I'm literally fucking depressed right now...

[VGmaster9]

I don't think I've ever felt this this down in my life. Knowing that net neutrality is about to go away, I feel that things will never be the same for me. The internet has been a part of my daily life and is the reason that I've known about so much stuff in the world. What's worse, with Trump as president, I don't think the country will ever recover from this. He is always appointing the worst people in positions of power, and is going to fuck this country over. I don't want to live the rest of my life in misery and I fear that is now on going to happen.

[Nova]

I recommend you stay away from political stuff at all cost and search some nice and funny things.

We really need a bit of a warm light in these times.

[VGmaster9]

3 hours ago, Nova said:

I recommend you stay away from political stuff at all cost and search some nice and funny things.

We really need a bit of a warm light in these times.

I agree totally, but stuff like this is very hard to ignore, especially the net neutrality situation. It will affect everyone in the coming future regardless of political stance, having our favorite sites throttled, blocked, and/or having to pay for them in packages (unless a miracle later happens).

[WileyWarWeasel]

7 hours ago, Nova said:

I recommend you stay away from political stuff at all cost and search some nice and funny things.

We really need a bit of a warm light in these times.

Reminds me of this rhyme:

Here is a candle to light the way ahead,

Here is a choppa to chop off your head!

;P

11 hours ago, VGmaster9 said:

What's worse, with Trump as president, I don't think the country will ever recover from this.

Oh yes, because Obama was such a beacon of progress and freedom.

The same groups of people were in charge during Bush's time, Obama's time and Trump's time (central bank, commercial banks and other "financial services companies", media companies, MIC, etc). Trump isn't the cause of USA's fall but more of a herald if anything else.

Pepperbridge Farm remembers.

[TrishaCat]

Isn't it a bit early to panic?

Its like you're admitting defeat before the bad stuff has actually happened. Net neutrality isn't gone yet.

[VGmaster9]

4 hours ago, Battlechili said:

Isn't it a bit early to panic?

Its like you're admitting defeat before the bad stuff has actually happened. Net neutrality isn't gone yet.

I know it's early, I'm sure we can still beat it but it's going to take a lot of time. The 3-2 decision for the 14th has already been made. I just hope that some miracle happens before that, and if the vote does pass, they will get nuked in court.

[Toshabi]

On 12/2/2017 at 11:11 AM, VGmaster9 said:

I don't think I've ever felt this this down in my life. Knowing that net neutrality is about to go away, I feel that things will never be the same for me. The internet has been a part of my daily life and is the reason that I've known about so much stuff in the world. What's worse, with Trump as president, I don't think the country will ever recover from this. He is always appointing the worst people in positions of power, and is going to fuck this country over. I don't want to live the rest of my life in misery and I fear that is now on going to happen.

Get a life.

[Victor-933]

1 hour ago, Toshabi said:

Get a life.

[Conker]

Every time I go and read the news I come away feeling like shit. "He did what?" "They're killing what?"

I don't know what to do. It's irresponsible for me to just ignore what is going on. I'm not a child. I should be informed. But reading this shit and knowing how corrupt and awful the people in power are just makes me feel like shit, like I need to fuck off and sleep for a few years.

Alcohol is a good middleman.

[Silo]

On 12/2/2017 at 2:11 PM, VGmaster9 said:

I don't think I've ever felt this this down in my life. Knowing that net neutrality is about to go away, I feel that things will never be the same for me. The internet has been a part of my daily life and is the reason that I've known about so much stuff in the world. What's worse, with Trump as president, I don't think the country will ever recover from this. He is always appointing the worst people in positions of power, and is going to fuck this country over. I don't want to live the rest of my life in misery and I fear that is now on going to happen.

https://www.voanews.com/a/no-end-in-sight-yemen-war-analysts-say/4152480.html 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-23431534

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5143115/ISIS-execution-video-showing-Syrian-pilot-burned-alive.html

If it's any consolation, there is much worse out there that we thankfully don't have to deal with. 

