Keep Fighting for Net Neutrality

[Justin_Case001 4,873]

The FCC's final vote to dismantle net neutrality laws is a tragedy and big loss for consumer rights.  There's no denying that these are dark days.  But this is absolutely not the time to give up the fight.  This is the time to ramp up the fight.  There are still ways that we can win.  Congress can still block the FCC's decision.  There will be legal battles in court as well.  There are also plans cropping up for new bills/legislation that will restore at least some of the most crucial protections that were afforded by the Title II utility classification for the internet.  One or more of these things could go through, meaning that there is still hope for this to turn out okay.  We need to write and call our members of congress right now.  That's how we can make a difference.  The time for writing the FCC is over.  Their part of the story is done.  Now we need to contact congress and put as much pressure on them as possible.  It's of the utmost importance that we convince the republican congressmen that net neutrality is a non-partisan issue, and that losing it hurts everyone equally.

Go here to help: https://www.battleforthenet.com/

I'm sure most of you have already heard the doomsday scenarios of what the internet could look like without net neutrality.  I sincerely hope that this worst-case-scenario is nothing but fear mongering and exaggeration, but the point is that is could happen.  There will be nothing stopping the ISPs from blocking and throttling, and controlling what we do and see online.  Perhaps they will play nicely, but I don't want to take that chance.  I would rather have protections against unfair practices in place.  I've heard from some that "the internet is not free", and that "someone will have to pay for it".  Such people argue that if net neutrality stays, we will end up paying for it as a government tax, but if net neutrality goes, we will pay the ISPs instead.  They argue that the latter is preferable, because it will allow the ISPs to use the profits to provide more and better service.  This sounds alright at first, but I believe this argument to be flawed.  Firstly, of course the internet isn't free!  It never was.  We pay a monthly bill for internet access.  When we say we want the internet to remain "free", we don't mean free in the sense that we don't pay for it.  Of course we pay for it.  We mean free in the sense that we can freely access any site we want at the same speed.  What we want is to make sure that the speed we pay for works equally on all sites.  We don't want the ISPs to have the power to block and slow sites that they don't want us to use.  Secondly, ISPs are not like struggling mom & pop stores that need our support.  They are giant, disgustingly wealthy and powerful corporations with monopolies, and they care little about consumer rights.  I highly doubt they would take extra profits and turn it around and give it back to us in the form of better service.  I fear that they will simply abuse us for their own personal gain.  I would rather have protections in place to make sure they can't engage in unfair practices.  How about you?  Do you want to continue to be able to use these forums, download games on Steam, and stream video from any site, all with the full speed you pay for?  Then you need to fight for your right to do so.

Write and call congress.  Do it everyday.  Share this link everywhere you can.  Spread the word.  Do not allow yourself to become lax about this.  Do not give up.  Keep fighting everyday.  If we put enough pressure on congress, we can still win.

https://www.battleforthenet.com/

Edited January 11, 2018 by Justin_Case001
*Edited for typo*

[Kaneki 1,072]

I have e-mailed my senators for this. I haven't gotten a response from Joe Donnelly yet, but Todd Young responded. He basically said we need a bi-partisan solution on this and not classifying the Internet under Title II regulations. I don't know how to feel, but I hope Donnelly replies soon.

I'm not too found of Young, so I probably won't vote for him in the mid-terms anyway.

[Justin_Case001 4,873]

On 12/21/2017 at 8:03 AM, Cloggedone said:

He basically said we need a bi-partisan solution on this and not classifying the Internet under Title II regulations.

The FCC leadership has stated many times that Title II is "inappropriate" for the internet, antiquated, and not a good way to classify it.  As I understand it, Title II was invented in...some...like, the 19 ought's or something, and was intended for railroads.  Title II is inappropriate for the internet?  Fine.  No problem.  Then write new, proper legislation, specifically intended for the internet, that protects us from unfair ISP practices.  Don't just hand the keys to the kingdom over to the greedy, corrupt telecom corporations that care nothing for consumer rights.  That's what I say to the FCC.

[Here No Longer 5,276]

7 hours ago, Justin_Case001 said:

The FCC leadership has stated many times that Title II is "inappropriate" for the internet, antiquated, and not a good way to classify it.  As I understand it, Title II was invented in...some...like, the 19 ought's or something, and was intended for railroads.  Title II is inappropriate for the internet?  Fine.  No problem.  Then write new, proper legislation, specifically intended for the internet, that protects us from unfair ISP practices.  Don't just hand the keys to the kingdom over to the greedy, corrupt telecom corporations that care nothing for consumer rights.  That's what I say to the FCC.

