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The fact that big tech companies like Facebook support net neutrality actually makes me consider not supporting it. I just don't trust Facebook's motives - What

The fact that big tech companies like Facebook support net neutrality actually makes me consider not supporting it. I just don't trust Facebook's motives - What I do trust is their ability and willingness to screw over society in order to maximise profits.

alpha_squared 9y ago
I understand this sentiment, but I also think it can be a little short-sighted. There can be cases where your best interests and those of a corporation can line up. This is one of those cases. It doesn't mean that you're now an evangelist of the company, just that you agree in this particular scenario. Having a stance on something purely because someone you like/dislike has a stance on it is extremely dangerous.
funkyy 9y ago
They support it for publicity. Imagine if they wouldn't. They assume net neutrality will not pass, but they will make good face to a bad game.
habitue 9y ago
What you're doing is confusing a second-order signal when you have first-order knowledge. We should expect someone who doesn't understand net-neutrality at all to use second-order signals like "Big company X supports net neutrality, therefore I should do Y". If you actually understand net-neutrality, you can assign much lower weight of evidence to whether or not a company supports it, since you can decide from first principles whether you support the idea yourself. This is what a lot of partisan media commentary gets wrong, since they tend to focus on "So-and-so is a liberal/conservative, therefore everything they say is tainted. We can't trust anything they say!" When in reality, there are facts to be had, and you can investigate them, and ignore who is saying what. The taint argument is only a good heuristic when you're completely uneducated about a topic.
acid__ 9y ago
Isn't Facebook's Internet.org project a direct affront on net neutrality?
- fjdlwlv 9y ago
  No, Internet.org Free Basics is Facebook paying people's data costs for traffic to Facebook services, akin to Amazon giving out Amazon gift cards. It isn't preventing anyone from buying other traffic at standard destination-neutral rates, or privatizing a publicly-financed utility.
  - qb45 9y ago
    > Facebook paying people's data costs for traffic to Facebook services I think it could be argued that sponsoring 3rd party services required to access Facebook under the condition they won't be used to access competing sites is a novel form of dumping. Clearly the goal is to get poor people hooked on FB before they can afford to buy actual Internet access and decide for themselves. And suggesting that this monopolistic propaganda initiative can be called "Internet Basics" is a direct affront to the Internet itself. If Facebook actually wanted to be neutral they would sponsor unrestricted access with small data cap. Still good enough for browsing Facebook and Wikipedia but without the vendor lock-in.
at-fates-hands 9y ago
This is in fact the crux of the argument that the FCC put forth. They said that it isn't fair that some companies are restricted from using your private information, but huge companies like Google, Facebook and others have free access and free reign to with it what they want. Instead of making your data private from all the companies, they instead did THE EXACT OPPOSITE and made all the private information readily available to everyone and every company who wants it.
fjdlwlv 9y ago
Big telecom companies like Verizon, who make their money by hijacking public infrastructure and then renting access to it, oppose net neutrality.

alpha_squared 9y ago

I understand this sentiment, but I also think it can be a little short-sighted. There can be cases where your best interests and those of a corporation can line up. This is one of those cases. It doesn't mean that you're now an evangelist of the company, just that you agree in this particular scenario. Having a stance on something purely because someone you like/dislike has a stance on it is extremely dangerous.

funkyy 9y ago

They support it for publicity. Imagine if they wouldn't. They assume net neutrality will not pass, but they will make good face to a bad game.

habitue 9y ago

What you're doing is confusing a second-order signal when you have first-order knowledge. We should expect someone who doesn't understand net-neutrality at all to use second-order signals like "Big company X supports net neutrality, therefore I should do Y". If you actually understand net-neutrality, you can assign much lower weight of evidence to whether or not a company supports it, since you can decide from first principles whether you support the idea yourself. This is what a lot of partisan media commentary gets wrong, since they tend to focus on "So-and-so is a liberal/conservative, therefore everything they say is tainted. We can't trust anything they say!" When in reality, there are facts to be had, and you can investigate them, and ignore who is saying what. The taint argument is only a good heuristic when you're completely uneducated about a topic.

acid__ 9y ago

Isn't Facebook's Internet.org project a direct affront on net neutrality?

fjdlwlv 9y ago
No, Internet.org Free Basics is Facebook paying people's data costs for traffic to Facebook services, akin to Amazon giving out Amazon gift cards. It isn't preventing anyone from buying other traffic at standard destination-neutral rates, or privatizing a publicly-financed utility.
- qb45 9y ago
  > Facebook paying people's data costs for traffic to Facebook services I think it could be argued that sponsoring 3rd party services required to access Facebook under the condition they won't be used to access competing sites is a novel form of dumping. Clearly the goal is to get poor people hooked on FB before they can afford to buy actual Internet access and decide for themselves. And suggesting that this monopolistic propaganda initiative can be called "Internet Basics" is a direct affront to the Internet itself. If Facebook actually wanted to be neutral they would sponsor unrestricted access with small data cap. Still good enough for browsing Facebook and Wikipedia but without the vendor lock-in.

at-fates-hands 9y ago

This is in fact the crux of the argument that the FCC put forth. They said that it isn't fair that some companies are restricted from using your private information, but huge companies like Google, Facebook and others have free access and free reign to with it what they want. Instead of making your data private from all the companies, they instead did THE EXACT OPPOSITE and made all the private information readily available to everyone and every company who wants it.

fjdlwlv 9y ago

Big telecom companies like Verizon, who make their money by hijacking public infrastructure and then renting access to it, oppose net neutrality.