Explaining Net Neutrality to liberals:

[Matt Collins]

"President Jeb Bush will now be able to control the Internet"

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Can someone explain this to me in a couple of paragraphs? I've read a few articles, but journalists can't get much right. I hear the actual document is not even publicly available, so how do these people know anything about it all?

The name neutrality does not even make sense to me. Nothing like this is ever neutral. These things are always political.

Anyway, I'm guessing that federal intervention means less liberty. Somebody is looking for more control. Would that sum it up?




Edit: By the way, I don't want to hear from PRB. Please do not respond to him. His posts are fake libertarianism, so any debate with him is disingenuous. He especially does it with this issue. I'd be glad to hear from anybody else.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Never mind; I just saw the main thread. Sounds like this is about the perennial crying over the "information have-and-have-nots." More internet business for "minority businesses." Etc, etc.

Sounds like people sold their freedom for more material items. Again.

[mrsat_98]

Net Neutrality - If you like your internet, you can keep your internet.

http://theantimedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/sinkin.png

[jmdrake]

"President Jeb Bush will now be able to control the Internet"

Yeah...well I used to try to get conservatives to be against the Patriot Act when George W. Bush by pointing out that they wouldn't want Hillary Clinton to have that kind of power. It just didn't resonate until Obama was president. Go figure?

[BV2]

Never mind; I just saw the main thread. Sounds like this is about the perennial crying over the "information have-and-have-nots." More internet business for "minority businesses." Etc, etc.

Sounds like people sold their freedom for more material items. Again.

And honestly, it was more superficial than that. This was about boobus streaming netflix. Notice how every single fucking add for NN involved streaming video. Not to say that entertainment is a useless facet of the web, but it is certainly adjunct to its capabilities. Waaaah Netflix, house or cards, fucking merica. Not one person I asked at my college thursday even new there was a vote, much less by an unelected body.

[kpitcher]

Crony capitalism at its best. I see this more as the current monopolies, which suck by the way - we're 24th in the world in broadband speed with higher costs - fighting tooth and nail to keep their current status as they want to keep their money. The legislative approach to opening the Internet worked briefly from '96 to early 00s until these same monopolies used the FCC to kill the legislation. Most of the rhetoric is a well crafted PR smoke screen to hide just who is calling the shots.

Sadly this does make a discussion about crony capitalism vs real free markets, or how government should be more transparent hard to talk about. It gets drowned in the hype which was planned all along.

Also I'm sure there are provisions in the hundreds of pages of regulations that haven't been released that are going to totally suck.

Things I haven't seen on any media covering this :

Comcast, AT+T, etc are huge influence peddlers to elected officials. I'd love to see a new standard in reporting politics. Anytime a congress person talks about an issue I'd like to see a dollar figure from how much they received from companies / PACs in that industry. (R-MI $22,000) or something like that.

These same companies are monopolies, any telephone company that traces back to a baby bell are government mandated monopolies. (The country is divided up into coverage areas for the bells)

The do the PR through firms. Any association that has "ISP" or "Internet" in their name commenting on this doesn't mean a local company providing internet, it's all about the top tier players.

The US is ranked 24th in the world in broadband. Not just in rural america but even in high tech major metro areas.

The US consumer has already paid over 400 billion in taxes and subsidies to these existing telco providers for better broadband that was never delivered - every house in NJ was to be connected to Fiber by now according to one contract, etc. (As far as I know only NPR has covered this and that was years ago)

Why does the FCC have such extreme power, which it wields based entirely on politics? 2000s Powell's son was in charge of an R majority, an ex telephone company lawyer, who was very pro-large telco. Now we have a D majority. In both cases the FCC has regulated in ways that changed the entire industry.

[nayjevin]

Tom Wheeler, head of FCC, former Cable company lobbyist, appointed by Obama.

The way this will turn out might be very, very beneficial to long-term awakening.

[BV2]

Tom Wheeler, head of FCC, former Cable company lobbyist, appointed by Obama.

The way this will turn out might be very, very beneficial to long-term awakening.

I don't think so. Now that they have the green light I don't suspect they will do anything drastic. What really just happened will not be understood fully for a decade, maybe longer (they used a 1935 law for justification). What do I expect to happen in the short run? Internet speeds will increase, costs will stay the same, or fall. I suspect these things because they seem to be the next plays that make any sense. Take what happened in Chatanooga as an example. They have the EPB (governmental body) that controls power and comms grid. They (allegedly) have some of the fastest internet around. Sounds all well an good until one realizes that it took 111 million dollars (federal money from 2009, you know when people were losing homes) to make it happen. Chatanoogs, enjoy your subsidized internet.

[TommyJeff]

Tom Wheeler, head of FCC, former Cable company lobbyist, appointed by Obama.

The way this will turn out might be very, very beneficial to long-term awakening.

I hope you're right but I don't see much awaking when the big, bad, health insurance stock prices rose after the affordable care act passed.

[nayjevin]

I hope you're right but I don't see much awaking when the big, bad, health insurance stock prices rose after the affordable care act passed.

Good point, but there's the whole world to think about.