[Faust]

4 hours ago, Silo said:

If it's any consolation, there is much worse out there that we thankfully don't have to deal with. 

And soon, you probably won't even be allowed to know about it either.

Yay, freedom!

[Crazy Lee]

On 12/4/2017 at 9:06 PM, Victor-933 said:

Can I forego getting a life and just get a knife instead? Knives are fun to play with.

And to OP, while Net Neutrality seems to be something you care about a lot, there are a lot of other shit going on that's even worse. Hopefully if or when it ends, it won't be as bad as people are predicting and the internet will still function.

[Faust]

In defence of the OP, just because worse things are happening doesn't mean that bad things should be overlooked.

For example, there are wars all over the world, so let's not arrest any burglars eh? Worse things happen!

[Toshabi]

14 hours ago, Faust said:

In defence of the OP, just because worse things are happening doesn't mean that bad things should be overlooked.

For example, there are wars all over the world, so let's not arrest any burglars eh? Worse things happen!

Yeah but he's being a melodramatic turd and we are simply pointing out how much of a stinky little turdie he is.

[VGmaster9]

16 hours ago, Faust said:

In defence of the OP, just because worse things are happening doesn't mean that bad things should be overlooked.

For example, there are wars all over the world, so let's not arrest any burglars eh? Worse things happen!

While I am hoping for the best, I'm still fearing for the worst.

Net neutrality is the main reason why the internet is what it is today. The internet has been my escape and has been my primary source of knowledge and entertainment for almost my entire life. It's what has kept me happy for so long, like seeing stories that you wouldn't get from books, movies, or TV shows, as well as lots of great art to enjoy. We need the internet in this day and age, like for business and education. If not for it, we wouldn't know about said wars that are going on. Just imagine seeing all your favorite sites go away just because they couldn't afford the fast lanes.

I'm truly hoping that the FCC faces legal battles in court as soon as they take the vote, and hoping that the judges favor the internet users, I.E. we the people.

Edit: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/comcast-quietly-drops-promise-not-to-charge-tolls-for-internet-fast-lanes/

 

[WileyWarWeasel]

2 hours ago, VGmaster9 said:

While I am hoping for the best, I'm still fearing for the worst.

Net neutrality is the main reason why the internet is what it is today. The internet has been my escape and has been my primary source of knowledge and entertainment for almost my entire life. It's what has kept me happy for so long, like seeing stories that you wouldn't get from books, movies, or TV shows, as well as lots of great art to enjoy. We need the internet in this day and age, like for business and education. If not for it, we wouldn't know about said wars that are going on. Just imagine seeing all your favorite sites go away just because they couldn't afford the fast lanes.

I'm truly hoping that the FCC faces legal battles in court as soon as they take the vote, and hoping that the judges favor the internet users, I.E. we the people.

Edit: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/comcast-quietly-drops-promise-not-to-charge-tolls-for-internet-fast-lanes/

 

 

[Jtrekkie]

10 hours ago, VGmaster9 said:

Net neutrality is the main reason why the internet is what it is today.

 

Straining infrastructure, little incentive to implement new technologies, and a virtual impossibility for new companies to edge the big players out of a near monopoly? The internet isn't in great shape today.

[VGmaster9]

9 hours ago, Jtrekkie said:

 

Straining infrastructure, little incentive to implement new technologies, and a virtual impossibility for new companies to edge the big players out of a near monopoly? The internet isn't in great shape today.

Would you rather have ISPs denying access, slowing down speeds, and forcing you to pay more? With the end of net neutrality, you may very well see some of the sites and apps you go to go out of business because they couldn't afford the fees for people to access them.

[Faust]

On 09/12/2017 at 2:07 AM, Toshabi said:

Yeah but he's being a melodramatic turd and we are simply pointing out how much of a stinky little turdie he is.

Your fingers are going to wear out with the typing if you keep on visiting Furry forums then

On 09/12/2017 at 1:59 PM, Jtrekkie said:

Straining infrastructure, little incentive to implement new technologies, and a virtual impossibility for new companies to edge the big players out of a near monopoly? The internet isn't in great shape today.

