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With days to go before his repeal of net neutrality rules, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai issued a press release about five small ISPs that he says were harmed by the rules. Pai "held a series of telephone calls with small Internet service providers across the country—from Oklahoma to Ohio, from Montana to Minnesota," his press release said.
[...] But Pai's announcement offered no data to support this assertion. So advocacy group Free Press looked at the FCC's broadband deployment data for these companies and found that four of them had expanded into new territory. The fifth didn't expand into new areas but it did start offering gigabit Internet service.
[...] According to the ISPs' ex parte filings, the only FCC staffers who participated in Pai's meetings with the ISPs were his spokespeople. The absence of staffers involved in research or policy, combined with the timing of the calls and Pai's press release, suggest that "these meetings occurred for the sake of managing public appearances rather than obtaining meaningful record evidence," Wood wrote.
Source: Ajit Pai offers no data for latest claim that net neutrality hurt small ISPs
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @08:22PM (31 children)
The actual choice in the law: pretend that the internet is a landline phone, or pretend that the internet is something like a hardwired stock ticker service
That is a stupid choice to be stuck with.
Without net neutrality, large ISPs extract money from large internet companies, Small players can't negotiate.
With net neutrality, there is a so-far-theoretical ability of the FCC to censor stuff. Also, conservatives can see that "net neutrality" does nothing to block private censorship, and in fact that has dramatically increased in the past year, so net neutrality is looking useless at best and maybe even harmful. From an end-user perspective, the current net is anything but neutral.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 14 2017, @08:40PM
Interesting, indeed. Soon, there won't be any small ISP's, nor will there be a whole lot of non-big-corporation offerings. Everything that looks profitable will be bought out by the big corps, and only big corps will be able to afford the fast lanes. And, we're all screwed. Well, all but the big corporations.
I've probably mentioned that we elected the court fool. The fool isn't representing Americans at all. He's infatuated with rich bastards.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:08PM (2 children)
Yeah when was Net Neutrality when Facebook labeled ACTUAL NEWS as FAKE NEWS last week? What good is it when you have assholes at Google/Facebook controlling shit behind the scenes with fucking shady algorithms to bury shit that made Clinton look bad during the election cycle?
Fuck your net neutrality bullshit. If I have to sign up for a plan to get Google traffic from my ISP, I won't, and now my ISP will become the best fucking ad-blocker in the world!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @10:40PM
> Yeah when was Net Neutrality when Facebook labeled ACTUAL NEWS as FAKE NEWS last week? What good is it when you have assholes at Google/Facebook controlling shit behind the scenes with fucking shady algorithms to bury shit that made Clinton look bad during the election cycle?
That... has literally nothing to do with net neutrality. Not everything that happens on the Internet is covered by NN. Actually, pretty much nothing on the Internet is covered by NN. NN is about pipes, not stuff that goes through them.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday December 14 2017, @10:46PM
Facebook isn't neutral. It's far from neutral. It's the headquarters for the Zuckerberg 2020 campaign. Which is why they banned Sabo. Do you know about Sabo? He's the very talented street artist from California who did the beautiful F🖕CK ZUCK 2020 posters. Which I love.
(Score: 3, Informative) by julian on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:11PM (11 children)
Define "conservatives" because I see plenty of conservatives on social media. If you mean Trump-supporting white nativists then good riddance. That's not a conservative ideology anyway, and if Twitter doesn't want white nationalists on its network that's their choice to make. The brave champions of the master race can start their own network.
And that's beside the fact that NN isn't even intended to address "private censorship". I wish supporters of NN would stop using the word censorship at all because it's not the right term and just confuses people.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:41PM (1 child)
hey.
there are people that claim to be conservative and are causing this. there are people that claim to be evangelical causing other problems.
neither live up to their names.
if you are a conservative and want to take responsibility back (I am not blaming you, I am saying you can fix it) then you know how the next election should go. do what you can.
i read real evangelicals are thinking of *changing their name* to something else, because the "brand" is tainted. i do not approve of their running away from the issue and being so non-confrontational that they will allow others to steal their movement just so they can get a few policies in place. but at least they realize that when the swamp drained, they got flooded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @12:52AM
Trekkies, etc.
