Please, I implore you all to take a few minutes to understand and defend net neutrality, it is crucial.
Take the initiative to make yourself heard now before it’s too late.
https://netneutrality.internetassociation.org/action/
Short video of “What is Net Neutrality” - 3min
Well, not really important to me, as I’m not in the US…
But good luck to you guys overseas.
It affects everyone who utilizes internet in the long term despite it only currently occurring within the United States. Should this pass, it would pave the way for mass corporations to make a trend of this type of ideology whereas internet should become something ISP’s can and will control.
Even if it doesn’t include you now, it will later, should no one stand against this type of malicious practice when it truly matters.
Again, I implore you to stay informed in this matter despite not living or being associated with the United States.
So without me watching the videos here at work…what the quick version of whats happening?
Can someone quickly summarize this? I am too lazy to watch the video.
ISP providers are wanting to change the way internet is accessed…right now they’re like the water company…they can only provide the service. they’re wanting to change it to where it’s more like cable packages, where you either have to pay a premium to access certain websites or where they can cause major slowdown on others. Like imageine if your ISP had a deal with a rival to Netflix…they could limit download speed to Netflix making it basically useless so you would have to go to their preferred site instead.
During the Obama administration they made a few laws securing net neutrality, but now that the FCC head is a money grubbing jack@ss he’s looking to reverse it and let ISPs decide what websites they can promote and restrict.
OH NO!!! That cant happen! it all needs to be one service, 1 deal. UHhhh…Im so sick of the world and how things are being run when it comes to house hold type utilities and services.
Indeed, and think what it would do to on the commercial side of things as well…Imagine Steam making a deal with ISPs to put a priority on their services over Xbox and Playstation, which get throttled back to the point that multiplayer on either is a thing of the past…unless Sony or MS pay out and make the ISP an even more lucrative deal…it’s nothing but bad news for everyone involved aside from the ones lining their pockets.
USA, the land of freedom… if you’re willing to pay for it.
Or if you can afford it…
There is no freedom in the U.S, there are privileges.
Great summation. This is such an oily issue. Verizon, Comcast and others are putting a TON of lobbying money in to this, in case anyone’s wondering why our government and its officials would do such thing (not that anyone should be surprised by the reason, I’m just stating it).
Some of you may love John Oliver and some of you may hate him, but on this issue, it’s really not a democrat or republican / liberal or conservative thing. Not at all. This is basically a large corporation or the entire rest of the population of the United States thing.
So regardless of your opinion on Oliver or his politics, I’d encourage you to watch this video, which he injects with a little humor at times, but this kinda lets you know who the players are, what’s happening, why, and why it’s important.
To get to the point of his video:
you can go to www.gofccyourself.com hit “express” on the 17-108 result, and leave a comment saying that you specifically support strong net neutrality backed by Title II oversight of ISPs.
You know what? Today you can feel free to keep your anti-American jingoism to yourself. You guys have free broadband in whatever Nordic country with a population less than NYC that you’re holed up in? Then shut up. I’m tired of hearing about how awful America is from people who don’t know anything. Without the USA there’s no internet, no Google, no Netflix. If we want to fight about who pays for what in our country then that’s our business and not anything for you to be smug about. You are all just brainwashed by your own politicians and plutocrats who continually distract from their own failings by pointing at us.
Like any and all political topics, “net neutrality” is not so simple as is being made out. Companies that produce incredibly high bandwidth services like Netflix don’t want to do anything to support the infrastructure that allows their services to exist. So when everyone in America starts streaming Netflix at 7 pm expecting 20 Mbps streams in clear 1080p (or 4k) and the networks are clogged up, no one complains about bad Netflix. They just complain about bad ISPs who then have to add billions of dollars worth of infrastructure just to support the bandwidth necessary to keep everyone happy for those two hours a night, and then sit idle for the rest of the day. Is that “fair?” It doesn’t sound fair to me. The statistics are incredible. Netflix is responsible for an outrageous percentage of the network traffic in the US, on networks to which they contribute nothing.