The FCC doesn't care. They're being paid off by these big cable companies to do this in the first place. There's no other way, and it makes sense considering we all know Ajit Pai used to work at Verizon.

[Justin_Case001 4,873]

On 12/25/2017 at 4:58 AM, Duzzki said:

The FCC doesn't care. They're being paid off by these big cable companies to do this in the first place. There's no other way, and it makes sense considering we all know Ajit Pai used to work at Verizon.

Oh yes, I am well aware.  The three republican commissioners are just corporate shills.  They're bought, lock, stock and barrel.  There's really no other explanation for why Pai and his band of thugs have been so desperate to do this.  Who does it benefit?  How would this decision help them or the American people?  Literally the only ones that benefit from no NN are the cable companies.  The big corporations.  This move hurts all consumers and small businesses, so what other reason would Pai have unless he was being paid off?  What sickens me to the core is how there was never any chance of reaching Pai or his lackeys; no chance of getting them to listen.  Verizon handed Pai a briefcase of money (metaphorically speaking, of course), and that was it.  His mind was made up, he ignored the American people, and he just gets away with it because we apparently live in a totalitarian dystopia where democracy is just a bad joke.  Three men get to decide the future of the internet with seeming impunity like selfish, angry gods on Olympus who smash humanity under their thumbs for fun.  I'm exaggerating a bit at the moment, and I don't feel very clear headed right now, so I apologize.  It just makes me so damn angry.

[Justin_Case001 4,873]

Just popping in here to remind everyone to keep fighting.  Never let up.  I know the staff discourages the practice of "bumping" unless one has something new to say, and I always observe that rule, but as I've stated before, there likely won't be a forums if we can't win this.  So I bend the rules, on this subject only, to try to protect everything we've built.

https://www.battleforthenet.com/

If we can't win, this may be our future:

 

And this is pretty accurate as well, not to mention humorous.

 

[Lumos31 6]

He's a great figure of keeping chill though. As much as i disagree with his policies i can't dislike the guy lol..

 

 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,206]

The only chance it has of being saved is if congress shoots it down. That's it. Most of us have no power and no say-so in the matter. We had no power when the vote was passed and that won't change.

[Here No Longer 5,276]

4 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

The only chance it has of being saved is if congress shoots it down. That's it. Most of us have no power and no say-so in the matter. We had no power when the vote was passed and that won't change.

We would if America were an actual democracy instead of a corporate-owned banana republic. Shame, really.

[DubWolf 17,125]

16 hours ago, Duzzkey said:

We would if America were an actual democracy instead of a corporate-owned banana republic. Shame, really.

Yep. Clearly a republic is VERY susceptible to corruption and representation is something that is bought not earned; a direct democracy would not have this effect as much since you can’t buy millions of people just as easily..,

Edited January 12, 2018 by WWolf

[Justin_Case001 4,873]

On 1/11/2018 at 12:39 AM, Kyoshi said:

The only chance it has of being saved is if congress shoots it down. That's it. Most of us have no power and no say-so in the matter. We had no power when the vote was passed and that won't change.

Sadly, yes.  And the resolution of disapproval only has a chance if it is passed with the staggering, mind-boggling, face-melting 2/3 majority that would be needed to veto Trump's inevitable veto.  See, if the resolution passes, it then goes to Trump's desk, and he has to sign off on it.  Since Trump was the one who basically started all of this....yeeeeaah...your odds of Trump signing to save NN are about as good as handing the One Ring over to Sauron and asking if he would kindly destroy it out of the goodness of his heart.  So....yup.  Now, congress could still veto Trump's veto and get it through, but only with a 2/3 majority, and since congress is republican controlled anyway, that would mean swaying....like, flipping 60% or something of the republican congresspeople to our side, which is a nigh impossible, Herculean task.  But we have to try anyway.

[ChB 18,550]

@Jeric @PathfinderCS @LadyMercury @Fhaolan @Yellow Diamond

Do you know how the end of Net Neutrality will affect this forum?

[Mercury 436]

18 hours ago, ChB said:

@Jeric @PathfinderCS @LadyMercury @Fhaolan @Yellow Diamond

Do you know how the end of Net Neutrality will affect this forum?