Each group once popular has been productized, pandered to the lowest demographic and then genericized until its original niche was diluted past the point of having any meaning whatsoever.
The real reason there are so many names for so many groups is because of dilution happening as groups become popular and people who have no right to call themselves by that name claiming it for themselves and redefining it until it has no meaning.
This can be thought of as the intellectual equivalent of the Land Grab. Americans taking over from Native Americans and as a result devaluing what it meant to be 'Native American'. Now that means you were born here, as opposed to your ancestors for 20+ generations lived in these regions, for instance. Other examples can be found in Japan, China, regions of Africa, etc. Hell even the Jewish/Palestinian conflict.
The same thing happens to words as happens to territory, creative thought, and intellectual property, it gets redefined bit by bit until someone else can claim it as theirs. A death by a thousand cuts if you will. A thousand cuts of morons occasionally lead by one or two malicious and brilliant individuals, but more often by a writhing mass of idiots or morons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:42PM
"just confuses people"
That's not a bug its a feature.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:46PM (1 child)
And now if an ISP doesn't want Twitter on its network that's their choice to make. Turnabout is fair play, so why the pitiful screams? ;)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:58PM
Twitter isn't an ISP. There are a lot of beautiful symmetries in nature, but not here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:55PM (1 child)
How would you feel: "If you mean Trump-hating black nationalists then good riddance.", "If you mean Bernie-supporters with white guilt then good riddance."
Implying that Trump supporters are white nativists doesn't make it so. BTW, they (both "they") are typically Americans, and they have a right to free speech as much as you do.
I define "conservative" broadly. For example, you can get censored by pointing out anything negative about liberal sacred cows. Mention that Mohammed's wife was 6 years old when he molested her or 9 when he raped her, and you're probably in trouble. Link to infowars.com and you're in trouble. Complain about illegal aliens taking jobs and you're in trouble.
(details vary from platform to platform, and you have to get noticed by an AI or human of course)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Thursday December 14 2017, @10:49PM
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from being an anti-theocratic liberal in good standing with the wider community. I manage to do it with ease. I'll admit that WRT Islam it's particularly tricky because a great many of Islam's critics are genuine bigots. They're not trying to rid the world of conservative religious oppression--in fact many are trying to enforce their own brand of religious totalitarianism under the perversely-termed drive for "religious freedom". Yes, Mohamed was a bigoted child molester; and so is Roy Moore. If you think either of their ideologies are so perfect that you're justified forcing them on me then I don't want you government.
The white-guilt-sjw-crazy-gender-campus-activists tar that conservatives attempt to smear over the entire left is mostly a fiction of their own fevered imaginations. What happens in a few departments on a few campuses isn't affecting rural Missouri. The fact that they've been fooled into being afraid of the coastal snowflakes really belies their claim not to be absolute pussies in the culture war. I'm not afraid of gun-toting conservative rubes who roll around on the floor and shake snakes every Sunday. But they seem to be absolutely terrified that their children might have a gay friend, or shock-horror, turn out to be gay themselves. Home of the brave it ain't.
There's still nothing stopping you from saying any of these things, or many crazier ideas, as long as you don't cross over into outright incitement of violence or harm against individuals or groups of people. Why do so many conservatives have a hard time coloring within the lines? You can even espouse Nazism on Twitter as long as your genocidal tendencies remain abstract; but start advocating actually reimplementing the final solution and you'll be banned. The real world gave us a gruesome example this year: you can have a Nazi parade but you can't drive your car into the counter-protesters (who outnumbered the Nazis, btw).
And if you cite Alex Jones authoritatively on any subject other than the insane depravity of Alex Jones then I no longer have to take you seriously on any topic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:57PM (2 children)
The discussion isn't about whether they're allowed to do it, but whether they are right in doing it. I don't think they are right to do this. I prefer platforms that offer maximal levels of free speech, like SN. Twitter can absolutely be criticized for their policies even if they are allowed to have them, though I doubt they will listen.
It's better to avoid garbage media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to begin with, since they are toxic for countless other reasons.
