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As a foreigner who deeply cares about the web, what can I do to help? For good or for bad, USA decisions on the Internet spread widely around the world. "Benign

As a foreigner who deeply cares about the web, what can I do to help? For good or for bad, USA decisions on the Internet spread widely around the world. "Benign" example: the mess before UTF8, malign example: DRM and copyright fight. Note: Besides spreading the word; I do not know so many Americans

dsr_ 9y ago
Act locally. Do you live in Spain? Talk to your legislators about passing strong net neutrality laws like the Netherlands. You have weak net neutrality from the EU, but you can do better.
- franciscop 9y ago
  Sorry I chuckled a bit when thinking about Spanish government listening at all and then acting on some pro-people policy. The Spanish government have relatives in the bigger corporations, it's called "puertas giratoria" (revolving doors), just look at the lists: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerta_giratoria_(pol%C3%ADtica) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerta_giratoria_(pol%C3%ADtic... . Current government has strong ties with the biggest ISP in Spain (Telefónica/Movistar). Luckily we have something different going on; it's legal to share 3rd party content among people, so Copyright for individuals basically doesn't apply and torrenting is pretty much legal (though you might be taken to court anyway). But Net Neutrality as it depends on the ISP just does not make sense, it's not a matter of whether it's possible or not. Also, people have much more urgent things to fight for; if someone wants to do something about the Internet in Spain the fight is right now around copyright (we're trying not to lose this due to US influence).
  - dsr_ 9y ago
    Then by all means, fight for what is most urgent in your country.
r3bl 9y ago
I fully agree with dsr_'s comment: act locally. The principle of net neutrality needs to be fought in every single country. I organized a smaller in scale "Internet protest" in my region (Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia), convincing website owners to shut down for a day (today) to spread the message of what net neutrality is and how it's not being enforced within the region. Nothing even close to being big as Battle for the Net, but for one person with no budget, a steady job, and almost no time to work on it, convincing 20 websites to shut down and spend a day to talk about net neutrality as the only topic is definitely what I consider "mission accomplished".
zepolen 9y ago
Honestly? None of the solutions presented so far (ie. try to persuade higher ups) will work. The only solution that will work is to make the telcos unnecessary. Home based Mesh networks, hacking internet over other channels - like you can tunnel ssh over https - direct competition to current market leaders. One thing is for sure, net neutrality will be abolished, but the other thing thats for sure is that hackers will find a way to make everything right again. Make no mistake, this is a battle, but it's a battle that we've won many times before.
franciscop 9y ago
Ah just in case I just redirected my most visited website to https://www.battleforthenet.com/ https://www.battleforthenet.com/ , not too much but still might make someone from the USA to act upon it.

dsr_ 9y ago

Act locally. Do you live in Spain? Talk to your legislators about passing strong net neutrality laws like the Netherlands. You have weak net neutrality from the EU, but you can do better.

franciscop 9y ago
Sorry I chuckled a bit when thinking about Spanish government listening at all and then acting on some pro-people policy. The Spanish government have relatives in the bigger corporations, it's called "puertas giratoria" (revolving doors), just look at the lists: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerta_giratoria_(pol%C3%ADtica) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerta_giratoria_(pol%C3%ADtic... . Current government has strong ties with the biggest ISP in Spain (Telefónica/Movistar). Luckily we have something different going on; it's legal to share 3rd party content among people, so Copyright for individuals basically doesn't apply and torrenting is pretty much legal (though you might be taken to court anyway). But Net Neutrality as it depends on the ISP just does not make sense, it's not a matter of whether it's possible or not. Also, people have much more urgent things to fight for; if someone wants to do something about the Internet in Spain the fight is right now around copyright (we're trying not to lose this due to US influence).
- dsr_ 9y ago
  Then by all means, fight for what is most urgent in your country.

r3bl 9y ago

I fully agree with dsr_'s comment: act locally. The principle of net neutrality needs to be fought in every single country. I organized a smaller in scale "Internet protest" in my region (Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia), convincing website owners to shut down for a day (today) to spread the message of what net neutrality is and how it's not being enforced within the region. Nothing even close to being big as Battle for the Net, but for one person with no budget, a steady job, and almost no time to work on it, convincing 20 websites to shut down and spend a day to talk about net neutrality as the only topic is definitely what I consider "mission accomplished".

zepolen 9y ago

Honestly? None of the solutions presented so far (ie. try to persuade higher ups) will work. The only solution that will work is to make the telcos unnecessary. Home based Mesh networks, hacking internet over other channels - like you can tunnel ssh over https - direct competition to current market leaders. One thing is for sure, net neutrality will be abolished, but the other thing thats for sure is that hackers will find a way to make everything right again. Make no mistake, this is a battle, but it's a battle that we've won many times before.

franciscop 9y ago

Ah just in case I just redirected my most visited website to https://www.battleforthenet.com/ https://www.battleforthenet.com/ , not too much but still might make someone from the USA to act upon it.