Net Neutrality (It's important folks)

I do want people to get informed, start a discussion (like those in the video I posted), and see all the sides there are to this topic. You are providing some good info as well, and please keep that up so people can see your perspective too, getting in as much info as possible so they can take their own stand on where they… well, stand, on this topic.

I’m not a millennial and I don’t hate corporations, but I do believe that people should be free to make their own choice. Where I stand and what my opinion is shouldn’t colour other people’s opinions. When I say “Get informed”, I don’t mean “Do what I say!”. What I want is for people to go out there and look for the information and get the facts down themselves, and not just take what other people say as the given truth. And then join the discussion.

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Fair enough.

I would just posit for a moment that no nation on earth functions through “direct democracy,” where every citizen is expected to vote and majority rules in every issue. The reason is obvious. Everyone who works for a living doesn’t have time to know everything.

I’m not encouraging ignorance. But we are being pressed by partisans constantly to pick a “side” on every issue no matter how big or small, whether it affects us personally or not, and then DEMAND that our voices be heard. Everyone is stressed out. I actually don’t think I have a huge stake in net neutrality. For some people this might be their big issue. And that’s great. But everyone is being constantly bombarded by social media calls to action on stuff based on misleading or inaccurate information. It drives me nuts (because I’m a bit obsessive about at least arguing over reality), and it’s making people have nervous breakdowns over stuff that doesn’t actually impact them all that much. Just because it’s important to someone with an Internet bullhorn.

There’s no discourse or discussion of anything anymore. It’s just rage and panic and heartburn.

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Look. Whatever comes from this, it’s not going to be the doom and gloom that everyone thinks it will be. We will always find a way around it. Plus, it’s not as bad as people think.

As for you @BigBadAndy . You can talk about it and inform people, but please do it with a neutral and clear head ok? :slight_smile:

@MandrillManiac No worries dude. Head high ok?

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@MandrillManiac
I AM GONNA MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER AND YOU ARE GONNA LIKE IT

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Got a letter from one of my state representatives:

"Thank you for contacting me regarding net neutrality and federal regulation of the Internet. I appreciate your views on this important subject and welcome the opportunity to respond.

As you know, net neutrality is the concept that the federal government should issue rules and regulations that require all legal content found on the Internet to be treated equally. That means streaming video services can’t pay more to secure more bandwidth and faster speeds for their customers. It also means Internet Service Providers (ISP) can’t slow down the service of customers using large amounts of bandwidth to watch movies or play video games in favor of customers who check their email and browse the Internet. This idea is worth serious thought and debate. However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) action on this issue under former President Obama went far beyond equal treatment of content.

In October 2017, new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced the repeal of Title II regulations. This will return internet regulations to their pre-2015 state. Before 2015, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had the broad authority to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive practices and during that time ISPs were not blocking access to websites.

The FTC can pursue and prosecute unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent business practices which prohibit companies from selling consumers one product or service but providing them with something different. If an ISP fails to disclose blocking, throttling, or other actions that would matter to a consumer, the FTC’s deception authority would apply. I believe this authority can properly hold providers accountable without placing unnecessary regulations on the private sector. I will closely monitor this recent ruling by the FCC and keep your thoughts and concerns in mind should any such legislation come to the House floor for consideration.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. If I can be of any further assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to contact me or visit my website…""

I’m with you in spirit. But I’m a bit offended that you would single me out as the only one with an obligation to remain neutral.

I’m swearing off the thread for the umpteenth time. I keep getting sucked into these things when I could be watching monster hunter videos.

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That was definitely not my intention, and I’m sorry if I came across that way. I meant it in a positive way. Politics and things like this can get people a bit heated, so I just wanted to chime in. Sorry for the misunderstanding. :slight_smile:

I’ve actually stopped watching and playing Monster Hunter, wanting to be surprised come January. :+1:

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I wanna apologize for my meltdown last night…

It was childish and unprofessional…

I’m not gonna ask for a “thanks for understanding”… But I just wanna say I’m sorry…

It’s just been a crazy few weeks.

@BigBadAndy @TheNinjaOstrich @Fwufikins @anon39655210 @R1stormrider

Well, as your name is MandrillManiac, we should expect a meltdown every now and then. :slight_smile:

We’re all human beings, getting sad, angry, stressed, even to the point of depression, happens to the best of us. Though all we see is just text on a screen, there are people behind them writing it… I hope you’ll be well and won’t be so discouraged by this entire situation.

-huggles-

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My brother is the same. He’s on a “blackout policy.” I seriously have not been this excited for a game release since KI was announced. And no worries man. On review I could definitely use to back off.

