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Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality

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Re: Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality

#81

Post by xenophonf »

EpiphanyMachine wrote: post #2

The system seems broken when states representing more than 50% of the population have to sue in court to try to change something like this. Instead with that much backing it should be done through the legislative branch. I'm concerned about the growing use of courts to try to decide policies because our legislative bodies can't work together and instead just try to force one sided issues through or block each other.…

The system's not broken. If that many people in that many states really want net neutrality legislation, then they should advocate for that within the House of Representatives, who are our direct representatives at the federal level. The Presidency is designed to have broad national appeal---across rural and urban states, large and small states---so it's not enough that a minority of attorneys-general want regulatory change.

Re: Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality

#82

Post by Retric »

sbjs wrote: post #77
EpiphanyMachine wrote: post #2

The system seems broken when states representing more than 50% of the population have to sue in court to try to change something like this. Instead with that much backing it should be done through the legislative branch. I'm concerned about the growing use of courts to try to decide policies because our legislative bodies can't work together and instead just try to force one sided issues through or block each other.…

[Comment redacted for being not well thought out and more cynical and less positive than I'd like to be]

Either you are not keeping up or have a lot of bias because the government makes a lot of changes every year and you will presumably agree with many of them.

EX: While many people hate it, Obama Care got rid of the preexisting condition exception on health insurance. Which was a major issue for many people.

Now you personally might not like that change, but that suggests you should like it when it's removed.

Re: Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality

#83

Post by kevin_b_er »

nulbyte wrote: post #59
pc86 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the current situation (lack of net neutrality) simply the lack of a law or is it a law or regulation? If the former, the states can enact their own net neutrality legislation. However, if the latter, the federal law or regulation takes precedence and the states cannot override it.

The current situation is a mess. The FCC derives its power to regulate telecommunications from the Congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. However, the FCC believes it is limited to interstate telecommunications—when it suits them. They refused to defend their own price caps on intrastate prison calls because it was not a matter of interstate commerce. However, despite this, they purport the reclassifica…

It is not mind-boggling because your logic is oriented toward things like law or service to the public. The logic is Greed. Price caps would interfere with price gouging prisoners. Net neutrality would interfere with price gouging both content providers and their own customers stuck in monopolies or duopolies. Both are "follow the money" cases. The Party will always argue in favor of greed and whatever suits the rich and powerful. They will invent whatever motive suits the goal of greed.

Re: Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality

#84

Post by gxs »

EpiphanyMachine wrote: post #2

The system seems broken when states representing more than 50% of the population have to sue in court to try to change something like this. Instead with that much backing it should be done through the legislative branch. I'm concerned about the growing use of courts to try to decide policies because our legislative bodies can't work together and instead just try to force one sided issues through or block each other.…

It's the flip side to preventing what they called "Tyranny of the Majority", if my freshman polisci memory from many moons ago is accurate.

Imagine a scenario where the states wanted to make abortion illegal. We would want that decision scrutinized vs making a change to the law simply because a majority wanted it.

Re: Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality

#85

Post by User23 »

I haven’t noticed any change in my Internet connectivity since so-called net neutrality regulations were rolled back. That said, the fears of a single party dictating what you can and can’t see on the Internet are not just clear, they’re present. How many net neutrality supporters stood up for Alex Jones? Or say anything about shadow bans on Twitter, Facebook, and Google search results based on organizational capriciousness?

Net neutrality is just another example of a regulatory capture competition between the old telcos and the new masters of the Internet. The massive PR spending alone is proof. See Paul Graham’s article[1] for a better explanation than I can give here.

Interestingly the authentic left has the answer: Publicly owned corporations, universities, and perhaps other mainly local institutions providing network connectivity are the real antifragile solution to the problem net neutrality regulations claim to address.

[1]http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Re: Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality

#87

Post by jonafato »

jtuente wrote: post #72
nulbyte wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like legislators, attorneys general represent "the people," not just those who voted for them, and that is the case even if no one voted for them. (As an interesting side-note, there are a few states whose attorneys general is governor-appointed and even one whose attorney general is appointed by the state's Supreme Court.) I believe the point being made was that it has been too difficult to get Congress to act on re…

> study concluding that 8 in 10 Americans disapproved of the FCC's handling of net neutrality. Disapproved about which part of its handling on the issue though? Did they disapprove of it being instated or revoked? Or the timeline on which either occurred? Or did they disagree with FCC shoehorning it with regulations written for telephones?

Not OP, but I think they're referring to this story [0] about a survey conducted by the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland. The results showed 83% opposition to repealing the existing net neutrality regulations. A lot of the coverage around this topic makes it out to be a partisan issue, but all of the research shows strong support for net neutrality regulations across the board.

[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/13...

Re: Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality

#88

Post by chimeracoder »

narrator wrote: post #45
justinzollars wrote: post #40

I would like to see Twitter, Google, CloudFlare and Facebook classified as public utilities. While Alex Jones is a nut case (And shouldn't be defended), other less publicized incidents of censorship by Social Media companies has occurred (related to picking winners between Israel and Palestine) [1]. While I am a Democrat who has been elected in the past, I agree with the conservative argument that: Corporate censorsh…

The argument against net neutrality that I like the best is that net neutrality takes power away from the regulated telecom monopolies, which are more firmly under government control and scrutiny, and gives it to the tech multinationals who are much more loosely regulated. The tech multinationals are more and more acting a lot like governments with their coordinated content policies, so it's more about giving power b…

> The argument against net neutrality that I like the best is that net neutrality takes power away from the regulated telecom monopolies,

This argument makes no sense. ISP monopolies are almost completely unregulated. It's not like Time Warner Cable (now Spectrum) is regulated and subject to the kind of oversight that Con Edison is.

Re: Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality

#89

Post by danjoc »

EpiphanyMachine wrote: post #2

The system seems broken when states representing more than 50% of the population have to sue in court to try to change something like this. Instead with that much backing it should be done through the legislative branch. I'm concerned about the growing use of courts to try to decide policies because our legislative bodies can't work together and instead just try to force one sided issues through or block each other.…

>The system seems broken when

When it does stuff you disagree with personally. That's a pretty universal feeling. While you may get plenty of internet points from your friends that agree with you, you have to realize, you are the one with the unpopular opinion this time.

>50% of the population

Counting illegals. 22 states isn't 50% either. This is the "not my president" argument all over again.

The people won. ISPs won. FAANG lost. It's time FAANG pays their share for video streaming bandwidth. It's not like they don't have plenty of money parked in offshore banks to cover the gap. This is just a tactic for them to sow more division and hope for a favorable future election outcome. Pretty disturbing to watch actually if you agree with Ajit Pai and internet freedom.

Re: Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality

#90

Post by deadmik3 »

_bxg1 wrote: post #76
corerius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that I have more choice between ISPs than in auction sites, as an example. The tendency towards monopoly in networks makes all these cases similar I think.

Most people have exactly one choice of ISP. If you're lucky, there might be a second one with the same price and 1/10 the speed. Whereas I could go build an auction site myself if I really wanted to. Scaling a business takes work, but the power of software is that it requires no material resources to get started. Laying fiber is not only immensely expensive in and of itself, but ISP's have also lobbied to stack the d…

I think the amount of effort and traction you'd get from trying to launch your own auction site to compete with eBay would be about equal to getting a couple shovels and burying some cat5 around your neighborhood to compete with comcast
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