I don't think any of those things are a direct result of Net Neutrality.

[Toshabi]

12 hours ago, Faust said:

Your fingers are going to wear out with the typing if you keep on visiting Furry forums then

 

[VGmaster9]

Well the vote is tomorrow, let's see what happens...

[Toshabi]

Net Neutrality = REPEALED!

 

Ur life = OVER!!!!!

[TrishaCat]

RIP

On the bright side, people are already pushing to overturn this and put it back. The battle for the net is never over...

[Tsuujou]

1 hour ago, Battlechili said:

RIP

On the bright side, people are already pushing to overturn this and put it back. The battle for the net is never over...

Oh Congress is already on it. lmao

[Zaraphayx]

The internet is done post Pauls

[Victor-933]

The funniest part of all this net neutrality hysteria has been Reddit.

They fall all over themselves trying to justify putting r/the_Donald into the equivalent of a slow lane.

• They rewrote the front page filtering algorithms to suppress pro-Trump posts
• They arbitrarily delete thousands of upvotes from pro-Trump posts
• They implemented a downvote-triggered post timer (in practice this means pro-Trump posters are stuck behind an eight-minute timer between each post they make in any subreddit outside their own)
• They turn a blind eye to the hundreds of anti-Trump subreddits that are blatantly using bots to reach the front page (subreddits with 500 subscribers have a post reach the front page with 10,000 upvotes, HMMMMMM)
• They turn a blind eye to the doxxing of pro-Trump posters in direct violation of their own TOS
• Hell, the company CEO personally abused his database access to secretly alter pro-Trump posts.

But all of that is perfectly okay because Reddit is a private company and they can decide what they want on their site.

 

But if you try to say Verizon/AT&T/Comcast are private companies and they can decide what content they want served or hosted on their privately owned infrastructure, suddenly the death threats start pouring in......

[Socketosis]

1 hour ago, Victor-933 said:

The funniest part of all this net neutrality hysteria has been Reddit.

They fall all over themselves trying to justify putting r/the_Donald into the equivalent of a slow lane.

• They rewrote the front page filtering algorithms to suppress pro-Trump posts
• They arbitrarily delete thousands of upvotes from pro-Trump posts
• They implemented a downvote-triggered post timer (in practice this means pro-Trump posters are stuck behind an eight-minute timer between each post they make in any subreddit outside their own)
• They turn a blind eye to the hundreds of anti-Trump subreddits that are blatantly using bots to reach the front page (subreddits with 500 subscribers have a post reach the front page with 10,000 upvotes, HMMMMMM)
• They turn a blind eye to the doxxing of pro-Trump posters in direct violation of their own TOS
• Hell, the company CEO personally abused his database access to secretly alter pro-Trump posts.

But all of that is perfectly okay because Reddit is a private company and they can decide what they want on their site.

 

But if you try to say Verizon/AT&T/Comcast are private companies and they can decide what content they want served or hosted on their privately owned infrastructure, suddenly the death threats start pouring in......

Where can I read about this?

[Victor-933]

24 minutes ago, Socketosis said:

Where can I read about this?

much of it is based on observations by various redditors (i.e. you can see it happening but cant exactly prove it) but the two biggest ones actually showed up offsite

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/23/reddit-huffman-trump/

http://mashable.com/2017/02/16/reddit-new-front-page-popular/

[WileyWarWeasel]

5 hours ago, Victor-933 said:

The funniest part of all this net neutrality hysteria has been Reddit.

They fall all over themselves trying to justify putting r/the_Donald into the equivalent of a slow lane.

• They rewrote the front page filtering algorithms to suppress pro-Trump posts
• They arbitrarily delete thousands of upvotes from pro-Trump posts
• They implemented a downvote-triggered post timer (in practice this means pro-Trump posters are stuck behind an eight-minute timer between each post they make in any subreddit outside their own)
• They turn a blind eye to the hundreds of anti-Trump subreddits that are blatantly using bots to reach the front page (subreddits with 500 subscribers have a post reach the front page with 10,000 upvotes, HMMMMMM)
• They turn a blind eye to the doxxing of pro-Trump posters in direct violation of their own TOS
• Hell, the company CEO personally abused his database access to secretly alter pro-Trump posts.

