Goodbye Interwebs. So long, glad to know ye...

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Goodbye Interwebs. So long, glad to know ye...

Postby Grizzly » Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:23 am

Image



They'll get it ALL ...
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
User avatar
Grizzly
 
Posts: 4722
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:15 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Goodbye Interwebs. So long, glad to know ye...

Postby 82_28 » Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:44 am

FCC Plan To Use Thanksgiving To 'Hide' Its Attack On Net Neutrality Vastly Underestimates The Looming Backlash

Numerous reports have indicated that the FCC intends to try and hide its attack on net neutrality behind the looming Thanksgiving holiday. The agency is expected to either unveil its formal plan on Wednesday while Americans are distracted by holiday preparations, or potentially on Friday, while Americans are busy shopping for black Friday bargains. Regardless of when it's unveiled, the announcement will involve unveiling a formal date to vote to finally kill the rules, currently expected to be December 15:

"It's a devilishly brilliant plan by the FCC and its chairman, Ajit Pai, who has made no secret of his wish to undo the benchmark rules put in place during Barack Obama's presidency. There will inevitably be plenty of people already enjoying their holiday break, and any major coverage on Wednesday will then be lost to a day of turkey, gravy, football, and indigestion, followed by three more days in which people won't be looking at the news."


Except this obfuscation plan isn't "devilishly brilliant," it's a massive underestimation of the brutal backlash awaiting the broadband industry and its myopic water carriers. Survey after survey (including those conducted by the cable industry itself) have found net neutrality has broad, bipartisan support. The plan is even unpopular among the traditional Trump trolls over at 4chan /pol/ that spent the last week drinking onion juice. It's a mammoth turd of a proposal, and outside of the color guard at the lead of the telecom industry's sockpuppet parade -- the majority of informed Americans know it.

Net neutrality has been a fifteen year fight to protect the very health of the internet itself from predatory duopolists like Comcast. Killing it isn't something you can hide behind the green bean amandine, and it's not a small scandal you can bury via the late Friday news dump. This effort is, by absolutely any measure, little more than a grotesque hand out to one of the least competitive -- and most disliked -- industries in America. Trying to obfuscate this reality via the holidays doesn't change that. Neither does giving the plan an Orwellian name like "Restoring Internet Freedom."

It's abundantly clear that if the FCC and supporters were truly proud of what they were doing, they wouldn't feel the need to try and hide it. If this was an FCC that actually wanted to have a candid, useful public conversation about rolling back net neutrality, it wouldn't be actively encouraging fraud and abuse of the agency's comment system. To date, the entire proceeding has been little more than a glorified, giant middle finger to the public at large, filled with scandal and misinformation. And the public at large -- across partisan aisles -- is very much aware of that fact.

Consumers, small businesses, and those interested in keeping the internet open, healthy and competitive will remember this severe of a shafting. It's going to inform policy conversations and voting decisions (especially among Millennials) for years to come. This isn't something that can be hidden between the cranberry sauce and Grandpa Jones' corn bake surprise, and the fact that Ajit Pai's staff thinks that's even possible highlights how absurdly out of touch the current FCC actually is.

Many people obviously believed that the net neutrality conversation was over when the FCC crafted the 2015 rules, and that they could subsequently tune out because the fight had been won.

But net neutrality isn't a conversation that begins or ends when rules are created or destroyed. Since net neutrality is just a symptom of the disease that is a lack of broadband competition, this is a battle that will persist for as long as said lack of broadband competition exists, and for as long as companies like Comcast attempt to abuse it. With Pai at the helm, that's certainly not changing anytime soon. In fact, with the gutting of privacy protections, net neutrality rules, and a blind federal and state eye turned toward cable's growing monopoly over broadband, it's going to get notably worse.

Supporters of net neutrality also need to understand that the broadband industry's assault on net neutrality is a two-phase plan. Phase one is having an unelected bureaucrat like Ajit Pai play bad cop with his vote to dismantle the rules. Phase two will be to gather support for a net neutrality law that professes to be a "long-standing solution to this tiresome debate." In reality, this law will be written by ISP lobbyists themselves as an attempt to codify federal apathy on this subject into law. These weaker protections will be designed to be so loophole-filled as to effectively be useless, preventing the FCC from revisiting the subject down the road. A solution that isn't -- for a problem they themselves created.

It's understandable that the public and press is tired of this debate after fifteen years. But instead of hand wringing and apathy, we should be placing the blame for this endless hamster wheel at the feet of those responsible for it: Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Charter, and the army of lawmakers, economists, fauxcademics, and other hired policy tendrils willing to sell out the health of the internet -- and genuinely competitive markets -- for a little extra holiday cash. Folks that honestly believe they can lie repeatedly with zero repercussion, and hide a giant middle finger behind the gluten-free stuffing and Aunt Martha's cardboard-esque pumpkin pie.

