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The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

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Re: The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

#11

Post by scelerat »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #8

I think the author has it a bit wrong. If the KKK decides they want to try to prevent African Americans from visiting their website, that doesn't really have anything to do with network neutrality. The relevant network neutrality issue is: Your ISP oversubscribes its peering link to the wider internet, so people in your ISP's service area who visit the NAACP's website to watch a video of a speech by a civil rights le…

Ok, thought exercise. Comcast's owner decides that he doesn't like the KKK or any anti-semitic group. And Comcast starts charging them extra, or throttling their traffic or blocking them outright. Should they be allowed to?

Re: The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

#12

Post by omgitstom »

The only way content providers can emulate the restriction of data carriers net neutrality abuses is to get more content providers on board.

This needs larger scope to have an impact. Get a bunch of content providers to throttle all of DC. Have a banner to display on all websites:

'Accessing from DC? Yea it is slow. This is the world without net neutrality if we were unable to pay data carriers for a fast lane. Save the internet, act now @ ____. '

Re: The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

#13

Post by kaonashi »

naturalethic wrote: post #7

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." Good luck with government regulation of your network.

You realize the entire internet was fostered along from its infancy by that very government.

I think the takeaway is that good government is good, bad government is bad. I'm not sure why this is so difficult.

Re: The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

#14

Post by tzs »

scelerat wrote: post #11
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #8

I think the author has it a bit wrong. If the KKK decides they want to try to prevent African Americans from visiting their website, that doesn't really have anything to do with network neutrality. The relevant network neutrality issue is: Your ISP oversubscribes its peering link to the wider internet, so people in your ISP's service area who visit the NAACP's website to watch a video of a speech by a civil rights le…

Ok, thought exercise. Comcast's owner decides that he doesn't like the KKK or any anti-semitic group. And Comcast starts charging them extra, or throttling their traffic or blocking them outright. Should they be allowed to?

Under the FCC proposal, Comcast would not be allowed to throttle or block the KKK.

Re: The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

#15

Post by HannoverFiste »

techwatching wrote: post #3

You know what communicated the perils of Net Brutality to me? Images like this one: http://www.ohgizmo.com/2009/10/29/net-neutrality-what-it-cou... Websites being reduced to cable-like add ons. Just terrible. Edit: I followed the chain of blog spam attribution all the way back to the original source of the Net Neutrality graphic: http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/9yj1f/heres_a_new_scen... Edit2: Another similar e…

It's even worse than that. Cable companies have to pay a portion of that add-on fee to the channels for their content. In this case of (not) throttling bandwidth, the ISPs are keeping all of the fees since you're not paying for the content, just access to it.

Re: The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

#16

Post by AnthonyMouse »

scelerat wrote: post #11
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #8

I think the author has it a bit wrong. If the KKK decides they want to try to prevent African Americans from visiting their website, that doesn't really have anything to do with network neutrality. The relevant network neutrality issue is: Your ISP oversubscribes its peering link to the wider internet, so people in your ISP's service area who visit the NAACP's website to watch a video of a speech by a civil rights le…

Ok, thought exercise. Comcast's owner decides that he doesn't like the KKK or any anti-semitic group. And Comcast starts charging them extra, or throttling their traffic or blocking them outright. Should they be allowed to?

> Ok, thought exercise. Comcast's owner decides that he doesn't like the KKK or any anti-semitic group. And Comcast starts charging them extra, or throttling their traffic or blocking them outright. Should they be allowed to?

No, for the same reasons that the government shouldn't be allowed to.

Try a different thought experiment. It's 1910 and the government regulates the operation of printing presses such that only one press is operated in each state. Should the government be able to set out regulations with that result and then give the press operator carte blanche to choose whose words can be printed? Should you care whether the thing they're refusing to print is from the KKK or the NAACP?

Re: The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

#17

Post by naturalethic »

kaonashi wrote: post #13
naturalethic wrote: post #7

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." Good luck with government regulation of your network.

You realize the entire internet was fostered along from its infancy by that very government. I think the takeaway is that good government is good, bad government is bad. I'm not sure why this is so difficult.

That is true, however it does not follow that the government was necessary to create it. "Good" government is "bad" if you believe monopolies are "bad".

Re: The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

#18

Post by naturalethic »

scelerat wrote: post #10
naturalethic wrote: post #7

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." Good luck with government regulation of your network.

I'm not sure what you're getting at... I can at the very least vote for the people who are writing laws and making policy. The people, via democratic government, have (theoretically) some influence on how the network is to be administered and regulated. If rules are left to the whims of a single monopoly or a small oligopoly of network providers, the only options are "take it" or "leave it."

The government is a monopoly. The network providers that currently hold monopolies only do so due to government protection. When it comes to the government itself, the only option is "take it", so that's even worse.

Re: The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

#19

Post by kaonashi »

naturalethic wrote: post #17
kaonashi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize the entire internet was fostered along from its infancy by that very government. I think the takeaway is that good government is good, bad government is bad. I'm not sure why this is so difficult.

That is true, however it does not follow that the government was necessary to create it. "Good" government is "bad" if you believe monopolies are "bad".

> "Good" government is "bad" if you believe monopolies are "bad".

It sounds like there's some loanable funds thinking lurking behind that statement.

Re: The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

#20

Post by naturalethic »

kaonashi wrote: post #19
naturalethic wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true, however it does not follow that the government was necessary to create it. "Good" government is "bad" if you believe monopolies are "bad".

> "Good" government is "bad" if you believe monopolies are "bad". It sounds like there's some loanable funds thinking lurking behind that statement.

Can you explain? I'm not familiar with "loanable funds thinking"
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