The Swamp

FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see and use

This sucks. Prepare for tiered deals and slow internet.

And blocked content

Thanks, Obama.

I already have a slow connection and I would love to have certain content blocked. So who should I be mad at?

Just think about how much Comcast and Cox will slow down the 'ol Sportsfrog here. Maybe we can pay them $10 million to speed it up.

L-Jam3 wrote:Thanks, Obama.

He's the one who appointed Ajit Pai head of the FCC.

Seems as though every subreddit has banded together (even the NSFW ones) to get this story to the front page. It's weird. Check it out.

EnochRoot wrote:

L-Jam3 wrote:Thanks, Obama.

He's the one who appointed Ajit Pai head of the FCC.

I mistyped that. He appointed him to the commission in '12 and Trump nominated him to chair this past January.

Make no mistake though: this one is on Obama.

One of the super-smart guys in our academic community is a guy who teaches at a CC in Michigan and who writes more than a lick about digital redlining - how even in the current age, BEFORE the FCC does a dang thing, access to the internet is uneven from one place to the next. Here's an example of the work he turns out. It's pretty dang serious stuff, and he deals with it in his students' lives every day.

Anyway, he shared this Vice Motherboard piece last night, and it made me sit up. We're all sitting here moaning about how the idiots in Washington, led by the chief idiot, and we're being dumb about the technology necessary to actually WORK AGAINST the corporate-led future that they want for us.

What can WE do to provide the full internet for our communities? For crying out loud, you guys who run this board have made it appear and reappear over two damn decades. Surely we can do something for the places where we live.

chuck

I'm frankly failing to see how this is Obama's fault since he advocated for the current policy maintaining net neutrality. If it wasn't Pai it would be some other GOP/Trump lackey doing the telecom industry's bidding here.

The interesting thing is that this is unpopular with literally like 90 percent or more of the population so I'm failing to see how this doesn't blow up in the GOP's face.

brian wrote:I'm frankly failing to see how this is Obama's fault since he advocated for the current policy maintaining net neutrality. If it wasn't Pai it would be some other GOP/Trump lackey doing the telecom industry's bidding here.

The interesting thing is that this is unpopular with literally like 90 percent or more of the population so I'm failing to see how this doesn't blow up in the GOP's face.

That may very well be, but Obama essentially rubber-stamped McConnell's choice. The stink is on him (unnecessarily, or whatever - his idea of 'hope' and 'change' were rather selective anyway, cuz he failed to truly appreciate what was going on here)..

EnochRoot wrote:

brian wrote:I'm frankly failing to see how this is Obama's fault since he advocated for the current policy maintaining net neutrality. If it wasn't Pai it would be some other GOP/Trump lackey doing the telecom industry's bidding here.

The interesting thing is that this is unpopular with literally like 90 percent or more of the population so I'm failing to see how this doesn't blow up in the GOP's face.

That may very well be, but Obama essentially rubber-stamped McConnell's choice. The stink is on him (unnecessarily, or whatever - his idea of 'hope' and 'change' were rather selective anyway, cuz he failed to truly appreciate what was going on here)..

Bullshit to pin it on Obama. We had Net Neutrality under Obama. We are losing it under Trump. Correlation.

Is it bad that I'm not freaking out about this? There's enough people with money who want unfettered access to the entire web - what's the economic reason why any provider would mess with that? There's also hundreds of thousands of small websites like ours; where is the benefit to screwing them over?

Maybe I'm wrong, but what I hear from liberals on this sounds a lot like what conservatives say every time environmental protections, or worker protections, or whatever are on the table.

Plus, even if the FCC makes a bad rule, can't it just be overturned by the next administration?

This is probably going to spur the action described by Chuck in his post and people who can move will move away from shitty internet cities to good internet cities. Seems trivial but it's a big part of most people's lives - slow my internet down and it greatly affects like 60% of my day.

