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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

#221

Post by toast_coder »

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.…

Did that premise matter to you when a majority of californians voted to ban gay marriage? Did you jump up and say 'the system is broken'. I really doubt it.

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

#224

Post by openasocket »

paulddraper wrote: post #213
openasocket wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the NY filing for more complete information about their arguments ( https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/nn_govt_petitioners_br... ). But the short answer is that the FCC is being accused of violating the Administrative Procedures Act. The APA was created in response to the growth of government agencies tasked with creating regulations, essentially to curb the power of bureaucrats. Agencies are required to…

> they have to look at all available evidence and actually come up with an argument for why the change needs to happen based on that evidence. Make sense. Proving this seems like it would be an enormously uphill battle. It would have to be an unambiguously wrong decision on the part of the FCC. (Otherwise, the court essentially becomes the FCC by upholding/overturning any "wrong" decision.) Given that it only became…

Remember that the FCC has to explicitly provide their reasoning for making their decision. Those bringing this suit don't have to prove that not having NN is egregiously wrong, they just have to prove that the reasoning the FCC gave is egregiously faulty. It is a difficult battle, but not as hard as you might think.

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

#225

Post by zo1 »

delinka wrote: post #46
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…

What makes these companies "public utilities" as opposed to others? I don't need Twitter in my life. Nor Google. Definitely not Facebook. And maybe lots of web sites use CloudFlare, but consumers don't interact directly with them. Maybe applying common carrier status is something that's more palatable, but classifying them as "public utilities" doesn't have to be the mechanism by which CC is applied.

Personally, I'd apply a completely different property/rule on them. If they're open to the public, and they're used for debate/dissemination of data to willing individuals, then they are not allowed to restrict any speech that doesn't violate any existing laws.

That still leaves plenty of room for the removal/censorship of violent videos, copyright-violating videos, and content with outright calls to violence. Honestly, I've seen a ridiculous amount of the above three examples on all platforms to come to the conclusion that it's both impossible to police such content properly, and that the attempts at classifying content with political speech under the same umbrella is just silencing/censorship rather than it just being a matter of consistency.

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

#226

Post by genericid »

peterwwillis wrote: post #61
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.…

I came here to say the opposite. The states are doing what they can to limit damaging actions by the federal government. This is the system working for the people. Without the ability or interest from the states to push back against the federal government's decrees, we would be stuck with an authoritarian nation. Currently, trying to pass meaningful legislation is like trying to squeeze a watermelon through a pinhole…

How about "it's the fallback system working for the people"?

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

#227

Post by jadell »

phkahler wrote: post #152
peterwwillis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say the opposite. The states are doing what they can to limit damaging actions by the federal government. This is the system working for the people. Without the ability or interest from the states to push back against the federal government's decrees, we would be stuck with an authoritarian nation. Currently, trying to pass meaningful legislation is like trying to squeeze a watermelon through a pinhole…

>> The states are doing what they can to limit damaging actions by the federal government. I wonder how many of those states made laws forbidding or working against municipal broadband.

It does not surprise me in the least that the executive branch of a state (which includes the AG's office) is supporting net neutrality at the federal level while the legislative is passing state-level laws to hamstring it.

I live in one of these states with bans on municipal broadband, NC. The relationship between our Republican super-majority General Assembly and our Democrat governor is completely dysfunctional, and our districts are so gerrymandered that we, the people, can't fix it. Republicans in the GA have been calling special sessions all summer to override the governor's vetoes. The GA recently put several state constitutional amendments up for referendum in November, aimed squarely at stripping the governor of more powers (something no one ever mentioned during our last Republican governor's term.) This is not going to change any time soon (see: gerrymandering.)

Our AG suing the fed is literally our only option to block most of the madness happening at the federal level (until the Supreme court rules on partisan gerrymandering,) because our legislative branch no longer works for the people, they simply push party and lobbyist agendas at all costs.

