The Right's War On Net Neutrality 945
jamie writes "To understand the debate being waged in the United States over Net Neutrality, it's important to understand just how drastically one side has been misled. The leaders of the American Right are spreading the lie that Net Neutrality is a government takeover of the internet, with the intention of silencing conservative voices. (Limbaugh: "All you really have to know about Net Neutrality is that its biggest promoters are George Soros and Google.") This may be hard to believe to those of us who actually know what it's about — reinstating pre-2005 law that ensured internet providers could discriminate on the basis of volume but not content. Since the opposing side is so badly misinformed, those of us who want the internet to remain open to innovation and freedom of expression have to help educate them before the debate can really be held."
Of course (Score:1, Insightful)
As the son of a politician (Score:4, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with right or left, but the green of the money being bribed^H^H^H^H^H^H given for campaigning. This is not something the hill knows a damn thing about, and if we're lucky 10% of them understand the issue at a high level.
The evil "American Right"... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, like there are only two two kinds of people in this country ... and there are just as many on the "American Left" who will happily and blindly lap up what their "leaders" tell them to.
This appears to be a combined case of blind partisanship ("they support it, so we must oppose it because they're the other side"), stupidity, and "a free market isn't defined by the presence of competition or the ability for all parties to make free, informed choices, but rather whether large corporations have any restrictions on them or not".
I have no love for a lot of the "American Left" as most would think of it, nor for the "Right". But this is just fucking stupid.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Not "whenever." But in this particular case, yes, people who oppose net neutrality because they believe it's about censoring conservative voices on the Internet are misinformed.
The only way their argument makes any sense is if they believes that ANY gov't regulation will inevitably lead to oppression, which is, frankly, a pretty childish belief. Put down the Ayn Rand, folks, and come back to the real world. Gov't regulating lead-free drinking water is not an attack on liberty.
Not arguing about Net Neutrality, but Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
There were many people in the previous Slashdot thread about Network Neutrality, that complained that they supported the noble goal of "Network Neutrality", but that what the FCC was passing was not "the network neutrality they supported".
So the disconnect is that many people (NOT just Republicans) are warning you about the Network Neutrality you are about to get, not about the fantasy Network Neutrality the Daily Kos wishes to be. The Daily Kos claims it is "lies" because what is being said does not match the definition that the Kos holds for network neutrality - when in reality NONE of us have seen the regulation recently passed - I still cannot find the exact wording, isn't that rather a bad sign that we are not allowed to see what they pass before they pass it?
The Network Neutrality you are about to get was crafted mostly from feedback my media companies and telcos, and large companies like Amazon and Google. Worried about too much corporate control over the internet now? It doesn't get any better when you put the power of regulations into the hands of a small number of companies that have the resources to lobby the FCC on issues.
And all this to stop what EXISTING problem? There's a lot of danger in creating open-ended rules to solve problems that are only imagined, and do not exist. Have we learned nothing from handing over a lot of power to government organizations like the TSA that control to some degree how we travel now? Why would you want similar control over ISP network management on behalf of the FCC?
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, though, the pattern (seen here on /. as well as from Rush et al) is that the right wing set up a straw man of what net neutrality it is in order to knock it down. Specifically, they claimed that the proposal was about something similar to the Fairness Doctrine [wikipedia.org], when it is fact completely different.
It was rather clever of them, really: They took the fact that "Neutrality" and "Fairness" were similar ideas, and used just that to make a large segment of the population think that what "Net Neutrality" meant was "Barack Obama ensuring that nobody can say anything bad about him on the Internet".
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to listen to Limbaugh (2002) until I heard him comparing the then-new Prius and Honda Insight hybrids to yugos, and claiming they can't run faster than 55. Well I owned an insight and knew that was a flat lie (its top speed was 120).