Steve of phpBB wrote:Is it bad that I'm not freaking out about this? There's enough people with money who want unfettered access to the entire web - what's the economic reason why any provider would mess with that? There's also hundreds of thousands of small websites like ours; where is the benefit to screwing them over?

Maybe I'm wrong, but what I hear from liberals on this sounds a lot like what conservatives say every time environmental protections, or worker protections, or whatever are on the table.

Plus, even if the FCC makes a bad rule, can't it just be overturned by the next administration?

I think it would be harder to roll back than you think, but otherwise I tend to agree. A lot of the examples provided by some people are little too out there to give any special credence to. Your ISP is going to face a shitstorm if they try to charge you an extra $10 specifically for Netflix (as an example).

The more dangerous stuff is the stuff that could happen without any kind of disclosure or clarity. Like Comcast deciding to throttle streaming from competitors to NBC, etc.

I think all this really does is continue to galvanize the center towards the left. In a sense it's an almost indefensible decision from a populist perspective and it will just make it easier to run attack ads against Republicans in 2018 and beyond.

brian wrote:

Steve of phpBB wrote:Is it bad that I'm not freaking out about this? There's enough people with money who want unfettered access to the entire web - what's the economic reason why any provider would mess with that? There's also hundreds of thousands of small websites like ours; where is the benefit to screwing them over?

Maybe I'm wrong, but what I hear from liberals on this sounds a lot like what conservatives say every time environmental protections, or worker protections, or whatever are on the table.

Plus, even if the FCC makes a bad rule, can't it just be overturned by the next administration?

I think it would be harder to roll back than you think, but otherwise I tend to agree. A lot of the examples provided by some people are little too out there to give any special credence to. Your ISP is going to face a shitstorm if they try to charge you an extra $10 specifically for Netflix (as an example).

The more dangerous stuff is the stuff that could happen without any kind of disclosure or clarity. Like Comcast deciding to throttle streaming from competitors to NBC, etc.

I think all this really does is continue to galvanize the center towards the left. In a sense it's an almost indefensible decision from a populist perspective and it will just make it easier to run attack ads against Republicans in 2018 and beyond.

This is definitely the biggest danger. There has been so much consolidation and monopolization within the media industry that internet providers could certainly have a financial or political incentive to favor certain sources of news or information over others. Comcast/NBC is the most obvious example but I'd imagine there are others.

Steve of phpBB wrote:Is it bad that I'm not freaking out about this? There's enough people with money who want unfettered access to the entire web - what's the economic reason why any provider would mess with that? There's also hundreds of thousands of small websites like ours; where is the benefit to screwing them over?

Maybe I'm wrong, but what I hear from liberals on this sounds a lot like what conservatives say every time environmental protections, or worker protections, or whatever are on the table.

Plus, even if the FCC makes a bad rule, can't it just be overturned by the next administration?

Just like Obamacare!

sancarlos wrote:

EnochRoot wrote:

brian wrote:I'm frankly failing to see how this is Obama's fault since he advocated for the current policy maintaining net neutrality. If it wasn't Pai it would be some other GOP/Trump lackey doing the telecom industry's bidding here.

The interesting thing is that this is unpopular with literally like 90 percent or more of the population so I'm failing to see how this doesn't blow up in the GOP's face.

That may very well be, but Obama essentially rubber-stamped McConnell's choice. The stink is on him (unnecessarily, or whatever - his idea of 'hope' and 'change' were rather selective anyway, cuz he failed to truly appreciate what was going on here)..

Bullshit to pin it on Obama. We had Net Neutrality under Obama. We are losing it under Trump. Correlation.

Yeah, I'll go ahead and thank him a lot less than you do for that.

Steve of phpBB wrote:Is it bad that I'm not freaking out about this? There's enough people with money who want unfettered access to the entire web - what's the economic reason why any provider would mess with that? There's also hundreds of thousands of small websites like ours; where is the benefit to screwing them over?

