Posted on 09/10/2018 7:12:35 AM PDT by servo1969
Transcript:
Net Neutrality means that the government will--one day--control the internet.
"Wait a second!" I can you hear you saying. "That sounds bad." But almost everyone you know says that Net Neutrality is good. Doesn't "neutral" mean that no one is picking winners and losers, that everyone is equal?
Maybe according to the dictionary, but not according to the people behind the Net Neutrality movement. For them, "neutral" means the government regulates the internet like a public utility--and that means bureaucrats making key decisions about how the internet is run.
And that's exactly what happened in 2015.
The Federal Communications Commission--or FCC--under the Obama Administration, came up with Net Neutrality rules and regulations and imposed them on consumers. No open hearings--they just did it.
Here's what they said: Internet Service Providers, or ISPs--AT&T, Verizon, and other companies that lay the cable that goes to your house--are basically monopolies like your typical utility company. To prevent abuse of this position, Net Neutrality rules prohibited them from charging websites different prices no matter how much or how little bandwidth they use.
But this is exactly the opposite of what utilities are allowed to do. Electricity providers, for instance, are allowed to create pricing tiers--the more you use, the higher the price goes. If you use significantly more power than your neighbor, you pay more for the privilege.
"Net Neutrality" forces ISPs to charge all users the same price no matter how much data they send through the internet.
It's a bad idea. Here's why:
The internet consists of a physical infrastructure of cable and phone lines that carry the data--we call it "bandwidth." But of course, there's a limit to how much data it can carry. In 2014, just two companies, Netflix and Google (which owns YouTube), consumed more than 52% of the total bandwidth of the entire internet. All those data-heavy movies and videos clog up the "pipe."
To combat this massive resource drain, the ISPs floated the idea of creating "fast lanes": bandwidth that would be dedicated to the big users in exchange for higher usage rates. You use more, you pay more. Believe me, I'm no fan of ISPs, but shouldn't they be allowed to charge companies more if they use more bandwidth?
Furthermore, if companies like Google and Netflix have to pay higher prices for more bandwidth, they'll be motivated to find new ways to push more data through the "pipe." And creative startups would no doubt see a great business opportunity to do the same thing.
End result: More efficient, faster internet. Consumers win.
The big bandwidth users didn't see it this way. Instead, they lobbied for the new rules to prevent the ISPs from charging them differently than anyone else. Naturally, they want to pay as little as they can for bandwidth. So, they mounted a big PR campaign to convince the public to back the new regulations. And it worked. How could it fail with a name like "Net Neutrality"?
They argued that without regulations, a very small number of companies--the ISPs--would wield enormous censorship powers. Our free speech would be in jeopardy.
Ironically, the only companies that have been censoring content are many of the same ones that want Net Neutrality: Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter--the big users. Companies that, coincidentally, had a very close relationship with the Obama Administration.
YouTube's parent, Google, had more than 427 meetings at the Obama White House during his presidency--a rate of more than one per week.
All those visits apparently paid off. Following decades of exploding internet growth, the government suddenly interjected itself with a bunch of new rules to stop a non-existent threat.
Those rules were rescinded in 2018 when the FCC rolled back the Obama-era regulation under the principle that innovation would be much more likely to happen if the government got out of the way. In other words, the FCC returned the internet to its pre-2015, pre-Net Neutrality state.
Sounds like common sense, right? Just leave the internet alone and let tech do its thing.
Unfair or bad-faith practices by ISPs, should they occur, can be addressed by existing anti-trust laws--as they always have. But all that followed the rollback decision was... hysteria. "Taking away #NetNeutrality is the Authoritarian dream," actor Mark Ruffalo intoned. Authoritarianism used to be when the government forced its will on the people. Now, according to Hollywood activists, it's when it doesn't!
Or, let's put it another way: if you want the current--or any other--administration to control the internet, you're for Net Neutrality. If you want the internet to remain free of government meddling, you're against it.
