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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy does the FCC and Government Hate the idea of a free Internet?
I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But I must say it is immensely depressing and angering that the FCC, the Courts and the f'in Congress want to kill something good.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/04/24
Unless Defeated, New FCC Rules Will Put 'Stake in Internet's Heart'
Critics of the new rules say that this could be the moment the internet as we know it will die if the people do not rise to its defense
- Jon Queally, staff writer
The death of net neutralitywhich has governed the equal treatment of content since the internet was createdwill create, say critics, a tiered internet that allows major internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon to cut special and lucrative deals with content providers who can afford to pay for special "fast lanes." The result will be an internet that will incentivize slower traffic by ISPs and the creation of privatized, corporate-controlled "toll-roads" that will come to dominate a once fair and free environment.
If it goes forward, this capitulation will represent Washington at its worst. Todd OBoyle, Common Cause
As reported by various outlets, the new rules have been circulated by FCC chairman Tom Wheeler to the other members of the commission and will be officially announced on Thursday.
"With this proposal, the FCC is aiding and abetting the largest ISPs in their efforts to destroy the open Internet," said Craig Aaron, president of the media advocacy group Free Press. "Giving ISPs the green light to implement pay-for-priority schemes will be a disaster for startups, nonprofits and everyday Internet users who cannot afford these unnecessary tolls. These users will all be pushed onto the Internet dirt road, while deep pocketed Internet companies enjoy the benefits of the newly created fast lanes." .....
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octoberlib
(14,971 posts)FCC Establishes New Inbox for Open Internet Comments
The Commission will consider proposed rules to protect an Open Internet on May 15. The proposed rules will ask questions about how best to ensure the Internet remains an open platform for innovation and expression.
Chairman Wheeler is encouraging the public to share their views now. He intends to have rules of the road in place before the end of the year to protect consumers and entrepreneurs. He will be listening, and your comments will help inform the final rules.
Please send your thoughts to openinternet@fcc.gov.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Those corrupt assholes are bought and sold, along with the WH and Congress.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)realized they had the internet to contend with. I'm sure our Corporate Government, because that what we have, I hope no one is pretending we live in a Democracy anymore, are not pleased that the people have a platform to express their feelings ABOUT THEM. We couldn't talk back to the TV but this freedom of speech thing isn't something they trust.
It's up to Democrats, especially the President, who promised to protect the Internet, to stop this. THEY know how we feel, this is one of the reasons we elected them.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)"It's up to Democrats, especially the President, who promised to protect the Internet, to stop this. THEY know how we feel, this is one of the reasons we elected them."
99Forever
(14,524 posts)The POTUS won't do jack, 'cuz he's powerless, doncha know?
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)as he has amply demonstrated on virtually a daily basis over the past five plus years.
The President LIED. He could change alliances if he wanted to, but we can all expect bats to fly out of our butts before that happens.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)airc. What would anyone expect when handing over that position to a Corporate Lobbyist? Conflict of interest beyond belief
But he was a big donor. Money is speech and this is a clear example of it.
How do we ensure when we elect Democrats that it actually means getting a Democratic government?
If the President didn't know that by appointing a Corporate Lobbyist for the very industry he would be regulating THEN, he knows now and needs to ask for this Lobbyist's resignation.
Are there no Democrats for all these positions?
Corruption Inc
(1,568 posts)I could tell it all about the media consolidation over the last 20 years and how America's media is mostly propaganda now and how we're now ranked 36th in freedom of speech but the tree won't hear a thing and neither will the FCC.
The tree will be pleasant to look at though.
Amak8
(142 posts)Because the public generally has no idea what's going on. Your internet becomes $5 more expensive and people don't notice. However, that $5 from everyone finances a massive lobbying campaign, sinecures for ex-public officials, etc. with plenty of profit to go along. They know what they're getting and we don't know what we're losing.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)THAT's what pisses me off.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)to be returned to DC. I would rather call my Reps than waste time with that government site, set up to make you think you have a say.
Shameful that this is even being discussed by this Administration.
okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)the had was untruthful. Commondreams is, IMHO, a socialist propaganda rag so they may not change their reporting but the more credible sources have.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)were exposed for 'catapulting' Bush's propaganda that led us into war? They ONLY make corrections AFTER they get the propaganda out and by then half those who read it already believe it.
Common Dreams, over the past decade has been far, far, far more accurate in their reporting than any of our Corporate media.
What an odd thing to say here of all places where the lack of credibility of the Corporate Media is a known fact.
KeepItReal
(7,769 posts)Eom.
bobduca
(1,763 posts)"socialist propaganda rag"
Can you please recommend a blog that has less fiendish fluoridators?
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)I'm really curious what subversive technologies will be spawned by it. So there are all these wireless routers around, but some very interesting software to form secure point-to-point connections, so I kind of hope that small little subnets start forming and connecting. I can imagine that hackers will figure out ways to carry connections embedded in the data of "approved" streams to tunnel through to other off-the-grid networks.
It's already happening and has been for a while. This will just egg them on.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)I'm not certain 'free' internet is a good idea.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Jenoch
(7,720 posts)Free, as in nobody pays a monthly charge for their internet is something that I am opposed to. If the profit is taken away, the quality of service is crap. I don't recall free telephone service.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)It is about throttling and subverting the lower classes and the inexpensive, low cost internet websites and common people from sharing equally of the internet.