Maybe I'm wrong, but what I hear from liberals on this sounds a lot like what conservatives say every time environmental protections, or worker protections, or whatever are on the table.

Plus, even if the FCC makes a bad rule, can't it just be overturned by the next administration?

I agree. I pretty much agree with the goals of net neutrality but I’m not convinced about the parade of horribles that is supposed to come. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Internet era it’s that there is always a workaround.

I think consumers will get some rate hikes that will be "preemptive". We are too dependent on the internet and spoiled by it and we will pay the price.

Yeah, nothing to worry about at all so long as your internet expectations are texts and pay-for-views.

Fuck the dissemination of free thought.

Me thinks you guys are fat on the lamb.

That’s Obama’s fault too.

If you're OK with your ISP being the arbiter of all information coming into your home via your computer and internet-connected devices, then yeah, you're Ajit Pai's model consumer.

I've no idea how people don't see this is a fundamentally dangerous position to place ourselves in.

"Not as bad as it seems"...FOH with that. Why would you even risk it.

brian wrote:That’s Obama’s fault too.

Now you're getting it! (o;

EnochRoot wrote:If you're OK with your ISP being the arbiter of all information coming into your home via your computer and internet-connected devices, then yeah, you're Ajit Pai's model consumer.

I've no idea how people don't see this is a fundamentally dangerous position to place ourselves in.

"Not as bad as it seems"...FOH with that. Why would you even risk it.

brian wrote:That’s Obama’s fault too.

Now you're getting it! (o;

I am with you on the first part. It’s a huge issue. Don’t agree on placing this at obama’s feet though.

tennbengal wrote:

EnochRoot wrote:If you're OK with your ISP being the arbiter of all information coming into your home via your computer and internet-connected devices, then yeah, you're Ajit Pai's model consumer.

I've no idea how people don't see this is a fundamentally dangerous position to place ourselves in.

"Not as bad as it seems"...FOH with that. Why would you even risk it.

brian wrote:That’s Obama’s fault too.

Now you're getting it! (o;

I am with you on the first part. It’s a huge issue. Don’t agree on placing this at obama’s feet though.

Obama had to approve Pai's placement back in '12, and it's not like you need to be Kreskin to see where this was going. I can appreciate that Obama couldn't have had many fucks left-to-give considering the amount of obstructionism he faced..But I'd have preferred for him to adequately poisoned the well with a campaign to educate on the dangers of an internet without Net Neutrality securing our freedoms, much the same way Reagan framed our views on drugs in the 80s. Think Ad Council. Full-bore. Where a conservative dad leans over to his son who just fixed the WiFi for the hundredth time: "Why should I care about this?"

Instead, he left it to but a fragmented voice, which all but certainly isn't going to be given much of a microphone at all by the Big Six, who own most of the internet backbone anyway.

tennbengal wrote:

EnochRoot wrote:If you're OK with your ISP being the arbiter of all information coming into your home via your computer and internet-connected devices, then yeah, you're Ajit Pai's model consumer.

I've no idea how people don't see this is a fundamentally dangerous position to place ourselves in.

"Not as bad as it seems"...FOH with that. Why would you even risk it.

brian wrote:That’s Obama’s fault too.

Now you're getting it! (o;

I am with you on the first part. It’s a huge issue. Don’t agree on placing this at obama’s feet though.

Putting aside Obama's role or lack thereof, I'm also with you guys on point 1. The question of "why would ISPs make any major changes" is pretty clearly answered based on the degree of monopolization within media. The Tweet SanCarlos posted about how Verizon owns Yahoo! is a great example of this. The telecom giants have been chomping at the bot to end net neutrality for at least 10 years, all while buying up content providers. I can't imagine they'd engage in such an active and aggressive lobbying campaign if the plan was just to keep the same practices in place.

The Reddit homepage is nothing but senator's pictures with a line about how they voted and how much they earned.