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Obama: The Internet Is a Utility (Flashback)
The Atlantic ^ | NOV 10, 2014 | DASHIELL BENNETT

Posted on 05/03/2019 7:05:18 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica

A new "net neutrality" plan released by the White House on Monday morning includes an endorsement of an old idea that some activists have been pushing for years: the treatment of the Internet as a public utility.

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: facebook; fcc; internetutility; obama; twitter; utility
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Perhaps in an age of Facebook censorship, we are ready to admit that Obama was correct all along?

I mean, I don't support the idea. But Obama's ideas in this area are gaining steam....................

I fear that in the end Obama will get what he wanted anyways. He'll just ask his friend Zuck to make it so.

1 posted on 05/03/2019 7:05:18 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
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To: ProgressingAmerica

There’s a huge difference between treating the whole internet as a public utility, and assigning that distinction to Big Data only.


2 posted on 05/03/2019 7:09:03 PM PDT by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: Windflier

I can’t find any difference. And given Zuck’s begging and pleading to become a utility, he doesn’t see the difference either.

If he wants it that bad, he shouldn’t have it.


3 posted on 05/03/2019 7:13:41 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (We cannot leave history to "the historians" anymore.)
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To: ProgressingAmerica

B.O. is a tool.


4 posted on 05/03/2019 7:18:57 PM PDT by HighSierra5
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To: ProgressingAmerica

Don’t be deceived by Satans lies.

Net neutrality NEVER applied to Facebook or google or big daddy or MasterCard.

Only to comcast and att.

Carriers - Facebook and google are content and would never have been affected - in fact would’ve been aided by this legislation because they would get free reign over the internet pipes.


5 posted on 05/03/2019 7:21:57 PM PDT by Skywise
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To: ProgressingAmerica
I can’t find any difference.

If the entire internet is ruled to be a public utility, that means every website and every user will be subject to federal rules and regulations, as well as taxes, user fees, etc.

If Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, et al, are ruled to be public utilities, then only they are subject to the above.

Which world do you want to live in?

6 posted on 05/03/2019 7:27:05 PM PDT by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: Windflier

Time to turn these sites into utilites:

Google, FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, TWITTER, AMAZON, REDDIT, WIKIPEDIA, CRAIGSLIST, and others.

UTILITES ALL OF THEM. NEED REGULATION.

CANNOT CENSOR.

LET THE USER USE CENSORING TOOLS.

THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP OUR REPUBLIC.


7 posted on 05/03/2019 7:33:16 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftists totalitarian fascists appear to be planning to eradicate conservatives)
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To: ProgressingAmerica

Zuckerberg is a sniveling little pimp. Rich, but dickless.


8 posted on 05/03/2019 7:53:10 PM PDT by anton
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To: ProgressingAmerica

Net neutrality applied to service providers only, and gave content providers like Facebook everything they ever wanted.I’m all for limiting and breaking up the tech giants - but that’s a different issue.


9 posted on 05/03/2019 8:11:02 PM PDT by eclecticEel ("The petty man forsakes what lies within his power and longs for what lies with Heaven." - Xunzi)
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To: Chickensoup

Total BS. Those websites are privately owned. They can restrict any speech no speech my speech or your speech. That is their constitutional right. CENSORSHIP as understood via the US Constitution is when the government restricts speech. The government is not restricting anyone’s free speech rights on the internet. But net neutrality is all about censorship.

You have it upside down.


10 posted on 05/03/2019 9:05:21 PM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
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To: FreedomNotSafety

i disagree, they have become utilities.

They are necessary now for commerce, communication, and daily living.

Just like ATT and others, privately owned and now regulated as utilities. They provide services, not censorship.

The government would not permit censorship. Censorship would occur at the consumer level.


11 posted on 05/04/2019 3:59:29 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftists totalitarian fascists appear to be planning to eradicate conservatives)
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To: Chickensoup

More nonsense. Facebook is not a necessity. Many if not most Americans do not use it. Ditto the rest of social media that you are calming to be utilities. Commerce is conducted on Amazon, Walmart, Etsy.

Again, you have the concept of censorship wrong. Private individuals practice censorship and that is proper and desirable and they have a constitutional right to do so. Our government is prohibited from acting as a censor in its law making.

The government should not be acting to force private companies and people into carrying speech they do into wish to carry. That was the issue in the cake baker lawsuit. If you don’t like the speech of the social media giants do not use them. It’s your choice and you will somehow live without them.


12 posted on 05/04/2019 8:10:25 AM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
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To: FreedomNotSafety

Again, you have the concept of censorship wrong. Private individuals practice censorship and that is proper and desirable and they have a constitutional right to do so. Our government is prohibited from acting as a censor in its law making.

