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Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

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Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#111

Post by adventured »

komali2 wrote: post #80
mabbo wrote: post #19

If Google were actually serious about Net Neutrality, they would use their insane market power to protect it. How? Well, a simple statement saying "any ISP who abuses net neutrality will have their customers cut off from Google products". No Google search, no YouTube, no Gmail. Have those requests instead redirect to a website telling the customer what their ISP is doing, why Google won't work with them, and how to c…

I love this idea because I read too much cyberpunk. Why doesn't Twitter flex its muscle and cause a national crisis by tweeting "watch out China, nukes are coming" from Donald Trump's Twitter? That ruins trust in the platform, but what if they just banned the US president's account for TOS or something? Enormous amount of power. What if Musk's first ship to Mars had a hidden Railgun on it? "Anybody else that wants to…

> but what if they just banned the US president's account for TOS or something

Because the US Government has terrifying amounts of power and can be very spiteful.

Their ability to easily intimidate corporations has been demonstrated time and time again. See: NSA v tech, Qwest, broad anti-trust powers (which have nothing to do with monopoly and everything to do with subjective definitions), SEC, FTC, FCC, national security powers, executive orders, and the list goes for days.

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#112

Post by drdaeman »

kuldeep_kap wrote: post #29
throwawaycuz wrote: post #15

Serious question, could someone please educate me. 1) How is Net Neutrality different from a slippery slope to communism? 2) During the President Obama years, my ISP in the U.S. offered 3 different tiers of service at 3 different prices. How is that pure "net neutrality"? (this was similar to the situation where in the U.S., rich lefty-liberals don't send their kids to public schools... but want poor conservatives to…

Net neutrality is about getting exactly what you pay for. For example if you pay for 100MBps connection you should get 100Mbps regardless of any site you access. You don't want your ISP to decide that Netflix would stream on 20Mbps and Comcast would stream at 100Mbps. This gives us unfair advantages to certain sites which is beyond your control. Worse yet ISP can police which sites you can visit which not with absenc…

> if you pay for 100MBps connection you should get 100Mbps regardless of any site you access

I'm sorry, but the Internets just don't work that way.

The only way to get guaranteed 100Mbps when crossing a few AS borders', is to have bandwidth SLAs all the way. Which is - as far as I understand it (could be mistaken) - about the opposite of what Net Neutrality proponents seem to stand for.

ISPs can guarantee (or, at least, try to provide) you a certain quality of service within their network, as they have full control over it. They can also try poke their direct peers (whom they have agreements with) to do something if the problem is at some neighboring AS. They can also try to politely ask other systems (hoping they would care to help). But that's about it.

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#113

Post by adventured »

tdb7893 wrote: post #57
mabbo wrote: post #19

If Google were actually serious about Net Neutrality, they would use their insane market power to protect it. How? Well, a simple statement saying "any ISP who abuses net neutrality will have their customers cut off from Google products". No Google search, no YouTube, no Gmail. Have those requests instead redirect to a website telling the customer what their ISP is doing, why Google won't work with them, and how to c…

Wouldn't that both be horrible for business and also run them into major anti-trust issues?

It would instantly bring on the full power of the US Government, which can do almost anything it wants to to a corporation through dozens of nasty approaches. I'm shocked at the naivety in this thread after what we just witnessed with the NSA v tech companies.

Suddenly Google is facing a fine 10x larger than what the EU just threw at them (after all, look at the business % ratio regarding markets over the last decade, the majority of their business has been in the US), and a dozen agencies begin pursuing them on a variety of issues.

The government can do anything it wants to to Google at any time it wants to do it. They have enough methods, they can make Google's existence absolute hell.

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#114

Post by [deleted] »

333c wrote: post #93
mnm1 wrote: post #13

Sorry Google (and FB, Amazon, etc.) this doesn't actually count as taking action. Not even a single link on their home page. An obscure post on a blog won't do shit. Let's stop pretending that you want net neutrality, Google, et al. Day of action my fucking ass.

Seriously! I went to Google's homepage to check how they did their Doodle for net neutrality, only to discover a Doodle entirely unrelated to the topic. I'm on a slow-ish connection, so each panel took a little while to load, and I thought that the load times were a feature of the Doodle at first. Nope. They have no mention of it today.

