Live data from Hacker News

FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

nytimes.com

521–530 of 598 posts

Re: FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

#521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the Chevron decision empowers agencies to make rules independent of Congress in cases where the rules don't already exist or are unclear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura... . Unsurprisingly, Kavanaugh and the rest of the conservatives would prefer this approach be relegated to history. Of course, the areas of particular interest that he cites as examples (securities e.g, finance, comm…

It seems to me that the Chevron doctrine has essentially created a fourth branch of government with minimal democratic oversight. It feels like an end run around the constitution. In many cases the agencies exercise legislative, executive, and judicial powers all at the same time.

Congress, in its current state is a sclerotic body barely capable of doing routine committee work that doesn't even rise to the level of passing laws.

They had their chance...and failed spectacularly.

Re: FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

#522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the Chevron decision empowers agencies to make rules independent of Congress in cases where the rules don't already exist or are unclear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura... . Unsurprisingly, Kavanaugh and the rest of the conservatives would prefer this approach be relegated to history. Of course, the areas of particular interest that he cites as examples (securities e.g, finance, comm…

Also gun laws. Any firearm enthusiast can tell you how inconsistent and incoherent various ATF rulings and determinations have been.

You lost me at "firearm enthusiast."

Try again when US gun laws look more like Japan's -- including an assault weapons ban.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/asia/japan-gun-laws-abe-shoot...

Re: FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

#524
post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably because none of the hysterics or doomsday propaganda actually came to pass.

The doomsday "propaganda" didn't come to pass because several states and localities promptly passed their own net neutrality laws after it was deregulated at the federal level. The larger ISPs couldn't find a workable way to implement their non-neutral bullshit in some markets but not others, and the local ISPs in places with no net neutrality laws never really had enough clout to do crappy things in the first place.

So the FCC Net Neutrality is inconsequential.

Re: FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

#525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably because none of the hysterics or doomsday propaganda actually came to pass.

Hm. I would encourage a different, less intense angle here. It’s possible the doomsday didn’t come to pass because a lot of passionate people worked very hard to make sure we avoided it.

If passion can be used instead of policy, I'm for it.

Re: FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

#526

I'm fully in support of net neutrality, but I'm somewhat surprised they're restoring it, as I have not really heard a peep about it since it was repealed in the first place. From my perspective, nothing about the internet changed since then (my experience did not upgrade or downgrade). People stopped talking about it, there weren't major protests, news about it even largely disappeared from the front page of HN (!).…

It feels like everyone has short memories. Net neutrality abuse did indeed happen, a few notable incidents,

— Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile slowed down YouTube + Netflix traffic. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-04/youtube-a...

— Verizon throttles so much that the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s ability to provide emergency services during the California wildfires. "The fire department experienced slowed down speeds on their devices and had to sign up for a new, expensive plan before speeds were restored." https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttle...

— CenturyLink blocked content to insert their ads, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/centurylink-bloc...

Claiming that nothing happened is false. A lot did happen. A lot of people have been fighting very hard to preserve internet access and the internet has been degraded.

Re: FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

#527
post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The doomsday "propaganda" didn't come to pass because several states and localities promptly passed their own net neutrality laws after it was deregulated at the federal level. The larger ISPs couldn't find a workable way to implement their non-neutral bullshit in some markets but not others, and the local ISPs in places with no net neutrality laws never really had enough clout to do crappy things in the first place.

So the FCC Net Neutrality is inconsequential.

Localities experimented with a policy, a federal agency agreed with the outcome of the policy, so the agency adopted the policy.

It's a functional example of letting states be experimentation grounds for policy.

Could you explain what makes this process "inconsequential"?

Re: FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

#528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw you can set their router to bridge mode and use your own. It is probably still doing some traffic analysis but certainly no ad injection. This is what I do to get unlimited data without paying their exorbitant standalone fee.

The parent post misses the main reason they sell these. It's not for the ad injection but because they broadcast a Wi-Fi hotspot that you cannot turn off, which shares your internet connection.

So what? You don't find it useful to be able to use Wifi in more places if you have an Xfinity login?

Re: FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

#529

I'm fully in support of net neutrality, but I'm somewhat surprised they're restoring it, as I have not really heard a peep about it since it was repealed in the first place. From my perspective, nothing about the internet changed since then (my experience did not upgrade or downgrade). People stopped talking about it, there weren't major protests, news about it even largely disappeared from the front page of HN (!).…

It feels like everyone has short memories. Net neutrality abuse did indeed happen, a few notable incidents, — Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile slowed down YouTube + Netflix traffic. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-04/youtube-a... — Verizon throttles so much that the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s ability to provide emergency services during the California wildfires. "The fire department experienced s…

From that firefighter article:

> Even when net neutrality rules were in place, all major carriers imposed some form of throttling on unlimited plans when customers used more than a certain amount of data. They argued that it was allowed under the rules' exception for "reasonable network management." But while such throttling is generally applied only during times of network congestion, the Santa Clara Fire Department says it was throttled at all times once the device in question went over a 25GB monthly threshold.

> Even if Verizon's throttling didn't technically violate the no-throttling rule, Santa Clara could have complained to the FCC under the now-removed net neutrality system, which allowed Internet users to file complaints about any unjust or unreasonable prices and practices. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's decision to deregulate the broadband industry eliminated that complaint option and also limited consumers' rights to sue Internet providers over unjust or unreasonable behavior.

Soft caps for "unlimited" plans and content-neutral QoS don't seem like net neutrality violations as I understand it. If they started slowing down one internet service while allowing another on the same plan to run at full speed, that would be another story.

Re: FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

#530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, the right to free speech is not a right to commit fraud or slander against another. If it were, society would fall into catastrophic disarray. Fraud and slander are not illegal purely on the basis of content of the speech used to conduct the activities. A sufficiently culpable and provable malicious intent must also exist. It's not fraud or slander to state an opinion one sincerely believes in, and obt…

> Fraud and slander are not illegal purely on the basis of content of the speech used to conduct the activities. A sufficiently culpable and provable malicious intent must also exist. Now point me to where the first amendment says "except in cases where a sufficiently culpable and provable malicious intent also exists". It doesn't say that. It makes no concessions and imposes no bounds itself on the right to declare…

I think you just said: these are contradictory, and then you did a cognitive dissonance to avoid that conclusion by saying but it's fine, because I want to build society.

But the "Anti-Free/Speech Anti-1A ideas = building society" is just a fallacy that have been assumed.

Here, it's even admitted: "It states the complete and universal right without any caveats whatsoever,". then you do the dissonance dance because you don't like that very much.

Our founding fathers should have included a list of definitions (and a list of definitions to those definitions...), but they probably didn't realize how catty their future generations would be, or how much they like being oppressed because it makes them feel safe.

Post reply on HN