Make no mistake: net neutrality is likely a permanent battle against telecom duopolists with a vested interest in abusing a lack of broadband competition. It's a battle for a healthy, open internet, truly competitive markets, and the right to innovate without Comcast, Verizon or AT&T interference. The decision to ignore the will of the public and kill existing, popular net neutrality rules is going to pour napalm on that fire, not extinguish it.


https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171 ... lash.shtml

For the time being, do what you must. A good place to start is here:

https://www.battleforthenet.com/

There is also this that I signed in July (it goes straight to the FCC. John Oliver set it up as a redirect):

http://gofccyourself.com/
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
User avatar
82_28
 
Posts: 11194
Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:34 am
Location: North of Queen Anne
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Goodbye Interwebs. So long, glad to know ye...

Postby 82_28 » Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:24 pm

I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality

By Jessica Rosenworcel
Nov 22, 2017 | 4:10 PM

Right now, you can go online and connect with friends, watch videos and read the news. There's a good chance you are reading this online right now.

We do much more on the internet than consume content, however. Increasingly, the internet is also where we create. We use online platforms and digital services to develop, share and spread ideas around the corner and around the globe.

This is the open internet experience we all know, and it's a big part of why America's internet economy is the envy of the world.

But this week, the leadership at the Federal Communications Commission put forth a plan to gut the foundation of this openness. They have proposed to end net neutrality, and they are trying to force a vote on their plan on Dec. 14.

It's a lousy idea. And it deserves a heated response from the millions of Americans who work and create online every day.

Net neutrality is the right to go where you want and do what you want on the internet without your broadband provider getting in the way. It means your broadband provider can't block websites, throttle services or charge you premiums if you want to reach certain online content.

Proponents of wiping out these rules think that by allowing broadband providers more control and the ability to charge for premium access, it will spur investment. This is a dubious proposition.

Wiping out net neutrality would have big consequences. Without it, your broadband provider could carve internet access into fast and slow lanes, favoring the traffic of online platforms that have made special payments and consigning all others to a bumpy road. Your provider would have the power to choose which voices online to amplify and which to censor. The move could affect everything online, including the connections we make and the communities we create.

This is not the internet experience we know today. Americans should prevent the plan from becoming the law of the land.

There is something not right about a few unelected FCC officials making such vast determinations about the future of the internet. I'm not alone in thinking this. More than 22 million people have filed comments with the agency. They overwhelmingly want the FCC to preserve and protect net neutrality.

At the same time, there are real questions about who filed some of the net neutrality comments with the FCC. There are credible allegations that many of the comments were submitted by bots and others using the names of deceased people. What's more, some 50,000 recent consumer complaints appear to have gone missing.

As he announced this week, New York Atty. Gen. Eric Schneiderman has been investigating these apparently fake comments for six months. The Government Accountability Office is also looking into how a denial-of-service attack may have prevented people from getting their thoughts into the official record.

In short, this is a mess. If the idea behind the plan is bad, the process for commenting on it has been even worse.

Before my fellow FCC members vote to dismantle net neutrality, they need to get out from behind their desks and computers and speak to the public directly. The FCC needs to hold hearings around the country to get a better sense of how the public feels about the proposal.

When they do this, they will likely find that, outside of a cadre of high-paid lobbyists and lawyers in Washington, there isn't a constituency that likes this proposal. In fact, the FCC will probably discover that they have angered the public and caused them to question just whom the agency works for.

I think the FCC needs to work for the public, and therefore that this proposal needs to be slowed down and eventually stopped. In the time before the agency votes, anyone who agrees should do something old-fashioned: Make a ruckus.

Reach out to the rest of the FCC now. Tell them they can't take away internet openness without a fight.

Jessica Rosenworcel is a member of the Federal Communications Commission.


http://beta.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/l ... story.html
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
User avatar
82_28
 
Posts: 11194
Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:34 am
Location: North of Queen Anne
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Goodbye Interwebs. So long, glad to know ye...

Postby Grizzly » Thu Nov 23, 2017 12:54 am

Image
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
User avatar
Grizzly
 
Posts: 4722
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:15 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Goodbye Interwebs. So long, glad to know ye...

Postby Elvis » Thu Nov 23, 2017 4:16 am

Did you send it?
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
User avatar
Elvis
 
Posts: 7411
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:24 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)


Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 41 guests