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Every social media website is dominated by people supporting net neutrality. I don't even remember seeing an opposing opinion, except from Trump's government. M

Every social media website is dominated by people supporting net neutrality. I don't even remember seeing an opposing opinion, except from Trump's government. Maybe I'm living in some weird bubble, but it seems to me the argument is really not an argument, but an artificially created nonsense.

Kequc 9y ago
I may not be up on the latest news. My understanding from the best sources I can find detail a disagreement within the government about how net neutrality is implemented, not that it exists. Internet providers want to repeal net neutrality. Democrats are happy with the current implementation. Republicans want to enshrine net neutrality in law through congress, stripping what they believe is overreach on the part of the FCC. The fact that net neutrality can currently be repealed so easily suggests to me that putting it through congress is a good idea. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/02/01/what-trumps-new-fcc-chairman-thinks-about-net-neutrality/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/02/01...
- ori_b 9y ago
  > Republicans want to enshrine net neutrality in law through congress, stripping what they believe is overreach on the part of the FCC. I've heard this, but I still see no law on the books, and a very strong push for the FCC to remove the regulations that are currently in place. I'd believe them if I saw an effort to put a replacement plan in motion before repealing.
- Danihan 9y ago
  You could just be against government price controls in general..
  - eecc 9y ago
    How does “government price control” relate to simply forbidding double sale? All NN does is to disallow ISP from tiering the internet and double dipping on both sides of the network. Imagine if you had to pay a different subscription to call only family, another also for friends, anyone on the Bell directory, anyone on other directories, businesses. You’d imagine telephones would have remained a novelty to this day
    - Danihan 9y ago
      Why should ISPs be disallowed from charging what they like for the product they sell? That's the entire point of a free market. I understand the issues inherent in leasing the lines, but fundamentally companies should be able to price their offerings as they wish. There simply needs to be fewer barriers to entry for new ISPs to come into the market.
      - simonh 9y ago
        They’ve already sold it to the consumer. If I pay an ISP for X bandwidth and Y latency, then decide I want to use that to watch Netflix, the ISP has no business interfering with my use of the Netflix service. It isn’t Netflix traffic, it’s my traffic which I’ve already paid the ISP for. This isn’t about protecting Netflix, it’s about protecting the consumers right to use the product they bought - internet bandwidth - for what they choose without having that choice interfered with or constrained by back room extortion rackets. If the ISP wants to set up a special fast lane for my connection to this or that service, they talk to me. Not Netflix, or anyone else.
        Danihan 9y ago
        Supermarkets don't have government price controls, and they also have very little government intervention. Yet I assume you don't worry about "back room extortion rackets" occurring with the pricing there. This is because there is a healthy amount of competition with supermarkets, something the ISP market lacks. Again, it comes down to lowering barriers of entry for new ISPs, rather than falsely labeling all network traffic the same, and pretending that solves a problem.
        simonh 9y ago
        They don’t have price controls, but they do have sanitation standards, quality of goods laws, food standards legislation and mandatory returns requirements and restrictions on misleading pricing. If you don’t like the price at a Supermarket you can usually drive 5 minutes to the next store, but changing ISPs can take weeks and you’re locked into long contracts. Maybe if we can lower the barriers to entry and give people a genuine choice of ISPs first. That would be the equivalent of talking to the customer about special deals for certain content and giving the customer the power to choose. Do that, then we can talk. Wiping out net neutrality without a genuine choice for consumers is a blatant stitch up.
fungi 9y ago
r/The_Donald/ has some particularly impressive mental gymnastics going on to support repeal. Breitbart comments are fascinating.
- Danihan 9y ago
  Being against government price controls == mental gymnastics?
  - golf1052 9y ago
    Please take a refresher on what net neutrality is. Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers must treat all data on the Internet the same, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality The government is not controlling the price, they are mandating that ISPs treat all network traffic the same.
    - Danihan 9y ago
      But all network traffic is not the same. So why should it be treated as if it is?
      - vermilingua 9y ago
        All network traffic is the same. As far as an ISP should be concerned, it's all just bits flowing through a wire. When they start characterizing those bits, net neutrality is violated.
        dingaling 9y ago
        > All network traffic is the same. No competent network technician would mark VOIP the same as Torrent traffic. Now, all Internet traffic may not be handled in such a manner but that's another matter.
keypress 9y ago
I'm up for net neutrality, but what do you about one or two pigs hogging the network? This quotes netflix as having 37% of traffic in N.A. http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/20/netflix-boasts-37-share-of-internet-traffic-in-north-america-compared-with-3-for-apples-itunes http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/20/netflix-boasts-37-... It's like you build an autobahn for everyone, and then one monster haulage company moves in and dominates the road, and the road isn't really as useful as envisaged.
