Support Net Neutrality

If telephone service is a public utility worthy of regulation, how is internet service not? I'd argue that internet access is just as critical to the way people are actually living their lives in 2017.

@frytup: The UN agrees with you

@messier: I am well aware of this, but effectively saying that "this governmental regulation being bad means that this one is as well" isn't exactly an air-tight argument. We should be seeking to uphold regulations which have been proven to be beneficial, as this one has.

@elmorales94: Unless I missed some actual change in ISP behavior as a result of this passing, there has been zero tangible benefit to the consumer from the 2015 law. Only "protection" from hypothetical scenarios that haven't materialized in the 30 years since the internet started being a publicly available thing, while giving the federal government an opening to push for further interference and censorship. I see no less of a danger from an unchecked government agency eventually regulating what content is allowed to be accessed than you do from a business attempting to charge us to get a better quality Netflix picture.

I respect the opposing position, I think we both want the same thing. I just think we are less likely to get what we all want by asking DC to get involved. It stifles innovation and creates a barrier for entry that almost guarantees less competition and worse service.

This.

@messier: On at least one occasion, Comcast tried to throttle Netflix speeds under the guise of network testing.

Governmenr involvement is what caused the problems, this won't undo shit and will just lead to more government control of a private sector.

@onemanarmyy: Netflix slows down either way and uses up 37% of yhe bandwidth in this country. You also have no basic right guaranteeing you can watch every season of The Office whenever you want.

And of course their services get special access, it's their business.

Internet isn't a right, it's a luxury. And it should have been allowed to develop naturally not under government's 'guiding' hand.

I wonder if the folks here concerned about censoring certain ideas (through a privately operated system) are just as concerned about Amazon, Google, and Facebook already doing that.

Protecting internet data from being treated differently (charged differently, slowed down, or outright blocked) based on user/content doesn't open the door for government censorship. They can "push" for it all they like, but it wouldn't be something they could just do.

Net Neutrality is literally the check against preferrential treatment and suppressive practises when it comes to the internet.

The only irony is that the government doesn't need to do anything here. Net Neutrality was preserved and made (relatively) secure in 2015. This is a situation where the government should back off and not repeal the blasted thing.

@theht: It kind of reminds me of CBS All Access and Star Trek: Discovery. I could be wrong, but I read (and maybe it was just CBS bullshitting just to entice and make people conform, as they hadn't shown proof) that once Discovery came out, there was a surge of people subscribing. There probably are those that got CBS All Access so they could watch Star Trek, just like there will be people that will pay for the availability for certain sites. I know those two things aren't entirely the same, and one is perhaps a larger issue than the other, but still... I wish Star Trek Discovery was just on TV, or on Netflix in the U.S. Come on! I'm not subscribing to CBS All Access. It's the greed that irks me.

@thatbendorf said:

It's proven fruitless to assume an industry mainly consisting of, and controlled by, an oligopoly is able to regulate itself without outside influence.

For perspective, this is what an absence of net neutrality looks like. This is an actual ISP plan in Portugal. Competition will not improve because, like many others in this thread have pointed out already, cable companies in much of the country have regional monopolies. Most folks only have one, maybe two ISPs to choose from. Gutting net neutrality helps no one but major telecom companies.

Reading anti-net neutrality sentiments on a website almost completely based on free streaming videos is blowing my god damn fucking mind. We're doomed.

Do you think Giantbomb will be included in the gaming news plan, the CBS(CBS all access, etc) plan or the watching* streaming video games plan(twitch, youtube.com/gaming)? Since Youtube is so big I wonder if they will slice it up according to categories so people have more choice. In case you just want the "mainstream" youtube plan or maybe just the comedy Youtube channels plan.

*Streaming video yourself must surely be on a different plan than just watching it since it requires more upload speed.

Does Comcast and the rest of ISPs have good enough deep packets inspection to sell a plan for Netflix Movies and another plan for Netflix TV shows? They can easily charge extra for 4K streaming since they can just throttle the speed from Netflix to prevent users from streaming higher quality stuff than the plan that they've paid for. It's gonna be interesting to see how much they will charge for 4K level bandwidth for streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, Vudu or iTunes. Will it be on a per service basis? Can you just pay for the HD plan for Netflix and the 4K plan for iTunes?