More recently he's been saying the Chevy Volt hybrid only goes 40 miles. Limbaugh ought to take a page from Glenn Beck and actually RESEARCH a topic before speaking because while the Volt Electric Mode only goes 40 miles, it also has a gasoline engine that turns-on when the battery is empty. Stupid shithead Rush... I refuse to listen to him anymore because if he can't get that basic tiny fact straight, it makes me wonder what else he's getting wrong.
Such hypocrisy (Score:2, Insightful)
You blame the 'right' for being ignorant on your view of net neutrality without understanding theirs. You could have made your point without being blatantly offensive also.
As a conservative, freedom of expression means freedom from government intervention into my everyday life. I do not need government regulation on what TV I choose to watch, what food I wish to eat, and how I wish to use the Internet.
The answer to every problem is *not* more laws and regulation. This should be an absolute last resort, and personally I do not believe we are there yet.
Misinformation (Score:0, Insightful)
One of the problems is that techies think that the debate over net neutrality has anything to do with what they THINK net neutrality is. One could say that the techies are being useful idiots for promoting a government regulation of the internet, which they naively think they're protecting.
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Whenever someone disagrees with you, it must be because they are badly misinformed.
Often it can be the case, and in this case I think it is a bit of a problem. The issue is one that is being politically charged and turned into a partisan issue because those who are promoting this current concept of "net neutrality" is also doing the concept a disservice as well. From the Daily Kos article itself:
Unfortunately in American politics, a clean and clear "left vs. right" paradigm doesn't work either and there are also many aspects to somebody's political beliefs that by turning this into a "liberal vs. conservative" issue is doing themselves and this issue in particular a major disservice.
The core of the problem is the FCC getting into the mix here where they clearly lack the authority to act at all, and where this really ought to be a congressional issue or better yet something where the government simply stays out of the whole issue altogether. It is also a problem where just a few gatekeepers have somehow been able to get themselves to a position where they can in theory "control" the internet, and I contend it is because of too much regulation of the internet that this situation has happened. If private individuals were allowed to connect to whomever and however they wanted for a network connection, most of these problems would go away. It is the legal restrictions which enact barriers to competition and the encouragement of government-backed monopolies which has forced this situation to a head.
While I'll be the first to admit that Rush Limbaugh is speaking out through ignorance of the issue, this politically charged reply is showing equal signs of ignorance for what is unfortunately a very complex issue with multiple "solutions" if the goal is to permit more freedom for individuals to express themselves as they so choose.
Re:Of course (Score:2, Insightful)
People are misled on all sides by anything that's been given a political bent. Net Neutrality has been especially susceptible to this; when non-geeks can barely understand what it's about, you can't expect highly-partisan tools to understand it, either.
ISP monopolies are the real problem! (Score:2, Insightful)
The introduction to this topic is as out of touch with reality as all of the coverage of this topic.
- Govt has too much regulation which allowed the ISPs to become "monopolies".
- Instead of removing the regulation to allow competition so the consumer can choose with their wallet.
- Lets have more govt regulation to prevent the ISPs from acting like monopolies.
I want net neutrality, but I want it because I have a choice in ISPs not because big brother allows me to have it.
Re:Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't an issue of the concept being sound - it is the practical enforcement of the concept. Good ideas implemented poorly by a government that can't keep the post office viable or get aid to hurricane victims isn't going to help anyway. For me the debate over NN is moot. The real debate is can the FCC implement it without corruption or government creep? Sadly, there is little evidence to show they can.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
You are misunderstanding Rush. Believe me, he has one hell of a research staff, and often he isn't saying what you think he is saying. If he is masterful at anything, it is at parsing words. If he says something like "The Chevy volt is only gonna let you drive 40 miles on batteries" and other think that means it will only go 40 miles, well, thats ok for him. He even plays back his "quotes", and again, he parses his words carefully so that in a single quote, the meaning might be obvious but in the full context, it may be misleading. Lots of "what if....[statement]" or " maybe...[statement]...who knows" type of noncommittal comments.