(Score: 2) by julian on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:16PM (1 child)
It's all relative, isn't it? Ask the good people of 4chan and they'd say we're not much better here than Twitter. We have a voting system, you see. The shitposting miscreants on the chans, bless their cotton socks, consider this simple system to sort the intellectual wheat from the cretinous chaff to be a form of censorship. When you're an anarchist even a conservative government looks like oppression.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @12:31AM
We have a voting system that doesn't result in posts getting deleted. Posts do get deleted on sites like 4chan, even for reasons that have nothing to do with legality.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @03:37AM
What a shocking surprise that nobody could foresee! Everybody who disagrees with us Tolerant Liberals is Hitler!
(Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Thursday December 14 2017, @10:28PM (13 children)
That's just a small part of this. The real issue is liberty. Killing net neutrailty reduces *your* liberty (and mine). So don't piss on me and call it rain.
Umm.. no. Net Neutrality required ISPs to treat all packets equally, except when required for network management purposes. Where's the even theoretical ability of the FCC to censor anyone? In fact, it's exactly the reverse of what you claim and not just for the FCC.
Now that NN is dead, ISPs can arbitrarily block or throttle traffic, which gives them the legal right to censor. Don't believe me? Read the (former) rules for yourself.
That's an apples to three-bean chili comparison. In fact, the reclassification of ISPs into Title I gives them the same rights to censor that you're complaining about. Again, if you don't believe me, go ahead and read the law yourself [wikipedia.org]. If you do, you'll realize that whoever fed you the "info" you're spouting has lied to you.
So tell me, who is it that's been doing the censoring you've mentioned? Companies that were not affected by net neutrality. Guess what? Now *more* players can censor you. And you cheer it on. Sigh.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @10:36PM (12 children)
Under net neutrality: ISPs can't censor. Web sites can censor, and they do. The FCC can censor, but hasn't.
Without net neutrality: ISPs can censor, and they will. Web sites can censor, and they do. The FCC can't censor.
Either way, web sites can and will censor. One way the FCC can censor, and the other way the ISPs can censor.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @10:48PM
What is this hypothetical FCC Internet censorship you're talking about? Because it seems guaranteed that any such thing would be slapped down by the courts on obvious first amendment grounds.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday December 14 2017, @10:49PM (10 children)
Oh really? Please show me where the law [wikipedia.org] allows that? Or the >a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1_Rcd.pdf">2015 order from the FCC for that matter?
Go ahead. Cite the clause(s) in either document (which are the law and regulations governing this issue and the definitive sourse) where the FCC gives itself the right to "restrict freedom of speech," or censor *anyone*?
You won't, of course. Because you can't. Because it ain't there.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:10PM (7 children)
Here is the EFF, supporting a theoretical net neutrality while opposing the one we ended up with:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/05/net-neutrality-fcc-trojan-horse-redux [eff.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:34PM (4 children)
This from 2010, BTW. And apparently, you didn't even bother to read (or you didn't understand) the document. EFF endorsed Title II classification, which is what the 2015 order did:
You post a link (which isn't very recent, nor does it refute the argument you replied to) which was never relied upon to define regulation [fcc.gov] or the law [wikipedia.org].
Why are you attempting to derail the discussion with an irrelevant document (that contradicts your assertion), rather than relying the the *actual* regulations and law in question? It makes one question either your motives, your reading comprehension or both.
The latter would be sad and the former is cynical, intellectually dishonest and unethical.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @12:06AM (3 children)
Ideally, we would all know the law. We would read it and learn it in school. We'd get notified of updates.
The reality is that our law is significantly determined by court decisions. These court decisions are technically public, but that doesn't count for much.
Theoretically, you could visit every courthouse and request every legal decision. You could pay the copying fees, which are astronomical in such quantity, and then read through all those court decisions. There are businesses that do exactly this. They sell access to annotated laws. You have to sign up for an expensive service. Lawyers do this. Lawyers don't read the law itself; they read these annotated copies.
So I could read the law, but what use is that? All the people who matter (judges, plaintiffs, defendants, prosecutors...) are using annotated versions that can be quite different from the bare law. When the supreme court strikes something down, the bare law does not change. Instead, the annotation companies just add another annotation.
Likewise, you can read the law, but why should anybody care? Without the annotated version, your interpretation is a wild guess at what might have been intended.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday December 15 2017, @12:42AM (1 child)
You are almost certainly trolling, but I'll feed you just this once.