I'm Jon Gabriel of Ricochet.com for Prager University.
Wrong...
It is exactly what we are seeing right now.
Using private companies to control the message and the messenger.
The plan was to create the equivalency of the EPA for the Media and the Internet.
It was almost there, ready to be turned on and Trump messed up their plans.
They are NOT going to stop fighting for this.
There is too much $$$$ on the line.
Censorship, particularly hidden censorship like shadow banning is impossible to police. Creating a government police force would do much more harm than good. The way to combat it is the same way you fix any other internert problem: innovation.
There is too much $$$$ on the line.
****************
And too much opportunity for political meddling.
Net Neutrality will become CENSORSHIP for the Internet.......
Seems like both parties nowadays want the government to control the internet, they just think that they will be the ones making the rules, and forget that it will be their enemies in control of the apparatus after some future election.
UPS and FedEx charge Amazon much lower rates than me but they ship many more packages. The company that hauls away my trash charges me a lot less than a business that creates tons of waste per day. These things are not difficult to understand or unique.
The free market has proven time and again to be the best way of making commerce work. Key word: “free”. Free of government meddling.
“They argued that without regulations, a very small number of companies—the ISPs—would wield enormous censorship powers. Our free speech would be in jeopardy.
Ironically, the only companies that have been censoring content are many of the same ones that want Net Neutrality: Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter—the big users. Companies that, coincidentally, had a very close relationship with the Obama Administration.”
Yep... so in turn they hand the freemarket to those like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Ect. Who are all honest and trustworthy Liberal companies to make them even more powerful. It is just fine to give these ISP providers total control over content because as we know everyone has at least 100 Internet service providers to choose from when one of these starts censoring and throttling their internet content or access.
I was glad to see this in my inbox this morning to really explain what Net Neutrality meant.
As with most things leftist; it means the opposite of what it sounds like.
The idea that an ISP can or would censor anything is complete nonsense. The DNS is controlled by a consortium, including universities. A few (very few) DNS censorship cases have ended without censorship. For example the Daily Stormer has a DNS entry. They even have the top google and bing search results pointing to their DNS entry.
Similarly an ISP will not censor by IP address. The very few times they have tried that they backed off. They either did it by accident (believable) or for security reasons (which may have been a ruse). The point is that they backed off. Therefore someone typing FreeRepublic.com into their browser is not going to be censored by their ISP. Suggesting otherwise is simple fearmongering and/or ignorance about how the internet works.
Finally there is the issue of throttling. Yes, ISPs would like to throttle bandwidth wasting content like Netflix. As far as I am concerned, they should. That would help me by giving me better bandwidth for worthwhile internet access.
Thanks servo1969.
Easy to police. Someone complains that they have been censored, the government slams a hammer down on the company that censored them.
Easy.
You pinged me on several articles claiming censorship when there was no censorship. Also shadow banning is hidden deep in the algorithms which are not public. If you decide that no proof is needed and the government should “slam a hammer” for every complaint, then the leftists win. First because they are better organized to make complaints. But more importantly because the lefiists take over the regulatory agencies over time.
I ran into a communist at a party - before Obama - and he had two issues - earth elementals and Net Neutrality. Since communists are blowhards and dreadful people I noted to myself that moves to kick Americans out of African earth elemental markets - and whatever 'Net Neutrality' was were things I would be against.
bkmk
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You have too narrow of a definition for censorship. As I have mentioned before, several weeks ago I saw a wonderful article that detailed all the various methods google was using to censor people on youtube. I mentioned the few I could remember, but the point remains, there are various levels of censorship.
Any effort to cost viewers is censorship.
What you need to show is how we are supposed to detect that reliably so we can prove there is bias. Otherwise the leftists will file many more censorship complaints and flood the system. Furthermore the lefftists will shake down those giant companies by promosing to stop the complaints in exchange for money. Finally the bureaucrats in charge of this will end up being leftists like all the other DC bureaucrats.
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