9 ms·

how is not having net neutrality different from google and co censoring the internet on whim. Seems like the same set of people cheering google for censorship

how is not having net neutrality different from google and co censoring the internet on whim. Seems like the same set of people cheering google for censorship are afraid of censorship form ISPs.

lallysingh 9y ago
Yes they're slightly close. But those sites can much more easily put up their own webserver than run their own network to each customer.
Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago
Net neutrality is vastly different; it's about filtering content in general and can be a good thing and a bad thing depending on a situation. E.g. when Russian government forces ISPs to block certain sites, it's obviously censorship, although it's achieved by filtering. But when a provider limits certain protocols (e.g. BitTorrent) over a narrow-band line, there may be sound technical reasons for this and the overall result may very well be to the advantage of the customers. Such filtering is commonplace in enterprises. The recent case of GoDaddy, Google, and Cloudflare is much closer to political censorship; there's no technical reason behind it.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  It's only censorship if you believe other entities are not also allowed freedom of speech and association.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    I'm not sure I follow what you are saying here. Censorship is only when your view and others are not allowed freedom of speech? I feel like I'm not parsing your sentence correctly.
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      I'm saying it's only censorship if you don't believe that other groups also have freedom of speech and association too. In order for the domain name thing or the CloudFlare thing to be censorship, you have to believe that none of those entities are able to practice freedom of association, or the right to choose who they do business with.
      - Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago
        I disagree. I think doing business should be based on business reasons; if Daily Stormer upholds their end of the contract, then Google/GoDaddy/etc. have no ethical business reason to terminate it. If they disagree with what Daily Stormer says, they are totally free to publish their own statement. The only ethical consequence of free speech could be another speech.
        s73ver_ 9y ago
        And I believe that choosing not to do business is a form of speech. Also, doing business with Nazis (and I'm not throwing that term around lightly; the Daily Stormer identifies themselves as such) is, especially given recent events, considered bad for business. So I would say they have a business reason there too.
        Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago
        There indeed is such a reason, but it's unethical. It is basically being afraid that the mob will turn against you and thus hurt your business. Somehow nobody blames the mob. Doing business is a way of living in the modern society. Stopping doing business (including firing an employee over non-business reasons, a very popular measure in liberal circles) threatens your well-being and even life. If everyone stops doing business with a person, the person is very likely to die. This is very close to lynching and is a total opposite of justice.
        s73ver_ 9y ago
  - dominotw 9y ago
    "examine (a book, movie, etc.) officially and suppress unacceptable parts of it." that the definition I am using. What does it have to do with freedom of speech?
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      Well, did GoDaddy and CloudFlare suppress the Daily Stormer? Or did they choose not to do business with them? I don't believe that they engaged in censorship, because they didn't prevent the Daily Stormer from being accessible. I believe that choosing not to do business with them was a form of speech, and that acting in the way they did was them expressing free speech. Thus, to me, in order to believe that what they did was censorship, that means that they should not be able to take that course of action, and that those companies were obligated to assist the Daily Stormer in getting its message out there.
      - dominotw 9y ago
