SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the it-takes-300-pages-to-redefine-neutrality dept.
The bloom may have already fallen off the Net Neutrality rose. As reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal (paywalled):
When Google's Eric Schmidt called White House officials a few weeks ago to oppose President Obama's demand that the Internet be regulated as a utility, they told him to buzz off. The chairman of the company that led lobbying for "net neutrality" learned the Obama plan made in its name instead micromanages the Internet.
Mr. Schmidt is not the only liberal mugged by the reality of Obamanet, approved on party lines last week by the Federal Communications Commission. The 300-plus pages of regulations remain secret, but as details leak out, liberals have joined the opposition to ending the Internet as we know it.
It seems as though, in their zeal to "stick it" to the ISPs, most proponents didn't consider that when you allow 3 unelected people to issue rulings on something as large and ubiquitous as the Internet, bad things can happen:
Until Congress or the courts block Obamanet, expect less innovation. During a TechFreedom conference last week, dissenting FCC commissioner Ajit Pai asked: "If you were an entrepreneur trying to make a splash in a marketplace that's already competitive, how are you going to differentiate yourself if you have to build into your equation whether or not regulatory permission is going to be forthcoming from the FCC? According to this, permissionless innovation is a thing of the past."
The other dissenting Republican commissioner, Michael O'Rielly, warned: "When you see this document, it's worse than you imagine." The FCC has no estimate on when it will make the rules public.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by spamdog on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:44AM
Hi,
I feel SN has recently had a lurch to the right - there's some pretty fringe articles being approved.
What happened? This didn't used to be the case.
(Score: 4, Informative) by isostatic on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:48AM
It always has been to the right. But the problem is there's very little in the way of editing going on, submit your favourite fox news piece of crap, or some rabid foaming "guy gets shot" piece, or some Katzesque introspective, and it will get posted. From a buried Amiga from 1992 (in between the downloading of modern movies)
The editors don't employ good journalistic practices, which is a shame.
(Score: 5, Informative) by n1 on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:00PM
We work with the submissions we get. I'm not saying I was a fan or this story, or the second source especially but I try to remove my personal bias from my editing. Which I think shows quite well here, with the accusation being right wing. I'm european, and fairly liberal by even european standards. So i'm pretty sure i'm not part of the right-wing propaganda machine.
In my opinion it was worth airing the viewpoint. My hope was it would get dismissed easily, but thats hard to do when the 300-pages of relevent rules are not available to the public. In many ways, this story has as much substance as the people claiming it doesn't, because from where i'm sitting no one really knows the end game for this bit of regulation.
We might know what we want the legislation to contain or achieve, but that doesn't mean the 300-pages wont weasel word their way around that. I mean what could go wrong with The Patriot Act? The name says it all, you can't vote against that.
Good journalistic practices are an art, and I personally do try, but I am not in a position to do investigative journalism. When the vast majority of sources are bought and paid for because they are commercial interests, or just reprinting press releases from vested interests because of budget cuts (like the BBC does now). It's a losing battle, but it really is one i'm trying to fight and get right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:53PM
>right-wing propaganda machine
Do seriously believe that exists? Or do you call overtly left-wing biased media, such as The New York Times or MSNBC, a "propaganda machine"?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by n1 on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:15PM
They're the same machine really, serving the same agenda from slightly different perspectives, divide and conquer. Not all participants necessarily are aware of being part of it either, it helps when our political indoctrination begins when we are still in the cradle.
If we had run an opposite story from an MSNBC source or the NYT about the joys of this new regulation (still with it not being public), there would be some complaints 'of course they would say that, being the liberal media who is in bed with the Obama administration'. We're screwed either way, smart money donates to both parties and lobbies/influences accordingly.
This to me seems much like the U.S healthcare reform (or indeed any political campaign), you vote for or support it on what you hope it contains, or what you think it should contain, or what you've been lead to believe it contains. The reality is not that at all, but it still might be better than what we have now, for some people. There is going to be lots of room to manuver in this legislation, if we still need to interpret the Constituion which is a reasonably consice document. How much will be open to interpretation in this several hundred page piece of industry regulation?
On a side note when doing some googling on this story. I ended up on the RushLimbaugh website which had a similar story to TFA. Rush was complaining that Google being a bunch of liberals would never let his site appear high up the search rankings because of their agenda. The only reason I got onto his site was because it was the second result served up by google news on a search for "neutrality".
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:47PM
I agree with the need to post this article. I'm not much for the slant, but we Americans now have an additional 300-pages of secret laws that the government can hold against us. What do they regulate and what rights do they take from the people? Who knows, they're secret. This is the bull shit that should get both sides pissed at Legislative and Executive branches, and then get pissed at the Judicial branch for not allowing the people to have the precedent to challenge such legal atrocities.