Gamestop would also benefit from this since physical games would be more attractive in a free marketplace where you have to pay extra for just regular bandwidth and/or plans that increases the bandwidth cap and/or speed for download services like the ones Playstation, Xbox, Steam, Nintendo, Apple, Google play offers. Will they offer plans that only cover one platform. Some people only have one console/pc/device. Will the PC gaming plan cover Steam and all other storefronts or is there a separate plan that covers all the smaller storefronts like Origin, Uplay, Humblebundle, GOG(almost forgot itch.io ops, will the ISPs cover them all?). What about the Windows Store, is that in the alternative PC gaming package or the desktop PC software plan with the mac app store, Github, downloads.com etc? It's a good question.

Stores like Gamestop could also start selling bandwidth in their stores. Need to download a patch or a game? They could sell you "50/100/250/500 GB" worth of patches/games for $5/10/15/25. Cheaper if you're a VIP member, maybe even give you set amount of bandwidth per month. They could even have a proxy server in the store that caches games and patches locally so you can download it at max speed to your device. Another way for them to sell another service when you buy a game or console. If you have a slow/expensive plan available to you or you only download games a few times per year it might make sense paying Gamestop, Target, Best buy, Starbucks once for bandwidth instead of paying your ISP every month. Could also work for offline digital 4K movie services like iTunes or Amazon.

Have you bought games from an Amazon, Steam, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo, Humblebundle during a digital sale? Head down to your local store and buy some bandwidth and download the games/patches really fast. Maybe pick up a physical game(don't forget to install and patch it before you leave) or a blu-ray while you're there.

The scenario where you have to pay extra for 4K streaming(maybe even on a per service basis i.e. a separate plan for Amazon/Apple/Netflix) must be pretty good for people selling Blu-rays and Blu-ray players. The Xbox One has a Blu-ray player. So it's both good and bad for Microsoft in a weird way. Their online service becomes less viable but their Blu-ray player becomes more valuable.

In a zero sum sense Nintendo also benefits from the repeal of net neutrality since their games are a lot smaller than their competitors.

Now, what about porn? How do they sell that package? As a "secret" part of the really big and expensive 4K video package?

I didn't realize how much different stuff on the internet you could charge for as an Internet Service Provider without net neutrality. Comcast, AT&T, Verizon are all going to make a lot of money.

@opusofthemagnum: I pay for a plan that gives me a certain speed, has no datacap and doesn't throttle sites. It works fine. That's not a basic right, it's a transaction between me as a customer and them as ISP. If they don't deliver, i switch ISP's. Sadly, that's not always feasible in the US.

Allowing ISP's to launch their own streaming service and making that more attractive than alternatives , through excluding it from a datacap, is also not as obvious as you make it sound. My ISP does have a video streaming site, which lets me watch TV channels on my PC. However, if i want to go directly to the TV-station's stream, i can do that as well. This means that if i want to watch a certain TV show, i can watch it live through 3 separate streaming platforms. I think all those alternatives innovating to provide the best option is way more natural than having to disregard all external options because the ISP has decided that only it's own player won't count against the data cap. Also, imagine how hard it would be to start a new product / service with a monthly fee while being at the mercy of multiple ISP's regarding the experience that the customers will actually get.

When the big players in the market make it unfeasible for newcomers to get their foot in the door, there's no natural development happening. Well, at least not one that gives customers a lot of choice. And when there's no choice to be made, there's less of an incentive to keep pushing the boundaries and provide better products.

So, what's the recourse when companies inevitably start doing this stuff? Changing companies isn't always an option. Not have Internet I guess? Brave new world we live in.

@themanwithnoplan: simply trust the billion dollar companies to not raise prices and screw consumers, which is totally a thing they wouldn't do ever

GOP just pushed through their tax scam. You can kiss net neutrality goodbye.

