?

Found the ridiculous spigot of weird bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fountain that shoots bullshit into the air.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

The same people who have spent years trying to censor the internet with insane conspiracy theories about Russians will not save the internet, and I do not trust them to do anything with it when they already abuse he powers they obtained by controlling monopolistic companies.

OK,

[BankRobberMBA]

Now that was funny.

"The vast majority of censorship we seen" LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

"The vast majority of censorship we seen" LOL UNEDUCATED REDNECK FAGGOT GOP WHINER I love the fact that your nazi faggot friends are getting kicked out of facebook and twitter, lol. YOU DESERVE PAINFUL DEATHS THOUGH!

Re: "The vast majority of censorship we seen" LOL

[Cmdln Daco]

This. We need mainstream America to see more of this.

Re:You're mixing up Neutrality with forum moderati

[Anonymous Coward]

It took me a second to realize you were conflating Net Neutrality with Google (YouTube) & Facebook kicking right wing pundits off their platforms for questionable (and let's face it, violent) rhetoric and commentary.

Being moderately left, the moderate view is this:

Right: "I think abortion is murder."
Left: "Punch a Nazi! Everyone right of me is a Nazi!"

Pretty clear which "side" has the violent rhetoric and commentary.

Lie less often Bildo

[Anonymous Coward]

The Judicial Branch has many many times repeatedly said Trump overreached and overturned his decisions, while Obamacare was passed by the GOP and passed several legal hurdles along the way. It's not really comparable.

Re:You're mixing up Neutrality with forum moderati

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you ever doubted it, just browse a Slashdot thread at -1 a see where all the vindictiveness is coming from. I consider myself a somewhat leftist moderate, and there's just no way I can support the Democratic Party given the way it's currently lost its mind. Have you seen the anti-semitic comments coming from one of the new Democratic representatives? And the party won't flat-out condemn and censure her?!

You constantly see people screaming about "Trump is a traitor!" and how "Russia is buying our elections!" and then when pressed for evidence, they have ... nothing. Shouts of racism and sexism and every sort of -ism yet they ignore the blatant anti-semitism in their own party. It's blatant and ridiculous and I can't imagine supporting that party until they do a purge of the lunatic fringe that currently dominates the party.

Data is a voice service?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama's puppets classified the internet ad a voice service to impose CALEA on the internet. That is most certainly overreach. You idiots supported it.

Re: You're mixing up Neutrality with forum moderat

[Cmdln Daco]

The mainstream Democratic Party regulars have spent too many years doing 'nudge, nudge, wink, wink' to the far left. Their principles have been hollowed out by years of tolerating far left rhetoric.

They're in trouble, now.

Veto

[Anonymous Coward]

What else need be said?

The internet does not need saving

[scourfish]

The internet is doing just fine, and deregulation is what allowed it to become an amazing miracle that has benefited everybody on the globe. And yes, for all of the misgivings about the spooky, corporation$, I trust them more than I trust the government.

Re:The internet does not need saving

[Anonymous Coward]

How does it feel to be this dumb in life?

Seriously, do you have to remind yourself to breath? Do you know how to read?

Net Neutrality is honestly one of the bog simplest things to figure out and somehow people like you fuck it up.

Is it information = information service.
Is it a carrier for information = communication service.

If you are a communication service, you should be neutral to the information you are carrying outside of actions deemed reasonably necessary to ensure effective carrying. There, that's it. This isn't some GUBBERMINT power grab, it isn't some crazy technological babble, it isn't censoring people or forcing everyone to share their belongings under sunshine and rainbows.

It's too expensive (and redundant) for companies to hang many lines (just like there is only one gas company doing transmission in a given area). You can buy your information (gas) from anyone, and the carrier (gas distribution company) can't charge you more for carrying information from one distributor versus another.

This doesn't mean they can't charge more for more data, or that they can't make different deals for HUGE users like Netflix. It just means they can't use their monopoly on the transmission lines to unfairly affect the market (which everyone seems to think is so magically perfect, so you think ensuring a fair competitive market would be right up the conservative ally... but apparently government sanctioned monopolies is the better option).

I doubt anything I wrote will make a difference, people like you don't bother thinking about these things. The moment someone starts going on about how DEREGULATION WILL MAKE MIRACLES HAPPEN IN OUR FREE AND OPEN MARKETPLACE, I know they don't actually want to argue in good faith. No one thinks this without being a grade A moron. If it worked we wouldn't need an FDA to make sure companies weren't selling terrible meat or dangerous drugs. We wouldn't need a weights and measures office, or OSHA. But what do you know, if you look at actual history, people will shake their heads and say they couldn't help those poor people who were locked into that building during that fire, or those people that died eating bad product, or the thousands of times we've proven that people will generally look the other way for another buck.

Let's just bring back child labor while we're at it. If kids want to work, why is THE BIG BAD GOVERNMENT stopping them? Why do we have any laws at all-- if that guy didn't want to get shot, he shouldn't have talked back to me. And why not bring back slavery? I mean, clearly it will sort itself out naturally over time when the slaves open up their own businesses or some bullshit.

It's the same god-damned stupid shit all the fucking time.

There, you can thank me later.

Re:The internet does not need saving

[scourfish]

Somebody is triggered

Before folks get excited

[nehumanuscrede]

about what Team Red or Team Blue promises they will do, you should take a deep breath and come to a simple realization. ... ..
.
Regardless of which team we're talking about and regardless who is in power, they both have one thing in common:
*** What they say and / or promise they will do and what they actually get done are rarely in harmony with one another. ***

Every few years they play the public like a well trained orchestra. Every few years the public falls for it, again and again.
DECADES of this bullshit has brought us to where we stand today.

Do make it a point to remember this when the time comes.

In the words of Public Enemy - " Don't believe the hype "

Purposefully conflating now

[Anonymous Coward]

That's still conflating NN with site moderation. NN is regarding bits travelling over tranmission lines. Forum and site content moderation has nothing to do with that. That is intra-site data and is under the purview of the site's owner(s).

But you already knew that. Don't forget we don't forget who user "hairyfeet" is just because we logged off and went to bed. You have a history.

Democrats are a bunch of losers

[WaffleMonster]

Seriously they say they will pursuit legislation to address NN and save the Internet. Yet they go and pull this shit?

Democrats appear to be too lazy to even bother writing a real bill that cleanly addresses the issues of NN. They couldn't be bothered to peel anyone away from the war effort against orange clowns?

All this does is reinstates the same bullshit regime in place earlier with it's hodgepodge of arbitrary forbearances, looming threat of POTS style regressive USF taxes and pointless POTS era regulatory burdens on small providers.

What a pathetic cop out.

Re:Good. Now Stop Twitter/FB Censoring Conservativ

[Anonymous Coward]

awesome.. I've been labelled a troll for supporting freedom of speech. Slashdot you really have sunk too low.

Democrats are Anti-American

[Anonymous Coward]

Democrats must be destroyed along with everything they do. They've been taken over by Marxists, and have as their agenda the shredding of the US Constitution and creation of an anti-Christian, anti-semitic communist dictatorship. The communists have taken over most of the mainstream media, most of the colleges and universities, and seek a take-over of 1/6th of the US economy with "Medicare for all," aka socialized medicine.

If Democrats win the White House and Congress, expect the US to look like Venezuela within 3 years.

charging companies higher fees for faster access

[Anonymous Coward]

With NN, they can charge higher fees for slower access?