In other words, he talks out of both sides of his mouth. He is entertaining, and I see the attraction. I used to listen. But remember, he is an entertainer, not a journalist. Even he admits that, then acts like a journalist.
digging into the slashdot archives (Score:4, Insightful)
one, foxnews make you more misinformed.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/12/16/1615218/Survey-Shows-That-Fox-News-Makes-You-Less-Informed?from=rss [slashdot.org]
two, given truth, the misinformed believe the lies more.
http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/07/14/1235220/Given-Truth-the-Misinformed-Believe-Lies-More [slashdot.org]
Re:The Democrats don't help (Score:2, Insightful)
Mod up please...
It should be noted that the Democrats actually have a completely differing idea of "Net Neutrality" than we do and it's much like the "Healthcare Reform" or "Immigration Reform" we're seeing carried out of late.
In truth, we've not the foggiest what they do/don't have in mind on the subject in DC. They might be interested in doing what we have in OUR heads for the term/name "Net Neutrality"- or, based on the rhetoric used by the Democrats on the subject, it's just as likely what the Republicans are on about and against.
Just because it uses our words doesn't mean that it's what we had in mind that they're doing. To the geek crowd, words still tend to have meaning. To the political bunch, for many, words have no meaning whatsoever.
Re:Such hypocrisy (Score:3, Insightful)
How does net neutrality interfere with how you wish to use the Internet? Net neutrality "restricts freedom" in the exact same way that abolishing slavery "restricts freedom". In the first case ISPs are limited from restricting your freedom. In the second case replace "ISP" with "slave owner".
The real price. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But will they listen? (Score:5, Insightful)
Net neutrality more or less codifies the way things were done until relatively recently.
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
It's still a strawman to conflate the two even if both are mentioned at the same time.
They are different things and should be treated as such. Certainly the inclination of Radio and TV trolls to muddle the two doesn't help keep these concepts isolated from one another. It doesn't add to the discussion or help governance.
Re:I have to deal with this all the time.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This came up a lot in Gay Marriage for instance, where people couldn't really say no to two people in love getting married, so they started talking about people marrying sheep or dogs instead.
Re:I have to deal with this all the time.... (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah, "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
"The right" is against NN for the same reason "the right" rejects global warming: the rich and powerful don't want it.
We've got an enormous problem with political ignorance and naivety in this country. The Republicans want to run the country in whatever way helps the rich get richer quicker. (If you don't accept that premise, go back and look at whose interests they consistently looked after when they held the White House and both houses of Congress, vs. whose interests they occasionally threw a bone to. By the time of the 2006 elections the leaders of various socially conservative movements were complaining that they were bringing in a lot of votes and not getting much of anything in return.)
But there's a problem if you want to run a republic for the benefit of the rich: there aren't enough of them to win elections. So you have to find ways to get people to vote against their own best interests. But any decent politician knows that if they can make your knee jerk, they can make your finger twitch in the voting booth. So Republican politicians have offered the country things like the Southern Strategy, and the new Southwestern Strategy that they've been rolling out for the last ~5 years, and of course their association with the religious right. I.e., appeal to people's worst instincts rather than their best.
But now, due to the aforementioned political ignorance and naivety, people think that whatever the Republican politicians want is an inherently conservative position. So we get idiotic ideas such as that global warming and net neutrality are leftist ideologies. People in this country need to wake up and smell the bullshit before they've been fucked beyond the point of no return.
Republicans = corporations (Score:5, Insightful)
democrats have at least SOME consideration in regard to principle. they at least try to make whatever filth they are doing seem to fit their ideology, even in appearance. republicans dont even have that concern.
whatever their private backers, corporations want at THAT given moment in time, they drum it. if the corporations want the exact opposite 2 months later, they see no issues reverting back. they even dont care whether someone may notice and make a fool of them in media. and at the end they end up the greatest material for news comedy shows.