The 2015 FCC order has been published in US CFR [wikipedia.org].
The Federal Communications Act of 1934 (as amended numerous times) [wikipedia.org] is published in the US Code [wikipedia.org], 47 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.
The courts have repeatedly upheld the concept of Ignorantia juris non excusat except in very narrow edge cases where insufficient (or none) notice of such law is given.
This is not the case here. Not even close.
tl;dr: You're talking out of your ass and it smells that way too.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @02:34AM
See the other anon's response about Lexus Nexus... or are you going to provide free Lexus Nexus access and maybe even an expert to go over it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @01:08AM
Are such integral parts of a Lawyer's workflow.
You know why? Because the government isn't required to annotate the laws with court cases which affect the interpretation of the laws, or amend the laws to more clearly reflect the law as determined by said court cases.
Furthermore the cases themselves do not have to be made available by the government in a publicly searchable form, unlike, depending on the state, the legal code. The result of this is that even having read the law as written, you might run afoul of laws which no rational being would interpret in the court interpreted manner without having read the defining court cases for a particular law.
As an example, I was tried with a 23109(c) a number of years ago. Said law explained as 'anything not covered in (a) (b) or other sections'. What wasn't defined ANYWHERE in the law was what that entailed. Apparently police interpreted tires squealing is enough for them to ticket you for it, a misdemeanor. So anyone in the state of California driving a pickup in wet weather whose tires squeal, lose traction, etc can be ticketed for a misdeameanor if a cop is present and needs to fill their quota, or just doesn't like you.
The irony of all this is that America was in part founded to get away from the baroque legal system that Britain had, which gave inordinate powers to the crowns equivalent of the judges, prosecutors and police, and yet 250 years later here we are with the same sort of opaque laws, arbitrary enforcement, and tipped scales being used against people, especially the poor, middle class, and weak again.
Perhaps it is time for lady liberty to throw down her scales and take up her sword once again...
(Score: 0, Redundant) by NotSanguine on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:34PM (1 child)
This from 2010, BTW. And apparently, you didn't even bother to read (or you didn't understand) the document. EFF endorsed Title II classification, which is what the 2015 order did:
You post a link (which isn't very recent, nor does it refute the argument you replied to) which was never relied upon to define regulation [fcc.gov] or the law [wikipedia.org].
Why are you attempting to derail the discussion with an irrelevant document (that contradicts your assertion), rather than relying the the *actual* regulations and law in question? It makes one question either your motives, your reading comprehension or both.
The latter would be sad and the former is cynical, intellectually dishonest and unethical.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by NotSanguine on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:38PM
Not sure how this posted twice.
Would someone please mod the second instance 'redundant'.
Thanks.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @03:45AM (1 child)
Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1996
Under that, an ISP needs a broadcasting license. This can be denied at any time, providing leverage over ISPs.
Here is a walk-through of the scenario. Search down the page for "imagine what happens" if you want to skip to the meat of it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/7hcolp/disturbing_redpill_the_day_obama_nationalized_the/ [reddit.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @04:47AM
ISPs do not require broadcast licenses. They're not broadcasters.
And why you're posting links to crap Alex Jones wouldn't even touch is an quite telling.
Let it all out...JADE HELM! FEMA CONCENTRATION CAMPS! AGENDA 21! SHARIA IS COMING TO USA!
If you're not a moron who's off his meds, I recommend you start taking them again.
Otherwise, fuck off, troll.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday December 15 2017, @04:49PM
The funny thing is, this will likely get *worse* without NN, rather than better.
The problem is the conservatives are getting exactly what they want -- rule by the almighty dollar. The free market has spoken, and people apparently *want* mass censorship by private corporations. They voted with their wallets, right? They vote for YouTube and Facebook and all that shit every single goddamn time they log on.
With NN, they can change their minds and go elsewhere any time they want. Without it, that can become very expensive or entirely impossible to do.
This would be hysterical if it wasn't so frightening...
That's because the end-user doesn't understand the difference between the transport network and the endpoints...
Only as long as we allow the slow and unlawful repeal of the First Amendment to continue. By law, the FCC cannot censor. The same cannot be said of network service or content providers.