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Net neutrality advocates are planning two days of protest in Washington DC this month as they fight off plans to defang regulations meant to protect an open internet.
A coalition of activists, consumer groups and writers are calling on supporters to attend the next meeting of the Federal Communications Commission on 26 September in DC. The next day, the protest will move to Capitol Hill, where people will meet legislators to express their concerns about an FCC proposal to rewrite the rules governing the internet.
The FCC has received 22 million comments on "Restoring Internet Freedom", the regulator's proposal to dismantle net neutrality rules put in place in 2015. Opponents argue the rule changes, proposed by the FCC's Republican chairman Ajit Pai, will pave the way for a tiered internet where internet service providers (ISPs) will be free to pick and choose winners online by giving higher speeds to those they favor, or those willing or able to pay more.
The regulator has yet to process the comments, and is reviewing its proposals before a vote expected later this year.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 20 2017, @03:41PM (2 children)
Not gonna argue, 'cause you are at least mostly right. But, is the internet still working because of "government", or because of "standards"? What I think is, today's standards were adopted readily, and widely, because government was using and backing them. But, government didn't exactly write the standards all on their own. It was more like a critical mass thing, where enough agencies, corporations, and people were on board with "The Internet", so everyone else just fell into line. It was a choice of "conform, or be left behind".
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Wednesday September 20 2017, @04:07PM
It's definitely the standards. But I make a distinction between the first two phases of the Internet which were the pre-commercialization and the post-commercialization. The solid government period was pre-commercialization. That is to say pre-1996 it was guided by government projects. However, for all the shortcomings of that model back then there was still the possibility to bring in top experts and let them do their thing. Today, there are fewer experts and they would never be allowed to do anything without being micro-managed into unemployment by a gaggle of MBAs. Anyway, long and short of it was that there was a period of time when the standards that comprise(d) the Internet were made possible through the government.
I'm a middle-path fan, myself. Historically, it seems to be the only model that has consistently worked. However, we've already done the free-market experiment with networking in the 1970's and 1980's. It did not get anywhere. Nowadays we're in a third phase where the very standards themselves are under attack [boingboing.net] from the corporations because the lessions from past decades have not soaked in to the older generations and most of the younger generations don't even know what the WWW is let alone the Internet.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday September 20 2017, @09:17PM
There was a bit more to it. For example, one thing that has kept things somewhat open is carriers not wanting to be on the wrong side of liability by looking too closely at the data they carry. We need to be careful not to erode that fear of liability if we want to maintain a free internet.