I pay 600 clams a year for what amounts to 15 movies worth of data. That comes out to about 40 clams a movie. They are killing me. And now they want more $?
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Armstead
(47,803 posts)You're splitting hairs when you should focus on whether it will be affordable and equally accessible to everyone.
The telephon companies never said "if you pay us $100 a month, we'll let you talk in real time, but if you pay us $50 a month there will be a five minute delay between each persons response in your conversation."
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)fairness doctrine. Now it's all Corporate owned and for profit.
There should be free access to all airwaves regardless of whether they are rich or poor. But I guess you are of the opinion that money is speech?
It was inevitable that the Corporations, the ones with the most 'speech' would want to take over the latest communications technology for profit and in order to do what they've done with the MSM, control the message.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)I now understand the point was free, as in equal, not free as in is available to someone without charge.
By the way, every single television broadcasting station licensed by the FCC is available free. I'm not sure what the Fairness Doctrine has to do with your post.
The reason radio and Television broadcast stations are now mostly owned by large corporations has nothing to do with the Fairness Doctrine. It is becuse of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in which one of the provisions was lifting most restrictions on the number of broadcast licenses a company or person could own. Prior to that act, the limit was 12AM, 12FM, and 12TV. After the act is was unlimited nationwide with some limitations about the number of stations in an individual market. I used to know many people who owned 1 or 2 radio stations. Most of them sold out to corporations.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Jenoch
(7,720 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)that happen. It is the way things must go, though other countries may well out distance us in this, and we may never pick up the pace. All the scared and greedy little people (not you, that's different) who want to keep it like it is are going to lose.
Besides, the way it exists now is stifling innovation in favor of profits, and other countries will make us eat dirt if we continue on our current course. Which is probably what will happen.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)than you deserve, is nothing but theft by ass clown criminals.
If one thinks they need profit, fine, make it a coop. Don't get rid of the profit, redistribute it. The Basque did that and have their own university, business that spawn other businesses, and lower unemployment than the rest of Spain. Hurting some now, but still less than others.
But profit isn't imperative for improvement. Sometimes there is a mission that rises above the search for profit.
Much of the Internet runs on Linux servers, and there is no money in that. Yet it just keeps getting better, with features that keep performance in mind. There are even newer server products out on the market under that name, all gratis.
It's a small sample, but so is one's heart. Hugely important.
Those servers resemble commodities, appliances that provide more for less. This would be doing that to the Internet connection. All appliances aren't created equal, yes, but that doesn't mean we stop trying.
Much of what is going on with the Internet is the creation of huge data centers with lots of virtual servers that can be turned up and down on demand, reducing the costs of having one's own center, sometimes providing more in security and service than a small business can do on its own.
As that continues the market for desktops is changing drastically. A person with standard internet connectivity may soon only need a 3-pack of tablets dropped in by the local utility drone, and it gives one all the tv, phone, medical care, education, shopping, employment, etc, they need, and a consumer market that you can put 3-d pictures in front of. With a smell attachment. (Others, I hope, will work to disorganize what is going on and build something better, but that's another post).
Note: That alone is going to save us a tremendous amount of energy that we would otherwise use to move people and goods around, and we will save the costs, especially environmental, that would have been associated with that. Then we will buy stuff from China and encourage them to keep pumping pollution out that comes here and settles. We smart.
That's gonna take great connectivity, but it would transform life as we know it. It is why google and others reach out and wire whole projects. There is every reason to think that we could all profit from resources being expended to make that ubiquitous.
Business, medical care, and education (along with a number of others) are moving to those connections, and where they have really good connectivity you have the potential of lower what we spend as a country in health care costs by billions. Perhaps the growing trillion dollar student loan debt that's gonna fall on the American people like a lead brick could be minimized.
We are already spending our profit. <-- Maybe we should go another direction, spend it on ourselves for a change.
But the other thing is a planet that is almost certainly getting ready to see some cataclysmic events that we are woefully under-prepared for, and likely causing ourselves. (when they find our bones in the tarpits and stick them in a museum they are going to title it "The Stuipid People"
The survival of hundreds of millions of people could be enhanced if we could communicate all the needed information in near instantaneous time in such events. The movement of food, the production of water, the production of food, teaching people how to eat new things, dealing with public panic...all of that could be vastly improved with a freely-accessed internet that's available in just a plug on the wall or through the air.
The profit to people would be vastly more than it could be to any corp.
On the other hand, you might have a point.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)The courts rule for profit.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)FarCenter
(19,429 posts)There are content owners, content providers, content hosts/distributors, ad brokers, submarine cable operators, backbone network operators, peering points, telecom companies, and cable companies all involved.
Many of these are multibillion dollar operations and a great deal of money is changing hands. Depending on who is connecting to whom, where, and how, as well as the volume of money changing hands for that interface, your performance may vary.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)However it doesn't allow them to stifle information, as they via the Corporate Media. What's wrong with the way it is where ordinary people have access to freely use it the way they want to?
Of course with a Cable Lobbyist having been appointed as head of the FCC, what else could we expect?
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Discounts will be offered to those corporations that contribute to congressional campaigns and have votes.