But all of that is perfectly okay because Reddit is a private company and they can decide what they want on their site.

 

But if you try to say Verizon/AT&T/Comcast are private companies and they can decide what content they want served or hosted on their privately owned infrastructure, suddenly the death threats start pouring in......

You're establishing a false equivalency: Reddit is a web site while Verizon/AT&T/Comcast are internet service providers.

If you don't like Reddit you can at least go to another site. However if the ISP is censoring or slowing down one or more sites... well it's not like as if you have many alternative ISPs do you (or in some cases any)?

Face it people can't all just build their own nation or globe-spanning telecommunications infrastructure. Saying that the oligopoly (or in some cases duopoly or monopoly) that owns the telecommunications infrastructure in a particular region should have total control over their privately owned infrastructure (which also makes use of public infrastructure like roads and public services like police and military to help guard it) is basically saying that the power to censor and slow down content should be in the hands of a tiny handful of people because they own certain equipment (and depend on public infrastructure/services but lets not let that fact get in the way of your neoliberal argument).

[Rassah]

What was repealed wasn't Net Neutrality, but FCC's classification of ISPs as a Title II. Which was only classified as such two years ago. So you'll have the exact same internet you've had for 30 years before that stupid FCC ruling that happened in 2015.

Title II is the classification given to certain entities in order to regulate them under the Communications Act of 1934. Another term used to describe a Title II entity is "common carrier". A common carrier is an entity that the government considers a "natural monopoly" (those of us that understand economics know there's no such thing) and in doing so have been granted, by government, monopoly rights to provide transit of certain services. 

Title II was designed for telephone utilities (look how well that turned out).

In the 2013 case of Verizon v FCC, the US Court of Appeals found that the FCC could not enforce Net Neutrality rules on an ISP because they did not fall under Title II classification at the time. 

In June of 2015, the FCC board voted to arbitrarily make all ISPs "common carriers" and thus subject to the potential 800+ rules that go along with being a Title II entity. But the FCC said "trust us, we are only enforcing these select few Net Neutrality rules, not the entire Title II structure" *wink wink nudge nudge*. 

The FCC vote was to repeal that 2015 decision.

What really gets me is how many people were completely fooled into believing that converting ISPs into government monopolies would actually solve the problems instead of making them much much worse.

And what's hilariously funny is that Trump is literally Hitler and FCC chairman Ajit Pai is evil and will destroy internet as we know it, but to save the internet we MUST force them to have complete regulatory control over it.

[WileyWarWeasel]

24 minutes ago, Rassah said:

What was repealed wasn't Net Neutrality, but FCC's classification of ISPs as a Title II. Which was only classified as such two years ago. So you'll have the exact same internet you've had for 30 years before that stupid FCC ruling that happened in 2015.

Title II is the classification given to certain entities in order to regulate them under the Communications Act of 1934. Another term used to describe a Title II entity is "common carrier". A common carrier is an entity that the government considers a "natural monopoly" (those of us that understand economics know there's no such thing) and in doing so have been granted, by government, monopoly rights to provide transit of certain services. 

Title II was designed for telephone utilities (look how well that turned out).

In the 2013 case of Verizon v FCC, the US Court of Appeals found that the FCC could not enforce Net Neutrality rules on an ISP because they did not fall under Title II classification at the time. 

In June of 2015, the FCC board voted to arbitrarily make all ISPs "common carriers" and thus subject to the potential 800+ rules that go along with being a Title II entity. But the FCC said "trust us, we are only enforcing these select few Net Neutrality rules, not the entire Title II structure" *wink wink nudge nudge*. 

The FCC vote was to repeal that 2015 decision.

What really gets me is how many people were completely fooled into believing that converting ISPs into government monopolies would actually solve the problems instead of making them much much worse.