Losing rights is not inevitable. You can do something. Show up to a protest. Call your congressman. You don't need to wow the pants off the people seeing you do this. You just need to say you're against it, and stand there.

I sent my congressman a faxed letter and got a letter back detailing his stance on the matter - extremely pro-Net Neutrality in case you were curious - which was pretty nice. I mean...it was clearly a prefab letter he probably sent out to anyone who contacted him about Net Neutrality, but I still appreciated it.

This whole thing is just disheartening. Specifically, how many tech/internet-savvy people don't see to give a shit. Maybe I'm misinformed, but couldn't it's repeal really fuck with Youtube and Twitch? Not just costing both services more, but also impacting the viewers who visit those sites ultimately causing them to stop going there at all because no one wants to watch everything in choppy 480p. I dunno, I just figured I would see a much bigger pushback from these corners of the internet. If the entirety of your income is based off of people having easy access to you content, I dunno, I feel like you would want to help inform those people want they can do to make sure it stays that way.

I guess people aren't worried? They don't want to get too political? I just can't help but feel that if these changes do go through then suddenly all these quiet voices are going to give a shit and by then it'll be too late.

@opusofthemagnum: In what way does net neutrality lead to government control? The regulations are specifically to prevent giant corporations from controlling the information that people can access. It does not grant the government any sort of "control" over the internet.

People are skeptical of government. I get it. I am, too. I don't trust the government anymore than I trust Comcast, which is why I don't agree with turning the internet into a state-run utility, which I've seen a small number of people suggest. But net neutrality isn't "government control" of the internet, and to suggest or imply that it is--or that it gives government control of content on the internet--is patently false. It's an argument that has no bearing on reality.

Net neutrality regulations don't exist to regulate the internet itself. They exist to regulate the anti-competitive and anti-consumer behaviors of the corporations that provide internet access.

Net neutrality doesn't just protect consumers from throttling and blocking from ISPs, which has happened and continues to happen even after it passed in 2015. But it also protects the privacy and data of consumers from ISPs who want to sell it without consent, just to make more money.

Verizon and was caught collecting user data without consent and selling it to third parties to make money. They were fined $1.35 million under the Open Internet Transparency clause of net neutrality under Title II.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/7/11173010/verizon-supercookie-fine-1-3-million-fcc

AT&T was fined $100 million by the FCC after they were found throttling speeds under their unlimited data plan.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/17/8796575/att-fined-100-million-fcc-misleading-unlimited-data-throttling

This lawsuit against AT&T from the FCC violating the Open Internet Order caused AT&T to try to use loopholes in net neutrality to dismiss another lawsuit from the FTC.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2015/4/1/8325645/att-must-face-ftc-unlimited-data-lawsuit

Yes, the Internet was mostly fine before Title II net neutrality. But keep in mind, bandwidth usage and data proliferation wasn't as widespread. During the dial-up and DSL days, which accounts for a large portion of the Internet's existence, most traffic was from HTML webpages, text-based e-mails and chat, and exe and mp3 files ~5-10 MB in size.

Since the rise of peer to peer filesharing, video streaming, and large, multi-gigabyte downloading from digital video games and media, throttling has become more commonplace for ISPs to lessen the load on their servers, without having to resort to upgrading their infrastructure.

Also, these telecom companies also own content distributors, so in the age of competing streaming services like iTunes, Google Play, Hulu, and Netflix, it becomes advantageous to throttle the competition. Verizon has admitted to throttling Netflix. ISPs have done a scummy thing of getting the IPs from bandwidth testing sites like Speedtest, and not throttling those. So it appears as if speeds from ISPs aren't getting throttled. So in reaction, Netflix had to create its own speed test tool that obfuscates the speed test servers, so they can't be tracked and fast-laned by ISPs.

There's good reason to pick Fast over other speed tests, too. Service providers are well aware of certain popular testing sites, and they can optimize their network to perform better on those specific tests. That means the results you get could be inflated beyond what you're getting in day-to-day use. Fast, on the other hand, measures your connection to Netflix's servers. And while internet providers may well optimize for that, that's still going to be useful to a lot of people.

Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile had a mobile wallet program called ISIS. To prevent competition, Verizon blocked the use of Google Wallet on their networks.

Comcast was caught throttling peer to peer connections, and was fined $16 million in a class-action lawsuit. Because peer to peer is also used for lawful content. For example, the Battle.net client uses peer to peer to patch its games.

There are numerous other incidents of telecom companies stifling Internet content. Net neutrality helps give consumers the leverage they need to keep it a level playing field for all voices and businesses.

And if you think that the government is hampering the growth of broadband, the government actually allowed Verizon, AT&T, and CenturyLink to take out a tax on Americans to eventually have at least 30% of the US be fiber-ready by the year 2000. It's something that has costed Americans $400 billion, which all of it was supposed to be earmarked to eventually lay down and upgrade everyone to fiber. It's 2017 now, and those telecom companies are still taking out that tax, while the US is stagnating at 8% fiber penetration.

Sources:

Huffington Post

(old sources from 2005, when the cost to consumers from the tax was only $200 billion)

http://newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

http://muniwireless.com/2006/01/31/the-200-billion-broadband-scandal-aka-wheres-the-45mb-s-i-already-paid-for/

@tuxedocruise:Sorry for taking so long to respond. There hasn't been much of a reason to visit a site without content.

Thank you for the examples. They are cases of companies manipulating wireless service, but I understand the implication. Big ISPs are looking to make the most money, the big data content providers are looking to avoid paying for the access despite driving demand, while avoiding regulation themselves and the federal government just wants their cut & control.

The admission of the throttling of Netflix by Verizon is specious and wasn't caught by a governing body but the consumers and called out by the collective internet that noticed. Like the peer to peer example, that was a lawsuit brought by customers. The exchange of data between content providers, the intermediaries and ISPs is a complex thing and prioritization problems will continue to occur regardless. It is impossible to "treat all data the same". I don't find the concept of people whose data needs cause a higher demand paying more than my mother who never streams a video or downloads 100GB games, horrifying. If your activity requires higher prioritization which costs more to provide, why shouldn't you (or the content provider that gets advertising or subscriptions) pay for that?

It's not like ISPs didn't answer to the FTC prior to the 2015 legislation either. Business practices, including the collection of private data, were already under their purview. The case for why the FTC isn't a good enough watchdog hasn't been sufficiently made.

Simplifying the permit process for new ISPs, offering grants to start up companies and encouraging competitors to expand their coverage would do more for broadband access & cost than putting an archaic bureaucracy established to regulate the telegraph industry & terrestrial radio in charge of deciding which internet business practices are allowable to even explore.

If you are open to the arguments against Net Neutrality, of which there are more than we've discussed in this thread, I encourage you to read this.

I actuallydon't support it as well.

I've got a hot take: I agree with some aspects of Net Neutrality, but I disagree with Title II designation and think it stifles innovation.

It was only AT&T manipulating wireless services, the other companies I mentioned were manipulating wired cable Internet services. Regardless, Net Neutrality covers wireless data aswell, so it's not exempt from Net Neutrality.

The admission of the throttling of Netflix by Verizon is specious and wasn't caught by a governing body but the consumers and called out by the collective internet that noticed. Like the peer to peer example, that was a lawsuit brought by customers.

Net Neutrality isn't only a monitoring service from the FCC, it's a mandate that consumers can use to litigate against companies who violate it. It would be impossible for the FCC to monitor all web traffic and every single data connection in the US. This would be analogous to saying that since theft is illegal, there needs to be a police officer present in every single situation where theft is possible, which isn't feasible. Theft being illegal gives leverage for victims of theft to accuse the guilty and seek justice in court after a crime has been committed. Just like in the cases of consumers whistle-blowing Comcast and Verizon; those telecom companies acted unscrupulously, and mandates from the government allowed them to seek out justice. It doesn't matter if the consumer or the government catches it, if there is sufficient evidence of illegal activities, any judge would try case.