- olegkikin 9y ago
  Doesn't Netflix pay for its bandwidth?
  - simonh 9y ago
    Yes it does. Meanwhile the end user pays for the bandwidth they get to use. Whether that’s to watch YouTube, Netflix or send email. It’s all already been paid for.
- NicoJuicy 9y ago
  But the truck stops almost everywhere to deliver its load. Ps. They had the same arguments for YouTube and torrent. What's next
- andyjh 9y ago
  It's not really any business of the ISPs which services their customers want to use. If demand for bandwidth increases such that the price isn't viable anymore, charge customers more if necessary. You don't find restaurants charging potato suppliers because diners like to eat lots of fries.
  - dboreham 9y ago
    >charge customers more if necessary Bingo! But customers don't want to pay more and ISPs prefer to look for revenue from content providers since they're more motivated to pay.
- 9y ago
collyw 9y ago
4chan isn't, it seems quite mixed over there.
- croon 9y ago
  It definitely was a few years ago, when it was about memes and anime and before it went alt-right/Trump.
  - collyw 9y ago
    It actually seems like quite a refreshing mix of options to me. There is a right wing bias, but its far from the only viewpoint on there.
    - xr4ti 9y ago
      4chan -- pol in particular -- is an agitprop prototyping board, and about as unreliable a source of information as you can get. Useful when you want to get a sneak peak at the propaganda campaigns, and internet brigade tactics and talking points that are about to be rolled out against the public (or A/B test some of your own), but not so much for serious debate. Like 99% of the stuff you see on there is going to be deceptively worded or presented, or just factually incorrect. If you're letting 4chan influence your opinion, you're using it wrong.
      - collyw 9y ago
        I already feel like my social media and news sources are an echo chamber, especially after Brexit and Trump. I don't think its a bad thing to check out different opinions. Hell I even agree with some of the stuff there (though there is a lot more that I disagree with). It certainly helps me see the logic behind positions that I don't agree with / understand.
saladeen 9y ago
Every social media website is dominated by 'people supporting net neutrality' because George Soros poured a lot of money into that. The site that was being peddled everywhere the other day, battleforthenet.com (and I hope noone will try and pretend that, for example, simultaneous pushing of that site to #1 spot on hundreds of subreddits was not orchestrated), is ran by org called 'Fight for the Future'; they are funded by Open Society Initiative, which is George Soros's organization. He also funds that 'resist' sms-bot, where you get to DDoS government officials with faxes by texting 'resist' to a number that does the spamming. All I saw was an attempt to manipulate the appearance of popularity of pro-NN stance. I'd like to point out that I am not against net neutrality, I am against being brainwashed and manipulated, especially through scaremongering. If (lacking a better word) 'pro-Trump' arguments were financed and relentlessly pushed like this, we'd have 10x the screeching about 'Russian hackers'. Why are we not hearing anything about people who actually are trying to subvert and hack democratic processes by pouring a lot of money into it?
- croon 9y ago
  A Soros conspiracy theory, with a bonus 'Russian hackers' in quotes as if that part was the ridiculous one.
  - saladeen 9y ago
    Thank you for attempting to ridicule me with the ole 'conspiracy theory'. Go to the site ( battleforthenet.com ), scroll all the way down, it says 'built by Fight for the Future', and even links to it: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/ https://www.fightforthefuture.org/ On that site, go to 'Supporters' page: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/supporters/ https://www.fightforthefuture.org/supporters/ Open Society Foundations is listed there. They are not even hiding the connection. George Soros directly providing funds for the #1 pro-NN site being peddled around social media sites, and simultaneously pushed into #1 spot on hundreds of subreddits 2 days ago = 'Soros conspiracy theory'. I somehow doubt you apply the same standards to the 'Russian hackers' 'conspiracy theory'. :) To the rest of the readers, I am not arguing whether 'Russian hackers' is conspiracy theory or not, I just wanted to point out the hypocrisy of how when public's perception and opinion is manipulated by Soros pouring in millions of $, it's completely ignored and we're all expected to pretend it's 100% grassroots, but if Trump&co were doing the same level of manipulation, we would never stop hearing about how it's completely manufactured. I am just tired of being manipulated, regardless of who it's coming from.
coding123 9y ago
I'm with you. The OMG netflix had to pay someone for fast lanes because of extortion... So these fast lanes still exist today. And if a small company, lets say twitch.tv suddenly needs 37% of the internet bandwidth across the country - people are going to let it happen again. The REAL net neutrality that needs to happen is in the search market. There are about 20 billion search terms now that will ONLY lead me to Etsy.com as the top search result. They didn't pay anyone for that, just people promoting Etsy. Same for Facebook, Amazon, Wikipedia, and a few others. What we have is a set of large websites that have taken over all result sets. It's actually impossible to start a new business that has a shopping cart outside of Etsy.com, Amazon.com, etc... How are we all allowing that to continue.