        >Well, did GoDaddy and CloudFlare suppress the Daily Stormer? Yes they surpassed it on their platform. Censorship doesn't mean "make inaccessible to everyone on any platform". If you censor something on your own platform its still called censorship. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Indian govt censors kissing on movie screens but you can still go watch it on youtube. That doesn't mean what they are doing is not censorship, the govt entity that's responsible for it is actually called "censor board".
        s73ver_ 9y ago
        GoDaddy and CloudFlare are not government. The Indian Government is. That's a large difference. And I still don't believe what they did was censorship. That was them exercising their right to free speech. I do not believe that it is possible for an expression of free speech to be censorship.
        dominotw 9y ago
        >GoDaddy and CloudFlare are not government. The Indian Government is. That's a large difference. I was just using that as an example. So according to you only govt can do censorship? Thats a definition you made up, not the definition in dictionary. I quoted the dictionary definition from the dictionary and it perfectly matches what google did. Can you tell me how am wrong precisely?
db48x 9y ago
If your message doesn't show up on one webpage, you can always publish it on another, or on a webpage of your own. If your ISP decides what webpages you are allowed to visit, that's basically it. If they don't want to let you contact any competing domain registrars, you won't be able to. I suppose technically that'll never happen; you could fall back to a dial-up ISP. After all, the phone company is not allowed to decide that you can't call their competitors. One tiny part of the Title 2 regulations that cover telecommunications forces them to allow all telephone subscribers to call all other telephone subscribers. It's telephone neutrality. Look up the whole MCI thing from a few decades ago.
- dominotw 9y ago
  > If your message doesn't show up on one webpage, you can always publish it on another, or on a webpage of your own. Can I just say this then, If you can't access your website on ISP choose another ISP. Whats different about this argument? Also, thank you for answering instead of downvoting.
  - steveadoo 9y ago
    For many Americans(including me) there is only one ISP to "choose".
    - dominotw 9y ago
      Doesn't America have anti monopoly laws? Curious why those don't apply to ISPs . Isn't this an admission that 'net neutrality ' is a bandaid to the problem of ISP monopoly. Also, Philosophically you won't really care about net neutrality if you have ISP choice. correct?
      - ajmurmann 9y ago
        If nobody wants to dig and lay cable to offer services to a small town what are you gonna do? The US had very low population density so the cost of teaching small communities can be huge.
zebrafish 9y ago
In regards to censorship, I agree with you. It seems that if your primary opposition to net neutrality is censorship, then you should be equally opposed to Google censoring anything. But in terms of technical effort and economics, these are not the same. It's much easier to write html and find someone to host it for you than it is to trench in municipalities and lay fiber across the country. Net neutrality restricts ISPs from having a competitive advantage in the content space.
ajmurmann 9y ago
To me it's less about censorship than companies offering services over there internet having to pay tolls to ISPs. This will only make it easier for incumbent companies to defend the market against competitors will can't afford the tolls and thus can't reach their customers.
dboreham 9y ago
Net Neutrality isn't about censorship. It's about the distribution of power and hence profit in the emerging new order for communications, media and entertainment distribution. ISPs want to maintain their current cable tv business model where they get to charge the customer for their connection, and also charge the content provider for carrying their content to said user. That business model is contrary to the historical Internet Service model where the customer pays a fee that's supposed to cover the cost of all the traffic they transit regardless of where it originated.
jessaustin 9y ago
The difference is one of degree (...perhaps "layer" is a better word?), not of kind. There probably is a principled way to draw a line between the two situations, but I haven't seen it. Many people are distracted by the greater empathy they feel for Google than for Comcast.
benlorenzetti 9y ago
In my mind there is actually no contradiction here. Net neutrality is undeniably a way for the federal government to pressure ISPs when their opinions differ. Such as on information requests and wiretapping.