The exchange of data between content providers, the intermediaries and ISPs is a complex thing and prioritization problems will continue to occur regardless. It is impossible to "treat all data the same". I don't find the concept of people whose data needs cause a higher demand paying more than my mother who never streams a video or downloads 100GB games, horrifying. If your activity requires higher prioritization which costs more to provide, why shouldn't you (or the content provider that gets advertising or subscriptions) pay for that?

The telecom companies have already addressed this issue by forcing monthly data caps on consumers within the past few years. There's a difference between limiting bandwidth, and outright limiting the type of content a user has access to. Because data caps don't discriminate against what traffic it restricts, it's not violating Net Neutrality. But the issues myself and others are worried about are issues of restricting speed or outright blocking access to traffic based on the content of the traffic. Comcast and Verizon have already done this based on my previous sources.

It's not like ISPs didn't answer to the FTC prior to the 2015 legislation either. Business practices, including the collection of private data, were already under their purview. The case for why the FTC isn't a good enough watchdog hasn't been sufficiently made.

The FTC only protects consumers from deception from ISPs. Ajit Pai himself stated that the FTC would have no authority over ISPs because ISPs would be transparent about their practices. Which means ISPs can throttle, block, and charge for paid prioritization legally, as long as they make that known to the consumer. If your only options are horrible Internet plans if Net Neutrality is repealed, there would be nothing the FTC can do, as long as service providers tell you how horrible those plans are beforehand.

Again, Net Neutrality isn't just about Internet data, it's also about consumer privacy. The common carrier exemption makes most ISPs immune from suits from the FTC because those ISPs also provide telephone service. Quote from the Verge:

"…Because of a recent decision from a Federal Appeals Court in California, the FTC can’t prohibit the vast majority of ISPs from sharing or selling your personal information at all. That decision says that if a company provides a common carrier service, the FTC cannot enforce its laws against any of its services, even if they are non-common carrier services like video or online news. So ISPs that also provide mobile or fixed telephone service — which is pretty much all of them — would be completely exempt from FTC oversight."

There are already cases of the FTC having no jurisdiction over ISPs.

"The 9th Circuit determination that the common carrier exemption is status-based has serious implications for regulatory authority in the common carrier space – and beyond. ... Therefore, the ruling potentially creates a lacuna, a regulatory gap or loophole, where neither the FTC nor FCC can regulate a company."

-quote break-

Simplifying the permit process for new ISPs, offering grants to start up companies and encouraging competitors to expand their coverage would do more for broadband access & cost than putting an archaic bureaucracy established to regulate the telegraph industry & terrestrial radio in charge of deciding which internet business practices are allowable to even explore.

I'm all for making it easier for new companies introducing more competition to the monopolies and duopolies of most of the ISPs in America. I've had personal experiences with this issue, so my sources are entirely anecdotal for this case:

It's very hard for any new company to start an Internet service in a city that's had it for decades. A lot of it is due to local government, but those government regulations are mostly necessary. If a local city allows any ISP startup to come into their city and rip up the streets, it would create a logistical nightmare for everyone. Roads would be closed off for each company that wants to law down cables. Before any company is allowed to start digging up and laying down infrastructure, it must prove to the city that it has enough hardware and capital to start and finish the job. Otherwise you would have torn up roads and sidewalks forever because the corporation decided to abandon the project. The startup company would need to collaborate with city planners for water, sewage, and power lines to make sure diggers don't cut into any existing pipes. They also need to co-operate with CalTrans (my local traffic and road authority) to make sure commuters can still reach their destinations based on road closures.

All of this is expensive and time-consuming, but necessary. It's not government prohibiting for the sake of prohibiting. Any company is free to do what Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast have already done. But they need the capital and patience to do it. That's why Google Fiber is an established branch. Google is one of the very few companies that has the investment strength to do what is required to establish an infrastructure from the ground up.

If you are open to the arguments against Net Neutrality, of which there are more than we've discussed in this thread, I encourage you to read this.