Kequc 9y ago

I may not be up on the latest news. My understanding from the best sources I can find detail a disagreement within the government about how net neutrality is implemented, not that it exists. Internet providers want to repeal net neutrality. Democrats are happy with the current implementation. Republicans want to enshrine net neutrality in law through congress, stripping what they believe is overreach on the part of the FCC. The fact that net neutrality can currently be repealed so easily suggests to me that putting it through congress is a good idea. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/02/01/what-trumps-new-fcc-chairman-thinks-about-net-neutrality/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/02/01...

ori_b 9y ago
> Republicans want to enshrine net neutrality in law through congress, stripping what they believe is overreach on the part of the FCC. I've heard this, but I still see no law on the books, and a very strong push for the FCC to remove the regulations that are currently in place. I'd believe them if I saw an effort to put a replacement plan in motion before repealing.
Danihan 9y ago
You could just be against government price controls in general..
- eecc 9y ago
  How does “government price control” relate to simply forbidding double sale? All NN does is to disallow ISP from tiering the internet and double dipping on both sides of the network. Imagine if you had to pay a different subscription to call only family, another also for friends, anyone on the Bell directory, anyone on other directories, businesses. You’d imagine telephones would have remained a novelty to this day
  - Danihan 9y ago
    Why should ISPs be disallowed from charging what they like for the product they sell? That's the entire point of a free market. I understand the issues inherent in leasing the lines, but fundamentally companies should be able to price their offerings as they wish. There simply needs to be fewer barriers to entry for new ISPs to come into the market.
    - simonh 9y ago
      They’ve already sold it to the consumer. If I pay an ISP for X bandwidth and Y latency, then decide I want to use that to watch Netflix, the ISP has no business interfering with my use of the Netflix service. It isn’t Netflix traffic, it’s my traffic which I’ve already paid the ISP for. This isn’t about protecting Netflix, it’s about protecting the consumers right to use the product they bought - internet bandwidth - for what they choose without having that choice interfered with or constrained by back room extortion rackets. If the ISP wants to set up a special fast lane for my connection to this or that service, they talk to me. Not Netflix, or anyone else.
      - Danihan 9y ago
        Supermarkets don't have government price controls, and they also have very little government intervention. Yet I assume you don't worry about "back room extortion rackets" occurring with the pricing there. This is because there is a healthy amount of competition with supermarkets, something the ISP market lacks. Again, it comes down to lowering barriers of entry for new ISPs, rather than falsely labeling all network traffic the same, and pretending that solves a problem.
        simonh 9y ago
        They don’t have price controls, but they do have sanitation standards, quality of goods laws, food standards legislation and mandatory returns requirements and restrictions on misleading pricing. If you don’t like the price at a Supermarket you can usually drive 5 minutes to the next store, but changing ISPs can take weeks and you’re locked into long contracts. Maybe if we can lower the barriers to entry and give people a genuine choice of ISPs first. That would be the equivalent of talking to the customer about special deals for certain content and giving the customer the power to choose. Do that, then we can talk. Wiping out net neutrality without a genuine choice for consumers is a blatant stitch up.

fungi 9y ago

r/The_Donald/ has some particularly impressive mental gymnastics going on to support repeal. Breitbart comments are fascinating.

Danihan 9y ago
Being against government price controls == mental gymnastics?
- golf1052 9y ago
  Please take a refresher on what net neutrality is. Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers must treat all data on the Internet the same, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality The government is not controlling the price, they are mandating that ISPs treat all network traffic the same.
  - Danihan 9y ago
    But all network traffic is not the same. So why should it be treated as if it is?
    - vermilingua 9y ago
      All network traffic is the same. As far as an ISP should be concerned, it's all just bits flowing through a wire. When they start characterizing those bits, net neutrality is violated.
      - dingaling 9y ago
        > All network traffic is the same. No competent network technician would mark VOIP the same as Torrent traffic. Now, all Internet traffic may not be handled in such a manner but that's another matter.

keypress 9y ago

I'm up for net neutrality, but what do you about one or two pigs hogging the network? This quotes netflix as having 37% of traffic in N.A. http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/20/netflix-boasts-37-share-of-internet-traffic-in-north-america-compared-with-3-for-apples-itunes http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/20/netflix-boasts-37-... It's like you build an autobahn for everyone, and then one monster haulage company moves in and dominates the road, and the road isn't really as useful as envisaged.

