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We already have organized brigades demanding ISPs stop providing service to certain people. That is to say, people who spam on an industrial scale. Do you thin

We already have organized brigades demanding ISPs stop providing service to certain people. That is to say, people who spam on an industrial scale. Do you think ISPs should instead be required to host spammers? Perhaps even to provide them extra resources to help them overcome the unfair way people's spam filters censor their valuable free speech?

moduspol 8y ago
I'm open to simply acknowledging the Internet is no place for free speech. My point is that ISPs are just as vulnerable to brigading as Facebook or Microsoft, so arguing that it's not a big problem because they're still free to host content on their own hardware is missing the point. It just seems odd how rabidly pro-Net Neutrality places like this were only to make cases like yours a few months later when free speech on the net actually arrives on the chopping block. How long will it take before my ISP blocks Netflix ostensibly because of complaints of offensive content? But besides that, it's easy to draw a pretty clear distinction between allowing someone's web site to be accessible as compared to being actively compelled to send whatever outgoing transmissions a group likes. Packets are packets, but just as we don't allow screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre, freedom of speech is still incredibly important even if not absolute.
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  I'd argue that the pipe -- that is, the entity which owns and controls the physical fiber/wires/etc. through which the packets flow -- should operate under a certain level of enforced neutrality, in the sense that if A and B each are customers of C paying for access to the pipe, C shouldn't decide to disallow, filter, or throttle traffic between them. C (the ISP) should only be able to choose whether or not to take on or keep a particular customer, and to charge fees according to usage. The net neutrality debate is basically over whether to allow C to double dip by refusing to provide the paid-for service unless it's paid for again (and again, and again...). But that says nothing about whether an ISP should be forced to accept any and all people as paying customers. And it's very far from saying that particular web sites should be forced to accept any and all users and any and all behaviors from those users. Which means you've basically failed in your quest to label people as hypocrites. Would you like to try again? (also, you may want to learn a bit more about First Amendment jurisprudence if your go-to is "fire in a crowded theater" -- it makes you look about as well-informed as someone who genuinely insists "the internet is a series of tubes")
  - moduspol 8y ago
    That you can selectively interpret net neutrality to justify ISPs arbitrarily blocking access to content is unsurprising, but nonetheless irrelevant.
    - ubernostrum 8y ago
      Unless/until you're a customer of an ISP and hosting something on the connection they provide, there's no content. Now, think through the logical consequences of your argument for a moment, and ask whether you really want to legally require every ISP and every hosting service and every website everywhere to be legally required to accept absolutely anyone, absolutely any behavior and absolutely any content, without exception. Do you really want to live in that world? Or are you just grasping at straws to try to maintain an argument you made in bad faith from the beginning? (hint: it's the second one)
      - moduspol 8y ago
        I have no interest in defending your straw man. I didn’t propose legislation, and the idea that net neutrality wasn’t intended to keep ISPs from arbitrarily blocking content is ridiculous. If it helps, though, my comments are still there unedited. Maybe you’re mixing up my comments with someone else’s.

moduspol 8y ago

I'm open to simply acknowledging the Internet is no place for free speech. My point is that ISPs are just as vulnerable to brigading as Facebook or Microsoft, so arguing that it's not a big problem because they're still free to host content on their own hardware is missing the point. It just seems odd how rabidly pro-Net Neutrality places like this were only to make cases like yours a few months later when free speech on the net actually arrives on the chopping block. How long will it take before my ISP blocks Netflix ostensibly because of complaints of offensive content? But besides that, it's easy to draw a pretty clear distinction between allowing someone's web site to be accessible as compared to being actively compelled to send whatever outgoing transmissions a group likes. Packets are packets, but just as we don't allow screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre, freedom of speech is still incredibly important even if not absolute.

ubernostrum 8y ago
I'd argue that the pipe -- that is, the entity which owns and controls the physical fiber/wires/etc. through which the packets flow -- should operate under a certain level of enforced neutrality, in the sense that if A and B each are customers of C paying for access to the pipe, C shouldn't decide to disallow, filter, or throttle traffic between them. C (the ISP) should only be able to choose whether or not to take on or keep a particular customer, and to charge fees according to usage. The net neutrality debate is basically over whether to allow C to double dip by refusing to provide the paid-for service unless it's paid for again (and again, and again...). But that says nothing about whether an ISP should be forced to accept any and all people as paying customers. And it's very far from saying that particular web sites should be forced to accept any and all users and any and all behaviors from those users. Which means you've basically failed in your quest to label people as hypocrites. Would you like to try again? (also, you may want to learn a bit more about First Amendment jurisprudence if your go-to is "fire in a crowded theater" -- it makes you look about as well-informed as someone who genuinely insists "the internet is a series of tubes")
- moduspol 8y ago
  That you can selectively interpret net neutrality to justify ISPs arbitrarily blocking access to content is unsurprising, but nonetheless irrelevant.
  - ubernostrum 8y ago
    Unless/until you're a customer of an ISP and hosting something on the connection they provide, there's no content. Now, think through the logical consequences of your argument for a moment, and ask whether you really want to legally require every ISP and every hosting service and every website everywhere to be legally required to accept absolutely anyone, absolutely any behavior and absolutely any content, without exception. Do you really want to live in that world? Or are you just grasping at straws to try to maintain an argument you made in bad faith from the beginning? (hint: it's the second one)
    - moduspol 8y ago
      I have no interest in defending your straw man. I didn’t propose legislation, and the idea that net neutrality wasn’t intended to keep ISPs from arbitrarily blocking content is ridiculous. If it helps, though, my comments are still there unedited. Maybe you’re mixing up my comments with someone else’s.