The argument that Net Neutrality violations are rarely reported on, does not correlate to Net Neutrality violations rarely happening. Again, it's nigh-impossible for the FCC to monitor and police every single website, traffic exchange, and data download. Prior to 2015, the FTC had more jurisdictional power over ISPs. All of that shifted over to the FCC after the Title II reclassification. But with Ajit Pai's transparency clause, ISPs can freely choose any type of business behavior they wish. As long as ISPs tell you about it, the FTC cannot take any actions, no matter how anti-consumer it is. It also removes a lot of jurisdictional power from the FCC. Which means telecom companies are entirely free to dictate the type of service and environment the Internet will be.

Verizon, AT&T, and CenturyLink have already taken over $400 billion from Americans since 1991 to provide innovation through fiber optic connections. Yet, those telecom companies have pocketed all of that tax money with little-to-nothing to show for it.

I can't imagine there are many - or any - people who think "the internet" should be a state-run utility. What people usually want is for the the physical infrastructure to be a utility, since investment in that field is so expensive that the first mover tends to become a local monopolist. And if they aren't, competition in this field means a whole lot of wasteful digging and companies laying their own cables. The Stokab model in Stockholm is my preferred alternative, where one (municipal) company owns the passive physical infrastructure, but rents out fibre to all comers in a neutral manner.

This was the exact plan the US government had in 1991 when they made a tax deal with Verizon, AT&T, and CenturyLink.

Details from that plan:

• Starting in 1990s, (though it varies by state), this copper wire was supposed to be replaced with a fiber optic wire, which would allow for new innovative services, not to mention cable TV and video. And it was always supposed to be an upgrade of the state-based utility known as the “PSTN”, the “Public Switched Telephone Networks”.

• It was also supposed to be open to all manner of competition. You, the customer, would choose who offered you Internet, cable, broadband and even phone service over that wire.

Unfortunately that plan never came to fruition, and Americans are still paying for something they were never given.

This is very unlikely to happen. It's unconstitutional under the First Amendment of the US. The First Amendment is purely there to restrict the powers of the federal government, not to empower private companies or individuals. Now, you could argue that the FCC forcing corporations to not throttle or block Internet traffic is violating the First Amendment. But because the Internet is classified as a utility service, it's a gray area until a Supreme Court ruling.

Between choosing the government which cannot legally block or favor one type of data over another, versus corporations who are free to control all information if Net Neutrality is repealed, I'd rather go with the former.

Not really.

Nah, screw Net Neutrality...
I love the idea of greedy ISPs that have gotten caught with their hands in the cookie jar abusing their power and controlling the internet instead of the government just making sure they don't because I've been convinced any government regulation is bad.
I'm sure that Net Neutrality stifles competition and innovation even though they're on record saying it hasn't, and we all know giant corporations love having strong competition forcing them to spend more money and create better value for their customers!
I'm excited about the possibility of the internet changing for the worse, performance going down, and getting more expensive for not only me but smaller businesses of all kinds as well.
/s

@flatblack: Your Getting a extra App for free so this seems like a steal..... "BEST VALUE"

@flatblack:

While I agree Net Neutrality should be kept. I hate seeing this information spread around the internet because it is fake, and if people who are for revoking net neutrality see it, they can use this as "people who back net neutrality share fake news online."

Portugal is in the EU, which has Net Neutrality laws. The same as the other 27 member nations, including the UK (hey, that's where I'm from).

What that image shows is add-ons to an existing mobile usage tariff. In that example image you get 10gb of data allowance per month which will carry all data equally. When you buy one of the listed add-ons it means that the data for those services is not deducted from the 10gb allowance.

It's similar to T-mobile saying you get unlimited music and video streaming for mobile users (like this here), where T-mobile will not include apple music, spotify and soundclound etc in your data allowance.

I'm in favour of Net Neutrality but please don't share false information as I don't think it helps the cause.

I think that the people who don't support NN either don't actually know what it is or are outright lying.

Here's a simple example.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Internet provider A is owned by Parent company 1.

Parent company 1doesn't own Cbs (Giant Bomb), but does own (insert other gaming site)

Giant bomb is now slower (throttled) for you because they don't own it and want you to use their gaming site.

