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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday March 29 2016, @07:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the dealing-with-hypocrites dept.

From CNET:

Angry Netflix customers are a force to be reckoned with, and they're the ones owed an explanation about why the company would slow the transmission of video streams to some wireless customers without informing them.

Netflix found itself in the hot seat after admitting, in a Wall Street Journal story Thursday, that for five years it had been tamping down service to Verizon and AT&T customers. What's more, the Los Gatos, California, company said the policy excluded customers of T-Mobile and Sprint.

Critics immediately cried foul on Netflix, seeing hypocrisy on the part of a company that two years ago led a fight to require the Federal Communications Commission to adopt "strong" Net neutrality rules that would ban Internet service providers from slowing traffic under almost any circumstances. Netflix also wanted the FCC to require operators to be more transparent in how they manage their networks.

But the most galling aspect may be that Netflix never notified its customers that it was imposing a slowdown.

"There is nothing wrong with what Netflix is doing," said Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, a group that has opposed the FCC's Net neutrality regulations. "Except for not making it public."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 29 2016, @09:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 29 2016, @09:46PM (#324533)
    The government isn't preventing you from hearing swear words or seeing nipples, they're preventing it from being broadcast on the airwaves in a way that you haven't opted into.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 29 2016, @11:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 29 2016, @11:05PM (#324558)

    The government isn't preventing you from hearing swear words or seeing nipples

    No censorship is 100% effective, so using this logic, censorship simply doesn't exist. Even if the government were to only censor a single messenger or source, it would still be censorship and therefore intolerable and unconstitutional.

    And who are they to decide which words or things are bad? It is subjective. Tyranny of the majority doesn't make it any better, either.

    they're preventing it from being broadcast on the airwaves in a way that you haven't opted into.

    I also didn't opt into hearing the word "the". Better censor that, too. Better censor anything anyone could conceivably object to, following this line of reasoning.

    You heard something that offended you? Too bad. Deal with it. You don't get to have the government silence others simply because you don't like what they say or were offended by it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 30 2016, @01:15AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 30 2016, @01:15AM (#324617)
      > No censorship is 100% effective, so using this logic, censorship simply doesn't exist.

      This censorship isn't even 1% effective. The reason for that isn't even government incompetence. They're not going after the messenger or the source, rather just that particular avenue. You can't take a skateboard on the highway, either, that's not the government censoring skateboards.

      > Better censor anything anyone could conceivably object to, following this line of reasoning.

      It's easy to picture you picketing at McDonalds over their no-pants policy.