And of course the ISPs are ■■■■■■■■ too. They charge for speed of service and then never deliver on that speed and use every trick they can to ■■■■■ you out if service. And they WILL throttle your speed and already offer favorable data limits to their own services on mobile. So they can be counted on to act like money grubbing douches and if they are able to hold monopoly on service then they will raise rates as high as they can. But Netflix and Google are also money grubbing douches who are just engaged in this press campaign to make sure that every penny they earn stays with them. so let’s not pretend that this is a battle of evil corporations against the justice league. It’s a battle of corporations against other corporations doing exactly what they should be doing - trying to make money.
Meanwhile, it’s the FCC and government regulators who created the monopoly of cable companies in the first place. People love their cable company right? One of the underlying issues that Netflix isn’t talking about is just what authority the FCC has to regulate the internet. If they can tell ISPs what do do in regard to internet traffic then they are "saving " you from an internet governed by evil corporations and giving you an internet governed by government regulators who have a checkered history. This is the regulatory body that kept television restricted to three major networks for decades, then regulated cable into regional monopolies, has allowed radio to become more or less two giant corporations etc. So yeah. Be careful what you wish for.
Keep in mind that the internet as we know it was born, blossomed and grew into what it is today without any regulation by the FCC. None. It was only in 2015 (two years ago) that they started regulation of ISPs under an authority that is ancient and original intended to apply to telephone service (which notably the FCC allowed to become a monopoly in the form of AT&T, then instead of fixing it broke it into smaller regional monopolies that provided worse service for more money). Did you all notice your service suddenly improving in 2015?
Unsurprisingly, in all the places where there are multiple ISPs, speeds are high and prices are low. In places where there is no competition, speeds are crap and service is lousy. A MUCH better solution for true “net neutrality” is not for the FCC to start interfering with the kind of service ISPs can and can’t provide but instead to foster an environment where ISPs are competing so if one is throttling Netflix consumers have the choice to actually leave and move to another service that doesn’t.
Nothing in life is free and as much as I would love to say ■■■■■ you Comcast” people should at least take the time to truly understand the legal issue before they jump on the bandwagon with a bunch of gigantic corporations pretending to wear white hats.
Edit: @Iago407 I actually really like John Oliver. But I really don’t think it’s a great idea for people to watch a video of a comedian (on HBO) and think that this is all they need to know to be informed on the subject.
Edit2: just because I can never let these things go, here’s an example. Oliver points to ISPs blocking google wallet in favor of their own service as a real life example if ISPs ■■■■■■■ up the internet if allowed to. But all of these service providers have since allowed Google wallet - for reasons that have nothing to do with FCC regulation. So sure, this is an example of the kind of bad ISP behavior people don’t want, but it’s highly disingenuous to suggest we need FCC regulation to fix that when we DID fix it without FCC regulation.
You’re taking my statement and blowing it out of proportion. I’m not wrong though. And you said it yourself, nothing in life is free, but point is, your little slogan there “the land of freedom” is just proven time and time again that it isn’t so… unless you have the money to afford it.
And issues like this current one is just another example of it.
No, it’s not free here either, but at the same time we don’t pretend for it to be.
And I’m also not saying the US is awful. I was merely pointing out one thing.
…hmm, didn’t think about it that way. Thanks for bringing the other side of the coin to light. 
This is not our slogan. It’s a line in the national anthem and it is in fact true “the land of the free.” It’s proven over and over again to be true. People are free to work hard and try to build a life for themselves. And I’m not blowing it out of proportion - this isn’t the first time you’ve made a similar statement. No one in this thread said anything at all about the land of the free except you. And you keep offering the same nonsense “it’s only free if you can afford it.” The implication being that somehow true “freedom” is linked to everyone being able to get everything they want without doing anything to earn it. That’s not what “freedom” is. Your comment is a completely non sequitur cheap shot that has no sensible meaning or relationship to the thread. I don’t care if you hate the US. Just keep it to yourself.
Crap like this won’t stop. They’ve tried again and again to pass things like this.
At this point, it’s just a battle of attrition. It’s good that people are fighting this but the fact that bills like this get this far says a lot.
Not true, but more importantly once again, here’s a non-sequitur attack on the US from nowhere, from someone who only knows about what he sees on TV. I don’t need to argue with you about the status of the American Dream. I’m not asking you to defend or apologize for the racist immigration policies of Scandanavia, the number of Neo-■■■■■ you have or attacking the myth of Scandinavian socialism. Because it has nothing to do with net neutrality. All I’m asking is for you to keep your bull ■■■■ to yourself.