BUT, if you pay $5.00 extra a month you can get their "Gaming Media package and have Faster Lanes!" (This is another aspect Net Neutrality protects from - having your internet sold to you piece meal)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

So because you are subbed to Internet provider A (possibly out of regional necessity) your Giant Bomb connection could be intentionally made shittier. Net Neutrality keeps companies from doing this by basically making all web data safe and equal from these insidious practices.

They've been caught throttling speeds before. This linked case may not be the same situation I described above, but it's a blatant example of what happens when there are no clear rules in place.

@driveuplife The issue, for me, is that clearly these companies cannot be trusted. They literally bought out our government. I give it about a year of them "playing nice". No major changes. However, what they know is gradualism works well. Things will change and they are not looking to make the internet cheaper for you to access. They are looking for unbelievable amounts of profit. They aren't looking to provide a service, they are looking to be the only solution. Doesn't sound great for competition - in that it will virtually not exist.

Not lookin good for the home team heading into the big day.

Just sucks, we constantly have to constantly refight for our rights every single year.

I feel like that's a real problem in this country, that giant companies can endlessly retry to lobby and rewrite rules in their favor. figuring correctly, that they'll outlast the public's desire to fight.

Emailed and texted congress a few times, I feel like it didn't do shit cause I didn't get a response back, don't know what to do other than wait. I'm pretty sure my representatives are pro-net neutrality anyway.

Isn't this already a problem in Portugal?

I emailed both of my senators. One of them did respond with a stock message that he seems to be sending out to everyone that emails him about net neutrality - I know it's a stock message because I found a Reddit thread where someone said they had emailed the same senator and they copied and pasted the same email. The senator in question is anti net neutrality and supports Ajit Pai. I am pro net neutrality and am pretty sure that Ajit Pai is doing his former employer a massive favor.

The other senator has not responded to me at all.

@slag: Aye. Corruption is the true root of the problem and is the source for many others. Politicians in the lobbyists' pockets or that only think about their own pockets seldom make unbiased decisions. There was an anti-corruption act that was voted in by the people of South Dakota last year, but the republican politicians who were also voted in that year (and pretty much every election) put a stop to it by declaring a "state of emergency" and ended up removing the bill completely—effectively denying voters and ignoring election results. Until the push for anti-corruption laws and real changes happen, the weight of votes will continue to be overshadowed by corporate and political interests.

He has it right. The government screws everything up. The end.

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/washington-state-leaders-announce-first-kind-plan-defend-net-neutrality-constituents/

Internet companies may still need to comply with net neutrality standards if they want to do business in Washington state — even if the Obama-era regulations are repealed tomorrow.

Gov. Jay Inslee, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, and other officials announced a plan today to maintain standards in Washington that require internet providers to offer the same speed of service for all online content. The news comes on the eve of a vote by the Federal Communications Commission. It is expected to roll back regulations that prevent companies like Comcast and Verizon from throttling service to some content or creating a “fast lane” that customers can pay for.

If this becomes a state thing citizens might have to make a choice.

Fast, cheap internet or restrict women's rights. Pick one.

Anarchist huh? Well you do you, I suppose.

Yeah man, you're right. Comcast is totally trustworthy.

Just in case you needed more reasons to hate this walking dumpster fire of a human being:

Americans are really, truly bizarre.

pissing on your shoes to own the libs !

gl americans, at least those of you not brainwashed into thinking companies over people

Yep, the government does in fact screw everything up. Ajit Pai is currently trying to screw up net neutrality and it looks like he will succeed.

I just don't see how you can be anti-net neutrality unless you're one of the small handful of groups that might benefit from it - basically, telecommunications companies. I mean, you understand what net neutrality is, right? It's a government regulation stopping greedy corporations from finding even more ways to fuck over their consumers. Just because it's a regulation doesn't mean it stifles innovation and competition and whatever else Ajit Pai has said against net neutrality - for comparison, telephone companies were put under Title II classification in the 1930's. Now go look up all the stuff that Bell Labs accomplished over the next fifty years or so.

The FCC is currently streaming the meeting that will determine whether our internet gets fucked over.