Net Neutrality

[Scot_Lover 1,876]

Hey

This is about to go through congress in the USA, and the Internet will belong to Cable Internet companies. Comcast is one of them. Funny how you can have Freedom of Speech, but not Freedom of The Internet.

The same thing happened in Hungary over the weekend, 100,000 people protested the changes the Government was making and guess what? ........ The whole plan was scrapped, how many Governments do a complete back down ?

Anyway, what's this going to do to small companies who will not be able to afford the bandwidth?

Even Google with all it's clout and money lobbied against this, and nothing was done.

This is a sad day for the Internet

[steve25805 126,021]

The thing is that governments everywhere - including the supposedly "democratic" ones - hate true freedom of speech. They hate there to be any narrative that they themselves cannot direct or influence or control, or have their suporters in the commentariat do so for them.

Freedom of speech and freedom of expression on the internet - and the ability it gives to almost everybody who is connected to say what they want to say unfiltered by the media or the politicians, has always been something they've felt threatened by. Democracy as it has evolved in western societies has always been about keeping the elites in power and wealth, and serving the interests primarily of the political and economic Establishments, by having sufficient control of the narrative to convince the majority of the electorate that the interests of those in control are also our interests.

Free speech beyond their control on the internet has always potentially been the gravest threat to that as it gives everyone an equal voice and a means to be heard. Of course, this very freedom on the internet itself provides governments with the potential trojan horses needed to attack it's freedom. Because bad people say bad things on it and show bad things being done. So we start to hear legislation proposals regarding how this should be controlled or that should be censored. But what they are really after is to regain control of the narrative so they can all tell us what to think again. Stopping little Johnnie or Joanne from seeing videos of sick fucks screwing dogs, or sicker fucks beheading people, or people peddling hate against this group or that, is used as an excuse to call for tighter legislation. But it is just an excuse, a convenient trojan horse. Regaining control of the narrative is the real aim.

[likesToLick 10,216]

I don't understand. Is this some kind of law to prevent Net Neutrality? Why would they need that? American ISPs are abusing their privileges by throttling the bandwidth of competing services. They don't need a law to do that. They do it already.

The Net Neutrality debate is about passing a law to keep the internet open and free, preventing the big corporations from locking it down.

[likesToLick 10,216]

OK I just looked it up. It is indeed an ANTI net neutrality law, designed to PREVENT net neutrality by allowing the big ISPs to charge extra to companies that compete with their own offerings.

It will probably become law, since the US congress is now controlled by the Republicans, who are very much in favor of this sort of corporate repression of freedom.

[Scot_Lover 1,876]

Yeah, looks like this is going ahead, about 30 min ago my time, I got an email indicating the FCC is going to kill net neutrality.

[Scot_Lover 1,876]

Sanity Rules !!!!!!!

President Obama has stepped in, and effectively killed this. Email I received today shown below.

After months of intense public pressure, the second largest online protest in history, and millions of emails and phone calls, President Obama just released an incredibly strong statement calling for the FCC to protect net neutrality using full Title II reclassification. [1]

Finally, phew.

[likesToLick 10,216]

Good to hear. If a hostile congress still puts the legislation through, then hopefully he will veto it.