It won't really, we're Canadian. We're hosted in Canada and operate the company itself in Canada. The only thing that it might effect is our US users that might have their internet packages changed. 

[Denim&Venöm 18,093]

No. 

You're worried about the ISPs taking over w/ out Net Neutrality around?

If NN is brought back in any capacity, then the internet will be ground under the heel of another set of greedy corporations.

 

Allowing NN to stay was fixing nothing. What it did was all but surrender control of the internet to the government, yet kept the regional monopoly ISPs you fear intact by stiffing competition.

It's time for the likes of Facebook, Google, Netflix and Amazon to start paying their way, to stop using NN to get a discount rate, and to stop having tax payer money fund mediocre internet infrastructure. 

 

Net Neutrality isn't saving the internet's future. It's keeping it stuck in the past. 

Edited February 8, 2018 by Denim&Venom

[Fhaolan 4,476]

18 hours ago, ChB said:

@Jeric @PathfinderCS @LadyMercury @Fhaolan @Yellow Diamond

Do you know how the end of Net Neutrality will affect this forum?

I'm not staff anymore, so my answer is purely me.

Net Neutrality Repeal is unlikely to have any specific, direct effect on this forum as Net Neutrality is all about ISPs wanting to charge high-traffic services additional carrier fees or to turn those fees around onto the consumers. Poniverse as a whole doesn't have the traffic necessary to register on the ISP's radar as a potential new revenue source. 

Which might lead to an indirect effect of US users having to pay an additional fee to access some aspects of Poniverse; those parts like Equestria.tv and PonyvilleLive! that have video & audio streaming capabilities, that ISPs may otherwise throttle automatically along with other video/audio servicing sites. They won't be targeting us directly, just *any* video/audio streaming.

[Thuja 3,658]

2 hours ago, LadyMercury said:

It won't really, we're Canadian. We're hosted in Canada and operate the company itself in Canada. The only thing that it might effect is our US users that might have their internet packages changed. 

I didn't know this forum was Canadian!!  The more you know, right?  Anyways, I heard that Bell Canada was trying to go through backdoors and alter net neutrality for here too but of course there hasn't been much news wise of it lately.  Apparently, they've been trying to do so for years now... 

Here's some info on it

and some more...

I can't really find anything more recent from news sources, sorry >_<!!

[Mercury 436]

1 minute ago, Thuja said:

I didn't know this forum was Canadian!!  The more you know, right?  Anyways, I heard that Bell Canada was trying to go through backdoors and alter net neutrality for here too but of course there hasn't been much news wise of it lately.  Apparently, they've been trying to do so for years now... 

Yea, but it's regulated a bit different here anyway than in America. We'll see how that ends up but in response to America ditching theirs there was a news report some time ago that it was being considered that Canada should strengthen their NN rules? If I can find the source on that I'll post it, but either way we should be fairly alright as far as it goes, we're through OVH, and hopefully they're smart enough to figure out their own stuff (Since they're getting into the business of being a last mile ISP nowadays too).

2 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

Net Neutrality isn't saving the internet's future. It's keeping it stuck in the past. 

I can agree. But there's some stuff that should've been done first by the government before stripping NN. Now we just hope that the situation can get solved by electing new people that won't vote for the companies or investigations are started to start breaking up the larger companies to allow some competition. 

NN definitely gets in the way of capitalism, but having regional monopolies controlling everything isn't...the best either. Just keep that in mind when making your judgments on people. Neither side of this fence is a good place to be right now, but one looks better in the short term. 

[Justin_Case001 4,873]

Keep fighting for net neutrality, everypony.  Perhaps the best thing we can do now is to contact our state legislators and encourage them to support any legislation that would enact local net neutrality laws at the state level.

[ChB 18,550]

The Senate has approved a bill that seeks to bring back net neutrality: 

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/16/611598361/senate-approves-overturning-fccs-net-neutrality-repeal

 

The bill will now move on to the House.  

[Twiggy 2,966]

Don't really have a dog in this fight so I'll not give an opinion on the issue, but am I the only one who remembers when almost the entire internet was rallying AGAINST the Obama Administration enacting NN regulations in the first place?

It wasn't just my right-wing corner of the Internet either. All over Reddit, Twitter, FB and everything, there were tons of people speaking out against government regulation of the Internet. 

Did I shift into the Berenstein universe again?

Edited May 18, 2018 by Twiggy