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

#228

Post by tzs »

danjoc wrote: post #219
tzs wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's time FAANG pays their share for video streaming bandwidth They do pay their share. In general, when party X and party Y communicate on the internet, they both pay a service provide (their ISP) for a connection to the internet backbone. That payment to their ISP fully pays for the costs of the data X and Y send to or receive from the internet (or their ISP won't stay in business for long). What you are calling…

The ISP paid for the network. They have the right to do what they want with it. That's internet freedom. The government has no business telling me how to run my personal network. It has no business telling ISPs how to run theirs. On top of it all, FAANG are direct competitors eroding those ISPs' cable tv business in most cases. So it's not just a matter of the government telling the ISPs how to run their network, it'…

What you keep overlooking is that FAANG are fully paying the ISPs whose bandwidth they use.

When I choose to watch, say, an Amazon Prime video that uses 3 GB of bandwidth Amazon uses 3 GB of Amazon's ISP's bandwidth to deliver that stream to the internet backbone.

The various internet backbone providers pass that data through the backbone, according to peering agreements they have made among themselves, on financial terms they have agreed to among themselves.

The backbone delivers the data to my ISP. From there my ISP uses 3 GB of bandwidth to deliver the data to me. That 3 GB of bandwidth is bandwidth I paid for. I pay my ISP something like $100/month in exchange for 1000 GB of bandwidth to be used that month.

Amazon is not using any of my ISPs bandwidth. I am using my bandwidth, which I bought from my ISP, to receive data from Amazon.

The only bandwidth that Amazon is using when I watch a Prime video is the bandwidth of Amazon's ISP, which Amazon's ISP charges them for.

> On top of it all, FAANG are direct competitors eroding those ISPs' cable tv business in most cases.

One can run a content provision business without running an ISP, and one can run and ISP without running a content business. That some ISPs are also content providers is not really relevant to the question of how internet should be regulated.

> So it's not just a matter of the government telling the ISPs how to run their network, it's the government picking a winner.

You've got that backwards. Net neutrality stops ISPs that are also content providers from using a tying arrangement to prevent normal market forces from choosing the most efficient way to provide content.

Question: how come I've never seen the people against net neutrality trying to repeal "telephone neutrality"?

For example, suppose you pick up your phone and try to call a local pizza joint to order delivery. Do you think you phone company should be allowed to make a deal with Domino's where Domino's pays the local phone company and the local phone company won't put through calls to non-Domino's pizza joints?

Or suppose the phone company also owns a restaurant. Should they be allowed to refuse to let you call restaurants other than theirs unless those restaurants pay your phone company. Assume the restaurants' are on a different phone system than the one you use.

Both of those things are illegal on the phone system, and have been so far a long time.

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

#229

Post by zaphar »

travmatt wrote: post #119
monocasa wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that, due to gerrymandering, the ratios of our federal representatives don't match the ratios of the population.

Even more egregious is the proportioned delegates within the electoral college.

While it is possible that the electoral college needs improvement or replacement, any proposals along those lines should be sure to address the dangers of pure majority rule. While imperfect the electoral college is meant to be a way to mitigate that failures mode of democracy.

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

#230

Post by moorhosj »

fein wrote: post #220
_dczq wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

==The Marsh case handles a scenario in which a private company controlled the public space.== and acted as a de-facto government by providing fire, police and other services typically provided by governments. Twitter is not similar, as multiple people have already mentioned. ==Trumps twitter, for example, was ruled as a public resource and therefore he couldn't block users from his feed.== His personal Twitter feed i…

> No, because they are very different, as explained by justice.gov [1]. Then please explain to me individuals like Sarah Jeong being outwardly racist yet a member of the blue check cadre. There is clearly a double standard here, and you seem to be in the grouping of individuals that appreciate the oppression when it suits your own interests.

Now we have moved the goalposts from banning people to giving blue checks. I'm not even sure what stance you are arguing anymore. One more time, Twitter is not the government.

Mike Cernovich is outwardly racist and has a blue check, what's your point? Are you applying a double standard?

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