olegkikin 9y ago
Doesn't Netflix pay for its bandwidth?
- simonh 9y ago
  Yes it does. Meanwhile the end user pays for the bandwidth they get to use. Whether that’s to watch YouTube, Netflix or send email. It’s all already been paid for.
NicoJuicy 9y ago
But the truck stops almost everywhere to deliver its load. Ps. They had the same arguments for YouTube and torrent. What's next
andyjh 9y ago
It's not really any business of the ISPs which services their customers want to use. If demand for bandwidth increases such that the price isn't viable anymore, charge customers more if necessary. You don't find restaurants charging potato suppliers because diners like to eat lots of fries.
- dboreham 9y ago
  >charge customers more if necessary Bingo! But customers don't want to pay more and ISPs prefer to look for revenue from content providers since they're more motivated to pay.
9y ago

collyw 9y ago

4chan isn't, it seems quite mixed over there.

croon 9y ago
It definitely was a few years ago, when it was about memes and anime and before it went alt-right/Trump.
- collyw 9y ago
  It actually seems like quite a refreshing mix of options to me. There is a right wing bias, but its far from the only viewpoint on there.
  - xr4ti 9y ago
    4chan -- pol in particular -- is an agitprop prototyping board, and about as unreliable a source of information as you can get. Useful when you want to get a sneak peak at the propaganda campaigns, and internet brigade tactics and talking points that are about to be rolled out against the public (or A/B test some of your own), but not so much for serious debate. Like 99% of the stuff you see on there is going to be deceptively worded or presented, or just factually incorrect. If you're letting 4chan influence your opinion, you're using it wrong.
    - collyw 9y ago
      I already feel like my social media and news sources are an echo chamber, especially after Brexit and Trump. I don't think its a bad thing to check out different opinions. Hell I even agree with some of the stuff there (though there is a lot more that I disagree with). It certainly helps me see the logic behind positions that I don't agree with / understand.

saladeen 9y ago

Every social media website is dominated by 'people supporting net neutrality' because George Soros poured a lot of money into that. The site that was being peddled everywhere the other day, battleforthenet.com (and I hope noone will try and pretend that, for example, simultaneous pushing of that site to #1 spot on hundreds of subreddits was not orchestrated), is ran by org called 'Fight for the Future'; they are funded by Open Society Initiative, which is George Soros's organization. He also funds that 'resist' sms-bot, where you get to DDoS government officials with faxes by texting 'resist' to a number that does the spamming. All I saw was an attempt to manipulate the appearance of popularity of pro-NN stance. I'd like to point out that I am not against net neutrality, I am against being brainwashed and manipulated, especially through scaremongering. If (lacking a better word) 'pro-Trump' arguments were financed and relentlessly pushed like this, we'd have 10x the screeching about 'Russian hackers'. Why are we not hearing anything about people who actually are trying to subvert and hack democratic processes by pouring a lot of money into it?

croon 9y ago
A Soros conspiracy theory, with a bonus 'Russian hackers' in quotes as if that part was the ridiculous one.
- saladeen 9y ago
  Thank you for attempting to ridicule me with the ole 'conspiracy theory'. Go to the site ( battleforthenet.com ), scroll all the way down, it says 'built by Fight for the Future', and even links to it: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/ https://www.fightforthefuture.org/ On that site, go to 'Supporters' page: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/supporters/ https://www.fightforthefuture.org/supporters/ Open Society Foundations is listed there. They are not even hiding the connection. George Soros directly providing funds for the #1 pro-NN site being peddled around social media sites, and simultaneously pushed into #1 spot on hundreds of subreddits 2 days ago = 'Soros conspiracy theory'. I somehow doubt you apply the same standards to the 'Russian hackers' 'conspiracy theory'. :) To the rest of the readers, I am not arguing whether 'Russian hackers' is conspiracy theory or not, I just wanted to point out the hypocrisy of how when public's perception and opinion is manipulated by Soros pouring in millions of $, it's completely ignored and we're all expected to pretend it's 100% grassroots, but if Trump&co were doing the same level of manipulation, we would never stop hearing about how it's completely manufactured. I am just tired of being manipulated, regardless of who it's coming from.

coding123 9y ago

I'm with you. The OMG netflix had to pay someone for fast lanes because of extortion... So these fast lanes still exist today. And if a small company, lets say twitch.tv suddenly needs 37% of the internet bandwidth across the country - people are going to let it happen again. The REAL net neutrality that needs to happen is in the search market. There are about 20 billion search terms now that will ONLY lead me to Etsy.com as the top search result. They didn't pay anyone for that, just people promoting Etsy. Same for Facebook, Amazon, Wikipedia, and a few others. What we have is a set of large websites that have taken over all result sets. It's actually impossible to start a new business that has a shopping cart outside of Etsy.com, Amazon.com, etc... How are we all allowing that to continue.