And what's hilariously funny is that Trump is literally Hitler and FCC chairman Ajit Pai is evil and will destroy internet as we know it, but to save the internet we MUST force them to have complete regulatory control over it.

That's funny because the ISPs are already monopolies (or oligopolies in some cases) with or without the government's sanction.

Also in case you haven't noticed, "free markets" trend towards oligopolies/duopolies/monopolies over time as businesses merge with one another and take over others.

Before going too off-topic it is pretty obvious that beyond the 2015 ruling and repeal it seems that communications and utilities laws need quite an overhaul in general. The FCC needed to bring their conditions/terms/titles up to date rather than rely on old terms from 1934.

Looking a bit further back from the case you mentioned, the 2010 Comcast vs FCC case was mostly to do with Comcast interfering with peer-to-peer traffic. The court ruled that the FCC couldn't do anything about it due to the way that ISPs were classified.

ISPs pay attention to such court cases. When they see one company getting away with degrading certain types of traffic their leadership eventually questions how much they can get away with as well, which means that the recent Comcast interference with P2P traffic will not be the last case where ISPs will degrade or restrict traffic.

You get points for doing some history homework ;333

[Zaraphayx]

So how many of you stupid nerds voted???

[Victor-933]

On 12/15/2017 at 8:18 PM, WileyWarWeasel said:

neoliberal

[WileyWarWeasel]

10 hours ago, Victor-933 said:

Fite me ;P

[AshleyAshes]

22 hours ago, Zaraphayx said:

So how many of you stupid nerds voted???

Well, I'm Canadian, but I vote in provincial and federal elections for sure.  When the 'Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act' was tabled in Ontario I even phone my MPP's office to voice my support for the bill but also my opinion that the bill should mandate a minimum of five paid sick days per year vs the two it was initially tabled with.  It was never changed from two but at least I can say that I was involved in the democratic process rather than just moaning about it on Facebook.

[Rassah]

Free market don't trend towards monopolies/oligopolies. In the worst case they cycle where oligopolies get disrupted by new innovators. As for why ISPs are like that, it has nothing to do with free markets. FCC ruling prevented a far worse outcome, but this is the current outcome: https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-just-cable-companies-and-blame-local-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/

[Zaraphayx]

14 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

Well, I'm Canadian

 stopped reading there. I don't care what foreigners think about my country's domestic policy. 9.5/10 times you haven't the slightest clue how our regulatory agencies function in the first place which makes you marginally more clueless than our own citizens.

[AshleyAshes]

3 hours ago, Zaraphayx said:

 stopped reading there. I don't care what foreigners think about my country's domestic policy. 9.5/10 times you haven't the slightest clue how our regulatory agencies function in the first place which makes you marginally more clueless than our own citizens.

Funny, cause in my experience I have a better idea as to how they function than most Americans.  Though that's more an issue with the educational systems in America.  

3 hours ago, Zaraphayx said:

 

 

(You opened the door wiiiiide open to this response.)

[Zaraphayx]

13 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Funny, cause in my experience I have a better idea as to how they function than most Americans.  Though that's more an issue with the educational systems in America. 

It's too bad that your superior Canadian educational system couldn't teach you that your anecdotal experience doesn't matter.
 

17 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

(You opened the door wiiiiide open to this response.)

Or how to actually get the text inside of a quote box.

[WileyWarWeasel]

8 hours ago, Rassah said:

Free market don't trend towards monopolies/oligopolies. In the worst case they cycle where oligopolies get disrupted by new innovators.

Except that they do over time. Lets use a nice concrete example: media ownership in the US.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6?r=US&IR=T

What's happened since 2012, have new innovators come in to disrupt the media oligarchy? Nope, instead Disney has just bought part of Fox:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-14/disney-buying-large-part-of-21-century-fox-for-68-billion/9260734

 

Let me guess, you're going to counter with an argument that the concentration of ownership is because it's not a "true" free market. Funny how ownership of markets and resources concentrates into fewer and fewer hands not just in the US but in the world over time regardless of how "free" any of the markets are at the time.