I guess the second half of the story is this issue is getting spun as a partisan issue when really it should be a bi-partition outrage to learn that title II reclassification came with nasty strings attached. Now while the Republicans and Democrats bicker outside the china shop about the merits of title II reclassification, I mean the merits of Italian porcelain verses Chinese china--to keep the allegory, the bulls still have full reign in the china shop.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:55PM
What secret laws? You mean the Communications Act of 1934? [fcc.gov]
(Score: 2) by fnj on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:22PM
Please do not spread BULLSHIT. Most of the 300+ pages everyone is talking about - over 98% if it - is supporting reasoning. No one has pointed to 300+ pages of actual regulation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:51PM
Seriously? Just look at Fox News and everything else owned by Rupert Murdock, and everything the Koch brothers touch.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @08:24PM
Does PR and bias exist? Yes, it's a profession. There are people who literally spend every waking moment thinking how to spin everything, spend money astroturfing, and create false or new controversy where none existed.
That is not an exclusive right wing trait in America, but they sure have a heck of a lot more of it. All of the AM spectrum major talk shows are right wing. Almost all the FM and satellite talk channels are right wing, two liberal stations tried and have by and large, been largely unsuccessful. Of the major television networks that claim to be news, Fox is the undisputed leader, by a long shot, which is then trailed by CNN, then CNBC which each have roughly a third of the viewership of Fox. This is easily verifiable.
Let's please stop talking about some supposed liberal media bias now please. In America there is a huge conservative bias. There is an overwhelming amount of conservative wall of noise on television, radio, and at the pulpit. Denying this just shows your bias, and discounts your own opinions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:17PM
I'm perfectly OK with reading stories that have a left or right wing slant as long as there are facts and decent arguments, not just insinuations that something bad might happen and that George Soros or the Koch brothers are involved.
Then the commenters can try to pick apart TFA. But in this case there's really nothing to take apart.
(Score: 1) by Pr. L Muishkin on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:44PM
I couldn't agree more. I source news from a number of different sites/ststions/channels/newspapers, this means I read, listen to, and watch a lot of copy that doesn't do my blood pressure much good but it's the only way I've found to get as much information, that's available, as possible. I won't claim to have access to all the information on any given subject but I quite often find something of interest in one article/report, not found in a similar article/report on the same subject from a source on the opposite end of the political playing field.
Disclaimer: I am an idiot, while this method of news gathering works for me, your results may vary. Please store in a cool dark place and away from sources of ignition.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:18PM
While I appreciate your response, you don't need to explain yourself, n1.
Regardless of the slant of the summary and TFA(s), this is an important topic and assuming good discussion is the goal, I think Spamdog and Isostatic might want to consider making reasoned arguments for their points of view rather than complaining about the political bent of particular stories.
Even better, they could submit their own stories.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I have no desire to live in an echo chamber. I'd rather hear a wide range of positions and opinions and discuss the relative merits of same. This gives one an opportunity to both hone the arguments one has for their point of view and to examine those points of view in light of contrasting views.
In an environment where healthy discussion is encouraged, the truth will generally out, IMHO.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Informative) by everdred on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:47PM
The only criticism I would provide on the summary is the line "As reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal," specifically with the word "reported." It's important to point out that this was a WSJ's opinion piece, not news reporting... something just about everyone who commented seems to have missed.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:49PM
Firstly thanks for not opening with a questioning of my sanity for offering a potentially contrary viewpoint.
You're absolutely right about the press release and the news cycle. It's more insipid than just landing a story on an overworked journalist's desk though, PR firms leak their viewpoints through the news in various ways, the wires, direct to news organisations, and more subtle ways. Often these are all perfectly true, they just emphasise certain points and de-emphasise others, and over time it changes perceptions in favour of the PR firms. That's why they get paid.
As the people who get the news in place are the ones with the money to hire the PR firms, I tend to give more weight to left-leaning sources like the guardian and independent to attempt to counteract it.
What I'd like to see in these stories would instead be submission from both sides. On certain stories that's just dumb (for instance Mr X says the earth is round, Mr Y says it's flat, both equal viewpoints. It's the kind of argument that creationists use - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance) [wikipedia.org]
However I think on this story there's plenty of discussion on both sides, so present it in the summary. And don't use such an inflammatory headline.
Words like "Obamanet" are not the words I'd expect to see in a fair and balanced summary either.
Put some stuff from EFF in as well as the usual fox news claptrap and you might have a Worf/Martok situation - But what could be better? An ally and an enemy both telling him the same thing; he'll have no other choice but to agree!"
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday March 04 2015, @03:15AM
I thought it was interesting if only because I have mixed feelings about the whole thing myself. :/
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:27PM
You, me friend, are insane. I'm neither right nor left (on account of I think both wings are both wrong and insane) and it's always, always appeared leftist to me. Which is why I go out of my way to sub things that challenge the echo chamber, groupthink mentality. Sitting in a little bubble of comfort, only hearing what you already believe is a good way to never learn anything and fail to grow as a human being.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:58PM
Thats because you're so far off to the right that everything looks leftist to you. Its extremely obvious from your posting history, at least have enough integrity to admit it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 03 2015, @08:14PM
To the right? To quote my favorite politician: I think gay married couples should be able to protect their pot farms with their guns.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:50PM
Sitting in a little bubble of comfort, only hearing what you already believe is a good way to never learn anything and fail to grow as a human being.