The government should not be acting to force private companies and people into carrying speech they do into wish to carry. That was the issue in the cake baker lawsuit. If you don’t like the speech of the social media giants do not use them. It’s your choice and you will somehow live without them.

______________

Utilites do not have the right to censorship and like it or not, all that I named are necessary for commerce and connections in the world. Jobs are posted and applied for in many of the sites. I despise FB but people with companies have to fall in line because FB Scrapes infortiona off the net and makes sure that it is incorrect so one has to jump in and correct it or lose business, Google does this too.

We disagree.


13 posted on 05/04/2019 10:30:46 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftists totalitarian fascists appear to be planning to eradicate conservatives)
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To: Windflier

I don’t want to live in either world.

In scenario #1 as you laid it out, Facebook wins, or whoever. The progressives universally win. The entire internet is theirs. In scenario #2, Facebook wins. Google wins. A handful of others. What incentive do I have to choose either?


14 posted on 05/05/2019 12:14:08 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (We cannot leave history to "the historians" anymore.)
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To: FreedomNotSafety
Friedrich Engels once wrote:

"The irony of world history turns everything upside down. We the 'revolutionists', the 'rebels' - we are thriving far better on legal methods than on illegal methods and revolt. The parties of order, as they call themselves, are perishing under the legal conditions created by themselves. They cry despairingly with Odilon Barrot: ''la légalité nous tue'', legality is the death of us; whereas we, under this legality, get firm muscles and rosy cheeks and look like eternal life."

"Let them nevertheless put through their anti-revolt bills, make them still worse, transform the whole penal law into india-rubber, they will achieve nothing but a new proof of their impotence. In order seriously to hit Social Democracy, they will have to resort to quite other measures."

This is why they all want an internet takeover including Zuckerberg. If they can merge government with tech, they know then win.

I'm not sure how people around here came to believe that somehow increasing government, putting them into "utilities" or anything else, is somehow a loss. For Facebook, being turned into a utility is "eternal life", to quote Friedrich Engels.

15 posted on 05/05/2019 12:20:20 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (We cannot leave history to "the historians" anymore.)
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To: ProgressingAmerica

We have had this debate once already over Net Neutrality. I defended the repeal of those regulations while being bombarded by a Freepers who said if the government didn’t regulate we would not have unlimited streaming of Netflix and Porn. Looking at those old posts I can see many of them came and went with the issue. Thank Trump small giverment conservatives won that argument.

Same thing now. It’s the same issue the giant social media want the government to entrench their status. Mark is clever he knows he needs to squeeze conservatives to get them to agree to have government enforce his market share. Many Freepers are going merrily along.

Let say it again over and over. Government regulation and of speech either restricting it or compelling is Unconstitutional, at odds with liberty, and benefits the leftists.


16 posted on 05/05/2019 2:03:16 PM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
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To: FreedomNotSafety

There should be no governemtn regulation of speech.

There should be no reugulation of speech by utilities.

the large companies are all utilities.


17 posted on 05/05/2019 2:05:06 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftists totalitarian fascists appear to be planning to eradicate conservatives)
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To: Chickensoup

The first line makes sense that is in the US Constitution.

The second line makes no sense whatsoever. I will guess as to what you mean by utility, but feel free to define what it means or what it takes to be a utltity, and say electric company. So you are saying that an electric company cannot regulate the speech of one of its employees? An electric company agent can cuss you out and say whatever they wish to you and the company cannot do anything about it?

The third sentence just sounds like you are making stuff up for the Democrat Leftists.

So after declaring large companies to be utltities do you also propose to have the government rule them?


18 posted on 05/05/2019 6:06:14 PM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
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To: FreedomNotSafety

So you are saying that an electric company cannot regulate the speech of one of its employees? An electric company agent can cuss you out and say whatever they wish to you and the company cannot do anything about it?

______________________

Noooo. See if you can follow this.

An elelctric company cannot regulate the speech of their CUSTOMERS nor can it cut off electricity to the customers as a method OF REGULATING SPEECH.


19 posted on 05/05/2019 7:59:09 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftists totalitarian fascists appear to be planning to eradicate conservatives)
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To: FreedomNotSafety

The third sentence just sounds like you are making stuff up for the Democrat Leftists.

So after declaring large companies to be utltities do you also propose to have the government rule them?

_______________________________

I propose that they be regulated like utilities.


20 posted on 05/05/2019 8:03:15 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftists totalitarian fascists appear to be planning to eradicate conservatives)
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