Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

whitehouse.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 449 posts

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#21

Post by untog »

baldfat wrote: post #11

Have ZERO understanding how the Republicans are going to hold off on Anti-Net Neutrality. I am sure this is something that Libertarians will fight tooth and nail and well I would say over 12% of currently republicans labeled themselves as such. With 30 congressmen in the House Liberty Caucus things are not so easy for the G.O.P. I feel that there is a strong likely hood that G.O.P. will have a switch for Net Neutrali…

Why do you assume that Libertarians are pro-net neutrality? It's government regulation that limits what ISPs can do - hardly a free market philosophy.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#22

Post by noobermin »

yc1010 wrote: post #6

I am not American (feel free to ignore my opinion) but this is just a bad joke from someone who seems to be an utmost failure. Especially in light of last week FBI/NSA/DHS undermining TOR and killing its utility for any dissidents and free speech in authoritarian states. Under his watch the surveillance state has expanded and has become downright creepy 25 years after the fall of the Berlin wall we should be saying "…

At least give him credit for doing one right thing, I think that's fair.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#23

Post by CognitiveLens »

tjaerv wrote: post #15

Because that worked so well with the phone companies.

Obama's statement isn't quite as limp as the article title implied: "I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization"

This isn't a request to "set up a committee to explore regulation ideas and form lobby groups from all stakeholders" - it sounds more like "I want to pass laws AND create an enforcement structure for those laws".

Ambitious and probably overly optimistic, but it's a good perspective from the top.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#24

Post by antocv »

AndrewHampton wrote: post #9

Here's the thing that bothers me the most about a lot of the talk about net neutrality by government officials: > If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. Specifically "and the content is legal" is what raises a flag for me. I've seen similar phrases in nearly everything I've read coming from any government official regarding net ne…

Which is the whole point of net-neutrality, that ISPs must not accountable for what flows through the network, or to block "illegal" messages.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#25

Post by nkozyra »

yc1010 wrote: post #6

I am not American (feel free to ignore my opinion) but this is just a bad joke from someone who seems to be an utmost failure. Especially in light of last week FBI/NSA/DHS undermining TOR and killing its utility for any dissidents and free speech in authoritarian states. Under his watch the surveillance state has expanded and has become downright creepy 25 years after the fall of the Berlin wall we should be saying "…

It's entirely possible that the notions of surveillance (and the egregious examples of that which have come from the top-down in this country) and net neutrality can be evaluated independently of each other, particularly because they are dissonant concepts.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#26

Post by rlpb »

It seems to me that introducing net neutrality law is a band-aid over what is really just monopolistic behaviour because last-mile providers don't have competition.

Why not fix the root cause? Force last-mile providers to provide transit to third party ISPs like they do in the UK, or otherwise regulate them specifically.

I don't see why rules should apply across the board to markets where there is healthy competition. There is no problem elsewhere, is there?

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#27

Post by couchand »

AndrewHampton wrote: post #9

Here's the thing that bothers me the most about a lot of the talk about net neutrality by government officials: > If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. Specifically "and the content is legal" is what raises a flag for me. I've seen similar phrases in nearly everything I've read coming from any government official regarding net ne…

It's a pretty massive stretch to go from "ISPs are permitted to block illegal traffic" to "ISPs are required to perform deep-packet inspection to ensure the legality of all traffic they carry".

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#28

Post by Shivetya »

xpose2000 wrote: post #18
yc1010 wrote: post #6

I am not American (feel free to ignore my opinion) but this is just a bad joke from someone who seems to be an utmost failure. Especially in light of last week FBI/NSA/DHS undermining TOR and killing its utility for any dissidents and free speech in authoritarian states. Under his watch the surveillance state has expanded and has become downright creepy 25 years after the fall of the Berlin wall we should be saying "…

I'm not sure where you are going with this. Classifying the internet as a utility is a huge step towards net neutrality. This is what we want.

however it is quite possible it will encumber providers and such with all sorts of new rules, forced compliance, etc.

Forced compliance, as in "You are a utility and all such utilities must comply with NSA/CIA/FBI/ABC requirements"

Maybe they will be brand it under some title like "Internet Bill of Rights" and watch as people don't read the fine print.

All I know is, if I waited for the regulated utility known as the phone company to have provided me with faster internet, let alone a good phone connection during a thunderstorm, it would never have happened without competition.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#30

Post by mpweiher »

sejje wrote: post #19

This headline is in such stark contrast to the other, which reads "President Obama calls for a free and open internet." Which reads more like the actual intent? Edit: The two submissions got merged, so my comment is now outdated.

They are the same thing: in order to protect net neutrality (the free and open internet), you need strong regulation, it doesn't happen by itself.
Post reply on HN