There there is one of us who is constantly exposed to contrary facts and is so much of an ideologue that it has the opposite affect and only reinforces his delusions. [boston.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @02:31AM
This reminds me of a discussion I had with my Dad when I was a kid. I asked, "Daddy, are we conservative or liberal?" He just said, "I'm neither one. I'm strictly middle of the road. It's everybody else who is either right or left of me!" I appreciate that insight more and more as I get older.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 06 2015, @06:29AM
Boo fucking hoo, I don't like to read things I don't agree with.
Agree with this: VAGINAL JESUS: Happy Hanukaust! [youtube.com]
And this: A Brief history of American Influence [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fishybell on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:49AM
I for one am okay with getting a "fair and balanced" viewpoint from time to time. After all, I don't come here for the news so much as the discussion about the news. Since the signal to noise ratio is so good here, I gladly welcome all sides of every story.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:32PM
I for one am okay with getting a "fair and balanced" viewpoint from time to time.
This one is pretty straigt-up flamebait, though.
We just had this discussion (on the factual stories) + not newsworthy (nothing has changes in 2 days) + Obamanaet (really??) = Flamebait.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:55AM
Well, feel free do something instead of whinging, mate, let your creative juices running... (ew, did I say this?).
As capable as I am to "push feminist claptrap and libtard bullshit" [soylentnews.org] on my own, any helping hand will be appreciated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:43AM
"I am not a racist because I am an article on Soylent News! "
OK, I really have to stop. But I am reminded of the Grandpa in the Lost Boys movie with Kieffer Sutherland: "One thing I could never stand about Santa Clara, all the damn vampires!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @10:06AM
The Might Buzzard has spread its wings.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by schad on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:50PM
I've noticed it too. Perhaps it's a desire to balance out all the gewg_ stuff?
With that said, there is merit to challenging the groupthink. I would say that a huge majority of us here are in favor of net neutrality in general, and a solid majority of Title II classification in particular. It's a good thing that we see well-reasoned opposition to our points of view, even if it doesn't change a single mind.
But with that said, the WSJ's editorial page is, when it comes to pretty much all things technology, batshit fucking crazy. Crovitz is particularly infuriating, because the man actually knows what he's talking about. He's not one of those oped writers who clearly doesn't know anything about computers. He actually knows this shit, and yet he contorts reality until "the free market" is the solution for whatever problem it is that he's facing. He rails against government interference even when no one is suggesting it. He wants to privatize things that are already private. I'd speculate that he's on somebody's payroll, but he's always been like this; I think he's just a true believer, too blinded by his ideology to admit that it might be leading him astray. I can usually make it through anything on the oped page of the WSJ, but Crovitz is just so powerfully and completely wrong, all the time, that he's the one guy I simply cannot ever read.
So while I appreciate the desire to hear a stirring defense of "the other side" -- if that is, in fact, what we're doing here -- the WSJ isn't offering it. Not sure if they even can any more. As far as I can tell (long-time subscriber), Murdoch has, in fact, left the news parts alone, but he's definitely completely ruined the editorial stuff.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by beardedchimp on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:57PM
I'm a socialist Northern Irish man and I am actually amazed at how far the slashdot/soylentnews readership has moved towards the left over the years.
Slashdot used to be so rightwing compared to anything from Britain that I used to read it in a sort of incredulity. Everything government was bad, global warming is a myth, free market solves all problems etc. But since the banks shafted everyone up the arse there has been a real change in direction.
The reaction to this FCC regulation simply amazed me compared to times of old and if anything it's the wingnuts who now get downvoted. I hope this phase of posting fringe 'Obamanet' articles ends and I think it will based upon the communities reaction.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mth on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:58PM
The problem with this submission is not that it's against regulation, but that it contains nothing but spin: "Obamanet", "secret", "3 unelected people", "worse than you imagine". If there would be a story of net neutrality blocking innovation that benefits the public (not just innovative ways of increasing cable industry profits), I'd like to read about it: while I am in favor of net neutrality, that doesn't include being deliberately deaf to potential negative effects.
In general, I think the whole left vs right take on politics is unhealthy. It tries to make people into loyal followers of a political brand, instead of actually thinking about what policies would benefit them and society as a whole.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:46PM
The way I read the crazy summary was "some Republicans are terrified of this", to which I immediately thought, "good, then that must mean it's actually a good idea."
Yeah, I know, mod me down as flamebait. But the difference between me regarding anything the Dems do with extreme suspicion and anything the Reps do as probably lies in the service of big business, the frothing and screaming and finger-pointing is a major contributing factor.
As with a fair number of things in the last few years, the viewpoint can be succinctly summarized as "we lost and we're pissed about it."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:21PM
Yeah, $deity_of_choice forbid you should have your little echo chamber bubble burst by ideas and opinions that don't conform to what you already think. The tragedy! And, for the record, I'm a libertarian and every last blessed staff member is firmly to the left of me. If you think they're right-wing you're way, way, way the hell out on the leftist loony fringe.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:08PM
Buzzard, we may disagree on all sorts of other things, but well frickin' said that man!