[deleted]

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#115

Post by BinaryIdiot »

adventured wrote: post #111
komali2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this idea because I read too much cyberpunk. Why doesn't Twitter flex its muscle and cause a national crisis by tweeting "watch out China, nukes are coming" from Donald Trump's Twitter? That ruins trust in the platform, but what if they just banned the US president's account for TOS or something? Enormous amount of power. What if Musk's first ship to Mars had a hidden Railgun on it? "Anybody else that wants to…

> but what if they just banned the US president's account for TOS or something Because the US Government has terrifying amounts of power and can be very spiteful. Their ability to easily intimidate corporations has been demonstrated time and time again. See: NSA v tech, Qwest, broad anti-trust powers (which have nothing to do with monopoly and everything to do with subjective definitions), SEC, FTC, FCC, national sec…

I think parent's overall point is that the private sector has amassed quite a lot of power that could overstep / bypass the government entirely. It's not outside the realm of possibility that a team of rogue people in one or more social companies could literally trigger a war or worse.

It wasn't about one specific, small example but the big picture. Since these companies care about profit and the people running the companies likely care about their lives I'd imagine much of this wouldn't ever happen but it's all technically possible which, compared to where we were say 20 years ago, is just absolutely amazing in every sense of the word.

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#116

Post by Old_Thrashbarg »

clarkevans wrote: post #108
mnm1 wrote: post #13

Sorry Google (and FB, Amazon, etc.) this doesn't actually count as taking action. Not even a single link on their home page. An obscure post on a blog won't do shit. Let's stop pretending that you want net neutrality, Google, et al. Day of action my fucking ass.

Indeed. With prior threats I seem to remember Google having some sort of front-page search page link to the issue. Perhaps I'm not remembering correctly? Why no Google search page love? I was at least expecting what is currently at https://duckduckgo.com/

Right, shame on Google. Even DuckDuckGo's action is extremely mild, but better than nothing at all.

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#117

Post by amelius »

code777777 wrote: post #41
ambicapter wrote: post #6

This has been the weakest day of action I could imagine. I thought sites were going to be throttled. Turns out its just some color changes and, oh, reddit has a fancy "slow-loading" gif for their website name. A real wake-up call!

I think we need a new term and perhaps a visceral, easily understandable metaphor. Common Joe just doesn't get it or know what we're talking about. He instantly gets "death panel" or "fake news." But net neutrality sounds like something fuzzy almost benign.

Perhaps the "corporate internet"?

At least it has a negative connotation to it, while "net neutrality" has not.

I'm guessing it is easier for people to oppose something, than to support something. Opposing something feels more urgent.

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#119

Post by boona »

ambicapter wrote: post #6

This has been the weakest day of action I could imagine. I thought sites were going to be throttled. Turns out its just some color changes and, oh, reddit has a fancy "slow-loading" gif for their website name. A real wake-up call!

Don't you find it weird that businesses have to fake that it's an issue by adding gimmicks to their sites like the slow loading gif? Maybe if it become an actual instantiated issue in the future we could expect a real grassroots movement, but as is, the arguments are mostly academic and it's hard to rally people around that.

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#120

Post by adventured »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #115
adventured wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but what if they just banned the US president's account for TOS or something Because the US Government has terrifying amounts of power and can be very spiteful. Their ability to easily intimidate corporations has been demonstrated time and time again. See: NSA v tech, Qwest, broad anti-trust powers (which have nothing to do with monopoly and everything to do with subjective definitions), SEC, FTC, FCC, national sec…

I think parent's overall point is that the private sector has amassed quite a lot of power that could overstep / bypass the government entirely. It's not outside the realm of possibility that a team of rogue people in one or more social companies could literally trigger a war or worse. It wasn't about one specific, small example but the big picture. Since these companies care about profit and the people running the c…

> the private sector has amassed quite a lot of power that could overstep / bypass the government entirely

I understand and that's a fantasy at best, which was my point. The US Government is radically more powerful than any corporation inside of its domain. It's not even remotely close. They're more powerful than every corporation in the US combined.

The moment they send federal agents to shut down Google HQ (even if it's just for a day) and begin arresting people on terrorism charges (doesn't matter if any of it sticks, they never have to stop coming), specifically targeting management, and then walking them through & out of the buildings in handcuffs - Google instantly capitulates as their stock collapses by 20% in one day. And that's the easiest of moves the Feds can make, that's a trivial demonstration of their power to intimidate.

Then the IRS begins pursuing any exec they want to. They can do horrific things to anyone at any time, even if it doesn't stick long-term it still makes your life hell - and they never have to stop coming.

Then x y z, forever, paying their bills with your tax dollars and the infinite fiat machine.

Their initial efforts don't work? They change the laws tomorrow to give themselves a new sharp stick. They only really need one really nasty stick, and they have dozens already.

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