Or perhaps "free markets" work perfectly they just haven't been implemented properly (eg that damn government getting in the way!) so we just need to keep privatizing healthcare, education and other sectors and some day we'll reach that "free market" utopia that only exists in fantasy. Kind of like how on the other side of the coin communism works perfectly it just hasn't been implemented properly (eg damn greed and corruption keep getting in the way!).

 

Or maybe, as crazy as this sounds, we're facing increasing restrictions, decreasing freedoms/privacy/autonomy due to the nature of large-scale organization itself and changing ideologies won't make them go away while we maintain large-scale interdependent organization and trade. Such a pity that motorized transport, computers, telecommunications and virtually everything else we rely on for modern life depend on large-scale operations and organization of those operations. I guess it's easier to chase after a fantasy (especially if you can sell that fantasy to others for currency units) than admit that as a civilization we've progressed into a nice little trap.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, that last part about local government was a good point, though in this case I'd recommend people doing what they can to root out or at least expose corruption even on a small level rather than leave everything to a few corporation executives to "solve".

[AshleyAshes]

1 hour ago, Zaraphayx said:

It's too bad that your superior Canadian educational system couldn't teach you that your anecdotal experience doesn't matter.
 

Or how to actually get the text inside of a quote box.

Mobile version on Android would flat out refuse to let me delete the empty box. 

[Rassah]

Those companies are more media distributors than owners. 9 companies doesn't make a monopoly. And there are other distributors coming out still, like Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon. I suspect the new streaming services will disrupt the old giants (or get bought out by them and then new disruptors will pop up again). Plus it would be good to see an example that doesn't ignore the ton of alternative media available all over the web, and one that isn't protected by FCC rules. I think this example actually shows how such protections (Title II stuff) would've made the internet worse.

[WileyWarWeasel]

4 hours ago, Rassah said:

Those companies are more media distributors than owners. 9 companies doesn't make a monopoly. And there are other distributors coming out still, like Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon. I suspect the new streaming services will disrupt the old giants (or get bought out by them and then new disruptors will pop up again). Plus it would be good to see an example that doesn't ignore the ton of alternative media available all over the web, and one that isn't protected by FCC rules. I think this example actually shows how such protections (Title II stuff) would've made the internet worse.

Nope they are an oligopoly instead.  Also it was 6 companies, down from 50 in 1983. They still control the majority of media distribution which determines who sees what.

Yes a few more have come out (though they're not exactly "new disruptors" as they've been around for years and have similar content anyway) but overall the majority of media experienced by people is still controlled by a tiny handful of companies, a far smaller pool than in 1983.

As for more independent media that only makes up a tiny percentage of what people experience in general. The FCC and Title 2 crap definitely does need an overhaul though.

 

It is nice to have access to alternative media at least (as well as being able to check statistics directly), getting others off the mainstream crap is another issue >>

[VGmaster9]

On ‎12‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 4:56 PM, Zaraphayx said:

So how many of you stupid nerds voted???

I vote, what's your point?

[Victor-933]

On 12/19/2017 at 7:57 AM, Zaraphayx said:

It's too bad that your superior Canadian educational system couldn't teach you that your anecdotal experience doesn't matter.
 

Or how to actually get the text inside of a quote box.

to be fair the mobile site is dildos

 

like if I manually type spoiler tags around a portion of a post it just puts the entire post under a spoiler

and good fucking luck trying to delete embedded objects like quote boxes or videos, it's easier to just reload the page and hit the "clear editor" button

[Zaraphayx]

10 hours ago, VGmaster9 said:

I vote, what's your point?

That you're a sad neurotic mess that's self-reporting an extremely negative psychological state because of a social policy decision that will have zero impact on your day to day life.

 

[Revates]

On 12/22/2017 at 7:42 PM, Zaraphayx said:

That you're a sad neurotic mess that's self-reporting an extremely negative psychological state because of a social policy decision that will have zero impact on your day to day life.

 

That's a very cute image of a dog, I'm stealing it, the dog and in exchange for it, you can have a thanks.

[Toshabi]