how is not having net neutrality different from google and co censoring the internet on whim. Seems like the same set of people cheering google for censorship are afraid of censorship form ISPs.

lallysingh 9y ago

Yes they're slightly close. But those sites can much more easily put up their own webserver than run their own network to each customer.

Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago

Net neutrality is vastly different; it's about filtering content in general and can be a good thing and a bad thing depending on a situation. E.g. when Russian government forces ISPs to block certain sites, it's obviously censorship, although it's achieved by filtering. But when a provider limits certain protocols (e.g. BitTorrent) over a narrow-band line, there may be sound technical reasons for this and the overall result may very well be to the advantage of the customers. Such filtering is commonplace in enterprises. The recent case of GoDaddy, Google, and Cloudflare is much closer to political censorship; there's no technical reason behind it.

s73ver_ 9y ago
It's only censorship if you believe other entities are not also allowed freedom of speech and association.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  I'm not sure I follow what you are saying here. Censorship is only when your view and others are not allowed freedom of speech? I feel like I'm not parsing your sentence correctly.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    I'm saying it's only censorship if you don't believe that other groups also have freedom of speech and association too. In order for the domain name thing or the CloudFlare thing to be censorship, you have to believe that none of those entities are able to practice freedom of association, or the right to choose who they do business with.
    - Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago
      I disagree. I think doing business should be based on business reasons; if Daily Stormer upholds their end of the contract, then Google/GoDaddy/etc. have no ethical business reason to terminate it. If they disagree with what Daily Stormer says, they are totally free to publish their own statement. The only ethical consequence of free speech could be another speech.
      - s73ver_ 9y ago
        And I believe that choosing not to do business is a form of speech. Also, doing business with Nazis (and I'm not throwing that term around lightly; the Daily Stormer identifies themselves as such) is, especially given recent events, considered bad for business. So I would say they have a business reason there too.
        Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago
        There indeed is such a reason, but it's unethical. It is basically being afraid that the mob will turn against you and thus hurt your business. Somehow nobody blames the mob. Doing business is a way of living in the modern society. Stopping doing business (including firing an employee over non-business reasons, a very popular measure in liberal circles) threatens your well-being and even life. If everyone stops doing business with a person, the person is very likely to die. This is very close to lynching and is a total opposite of justice.
        s73ver_ 9y ago
- dominotw 9y ago
  "examine (a book, movie, etc.) officially and suppress unacceptable parts of it." that the definition I am using. What does it have to do with freedom of speech?
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    Well, did GoDaddy and CloudFlare suppress the Daily Stormer? Or did they choose not to do business with them? I don't believe that they engaged in censorship, because they didn't prevent the Daily Stormer from being accessible. I believe that choosing not to do business with them was a form of speech, and that acting in the way they did was them expressing free speech. Thus, to me, in order to believe that what they did was censorship, that means that they should not be able to take that course of action, and that those companies were obligated to assist the Daily Stormer in getting its message out there.
    - dominotw 9y ago
      >Well, did GoDaddy and CloudFlare suppress the Daily Stormer? Yes they surpassed it on their platform. Censorship doesn't mean "make inaccessible to everyone on any platform". If you censor something on your own platform its still called censorship. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Indian govt censors kissing on movie screens but you can still go watch it on youtube. That doesn't mean what they are doing is not censorship, the govt entity that's responsible for it is actually called "censor board".
      - s73ver_ 9y ago
        GoDaddy and CloudFlare are not government. The Indian Government is. That's a large difference. And I still don't believe what they did was censorship. That was them exercising their right to free speech. I do not believe that it is possible for an expression of free speech to be censorship.
        dominotw 9y ago
        >GoDaddy and CloudFlare are not government. The Indian Government is. That's a large difference. I was just using that as an example. So according to you only govt can do censorship? Thats a definition you made up, not the definition in dictionary. I quoted the dictionary definition from the dictionary and it perfectly matches what google did. Can you tell me how am wrong precisely?

db48x 9y ago

If your message doesn't show up on one webpage, you can always publish it on another, or on a webpage of your own. If your ISP decides what webpages you are allowed to visit, that's basically it. If they don't want to let you contact any competing domain registrars, you won't be able to. I suppose technically that'll never happen; you could fall back to a dial-up ISP. After all, the phone company is not allowed to decide that you can't call their competitors. One tiny part of the Title 2 regulations that cover telecommunications forces them to allow all telephone subscribers to call all other telephone subscribers. It's telephone neutrality. Look up the whole MCI thing from a few decades ago.

dominotw 9y ago
> If your message doesn't show up on one webpage, you can always publish it on another, or on a webpage of your own. Can I just say this then, If you can't access your website on ISP choose another ISP. Whats different about this argument? Also, thank you for answering instead of downvoting.
- steveadoo 9y ago
  For many Americans(including me) there is only one ISP to "choose".
  - dominotw 9y ago
    Doesn't America have anti monopoly laws? Curious why those don't apply to ISPs . Isn't this an admission that 'net neutrality ' is a bandaid to the problem of ISP monopoly. Also, Philosophically you won't really care about net neutrality if you have ISP choice. correct?
    - ajmurmann 9y ago
      If nobody wants to dig and lay cable to offer services to a small town what are you gonna do? The US had very low population density so the cost of teaching small communities can be huge.

zebrafish 9y ago

In regards to censorship, I agree with you. It seems that if your primary opposition to net neutrality is censorship, then you should be equally opposed to Google censoring anything. But in terms of technical effort and economics, these are not the same. It's much easier to write html and find someone to host it for you than it is to trench in municipalities and lay fiber across the country. Net neutrality restricts ISPs from having a competitive advantage in the content space.

ajmurmann 9y ago

To me it's less about censorship than companies offering services over there internet having to pay tolls to ISPs. This will only make it easier for incumbent companies to defend the market against competitors will can't afford the tolls and thus can't reach their customers.

dboreham 9y ago

Net Neutrality isn't about censorship. It's about the distribution of power and hence profit in the emerging new order for communications, media and entertainment distribution. ISPs want to maintain their current cable tv business model where they get to charge the customer for their connection, and also charge the content provider for carrying their content to said user. That business model is contrary to the historical Internet Service model where the customer pays a fee that's supposed to cover the cost of all the traffic they transit regardless of where it originated.

jessaustin 9y ago

The difference is one of degree (...perhaps "layer" is a better word?), not of kind. There probably is a principled way to draw a line between the two situations, but I haven't seen it. Many people are distracted by the greater empathy they feel for Google than for Comcast.

benlorenzetti 9y ago

In my mind there is actually no contradiction here. Net neutrality is undeniably a way for the federal government to pressure ISPs when their opinions differ. Such as on information requests and wiretapping.