@MandrillManiac please don’t apologize. Fortunately for all of us this is not a professional environment. I did not mean to be a ■■■■ either. Everyone here knows you are a good guy and I don’t think I’m out of line to say that no one here is upset with you - we just hope you are okay and get a chance to relax.

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Too soon but I’ll let it slide for now.

Thanks friend… This all reads true…

It just depends on how we react to our problems that define who we are…

Thank you andy… It just happened to be what you said that tipped the final table…

No grudges though ok? I can’t do those lol

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gulp… I just got memed… :scream: :smiley:

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I don’t know if I’m even using it right… :confused:

Well that was interesting… nice way to start my work day LOL

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that memes gonna cost an extra 10 bucks on all of us for loading it on our browsers lol, imagine that? a new form of trolling may be born haha

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I think the hard part here for many people, myself included, is that there’s SO MUCH information and misinformation about this issue floating around.

Comcast says that “we support bipartisan congressional action to permanently preserve and solidify net neutrality for consumers and end the cycle of regulatory ping pong.” But does an average twitter user have any idea what Comcast is saying here or what they actually want? Wasn’t Comcast in favor of ending net neutrality to begin with?

Then I see Donald Trump Jr. openly mocking the outrage over net neutrality’s repeal, saying that he’d pay money to a complainer that can actually explain the issue in detail.

That that, someone responded with "prior to the proliferation of high speed internet, there wasn’t much need to enforce neutrality, and once it became prevalent in the early '00s the FCC assumed ISPs would largely avoid discriminating among traffic. Well, that wasn’t the case, but the methods of doing so were pretty rudimentary by today’s sandards and streaming services weren’t a big part of the type of traffic they carried.

When Obama took office, his FCC decided it would take regulatory action to prevent this from happening, so they put in place the Open Internet Order of 2010 which among other things prevented ISPs from discriminating among traffic. The ISPs sued, saying the FCC didn’t have the right to regulate them because they were not classified as common carriers and a court agreed.

So in 2015, the FCC classified them as common carriers. Now it’s 2017 and the FCC wants to give these ISPs the right to discriminate among web traffic. Now, you might say that the 2015 rule stifles competition and decreases investment. Well, I’d say that the physical backbone of the Internet (which the ISPs run) really should be treated as a public good, as we do with telephone infrastructure.

Not only for the liberal do-gooder reasons that you probably don’t care about, but also because it’s vital to the flow of commerce. Software and ecommerce companies have grown based on the expectation that traffic would be treated fairly. Now Comcast or Verizon or Time Warner might try to extort them. Think about the millions of people who work for software, ecommerce or other technology companies. Livelihoods depend on cable companies treating them fairly. Anyway, you’re a ■■■■■■■ moron."


So… Here we have what appears to be a well reasoned, well nuanced explanation of the issue. But do we think that people’s livelihoods are really at stake here? Can the people that could potentially be adversely affected by the FCC’s net neutrality repeal afford to assume that ISPs will treat them the way they had in the past before the Obama administration came in with the intention of preemptively preventing traffic discrimination?

It sounds absurd to think that ISPs would be allowed to legally extort, from the small businesses up to the Google’s of the world, and yet people seem legitimately scared by this, not simply because they’re told by so many to be scared (though that’s part of it, I’m sure), but because it genuinely feels like there are stakes here, with massive stakeholders on either side and the rest of us caught in the middle.

The ISP side seems to talk about the need for freedom from government over regulation, but from what I’ve seen in the news over the last several years, the more power people and corporations tend to have, the more they tend to abuse it to our detriment. So if these ISPs decide to make changes that could harm consumers, how long before the uprising over those changes ends and those changes simply become the new, begrudgingly accepted normal?

Do we freak out over a future that hasn’t come to pass? Why are several states suing if this is a non-issue, or is this just a lot of political grandstanding?

So yeah, people want to become informed about it, but so many sources seem biased in one direction or another and it’s hard to tell what’s a fact that should be concerning, what’s a possibility that should be concerning, and what’s just fear mongering white noise.

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like i said, wait and see what happens. if things go to hell, watch the people go batsh!t and start causing havoc to their bottomline.

Only problem with that is some can’t afford to wait and see. If they legitimately believe that their bottom line will be significantly affected and they just wait and see… Well, if that actually comes to pass, the damage will have already been done.

So I get why some people and some companies are freaking out, but yeah… For people like you and me, I don’t see much need to panic for our own sakes, but it’s still possible we should be. We really don’t know yet. It could be months or even years before the sky falls, long after the current fervor has died down (if it falls at all).

it can go in any direction, but make no mistake that ISPs and service providers are aware of the hysteria surrounding this. i wish people actually cared this much about other issues :confused:

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