Re:Such hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
We understand "their view perfectly well". It's a sort of pseudo-libertarianism with some distracting demogogery for the proles thrown in to distract them from what's really going on.
Corporations and rich people should be free to take advantage of the powerless.
That has always been Republican dogma.
Re:I have to deal with this all the time.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Liberals usually work incrementally. It starts with simple net neutrality rules. Then later on, they add some more rules. And more. And more. A Killswitch and some hate-crimes legislation later and before you know the government is all up in your intarwebs."
The right does the same thing. That's why the top 1% took home 8% of GDP in the 80's, 15% in the 90's, and 24% now. Tax cuts without spending cuts (the Reagan legacy) over time, slowly peeling away regulations, not funding the regulators, and the current push to privatize everything, all direct wealth up, instead of directing wealth out.
I used to be a raging libertarian, but now in my 50's I see the system is rigged for the rich, and the GOP's stand on net neutraility is just another way to push money and control up.
The right tends to worship the wealthy and believes the poor are poor for a reason. Control of the internet is more of the same.
Re:The evil "American Right"...yup (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a conservative. No one represents me in government, no one.
No one in government represents any of my neighbors either, not all of whom are "conservative".
You can even be a (real) conservative and realize that families are important and should be encouraged -- even ones headed up by married gays. Gheesh, how did those idiots let themselves be hijacked by the radicals? (which applies to either left or right as far as I can tell, just different radicals involved -- sometimes)
Why did we let them get to this point, where now there is no way to just vote the bastards out? Some choice we get at the polls -- people selected by the "two heads of the same monster" are our "choice".
This is indistinguishable from a police/fascist state no matter who is in power now.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
To me the fight between big Government and Big Corps is almost the same as those debating who takes away more rights the (D) or the (R) in power.
In the Case of NN, I'm all for NN, provided that it doesn't harm business, and government doesn't get more power. Those on the left don't see government having power as being a problem, as long as it is their kind of power.And this is why the people on the right have concerns, because it isn't beyond the left to limit speech that "offends" them in some way, or if the threat of "fairness doctrine".
Just recently the far left Senator Rockefeller mentioned taking FOX news and MSNBC off the air. And it doesn't matter if he was "joking" or not, simply saying it shows how these people think; that if you don't agree with them, you should be silenced.
THAT is the concern for many people who don't want government control of the internet, because once you start defining that the government CAN control it, it is just a matter of time before it controls the whole of it in one way or another.
On the other hand you have douchebags like Comcast who won't update their peer links to realistic expectations and are artificially putting choke points into their internet models so that they can extract more cash from content providers, and protect their monopoly.
The answer isn't a simple "let the government regulate it" as many people think.
Re:I have to deal with this all the time.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything extra should be given back to the people who payed in.
There *isn't anything extra*, dumbass. What part of "deficit" don't you understand?
Don't want to raise taxes? Okay, start by cutting military and entitlements.
Wait, you're telling me the right-wingers don't want that? Oh, okay, then raise taxes.
Wait, they don't want that either?
Oh, I see. They're a bunch of fucking hypocrites. Gotcha.
Re:I have to deal with this all the time.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Liberals usually work incrementally. It starts with simple net neutrality rules. Then later on, they add some more rules. And more. And more. A Killswitch and some hate-crimes legislation later and before you know the government is all up in your intarwebs.
They don't call it "Progressive" for nothing.
Re:As the son of a politician (Score:3, Insightful)
It could have been nonpartisan, right up until the point where MoveOn.org (i.e., George Soros) got involved. And, predictably, the issue became toxic for any Republican who might otherwise have seen that while the telecoms don't benefit from net neutrality, the content providers/distributors (Google and Netflix, rather than "Big Hollywood") and further online innovation benefit tremendously.
Rush Limbaugh may be blind to the truth about net neutrality, but he at least knows why he's on this particular battlefield: single combat with George Soros.
How can you claim anything without the regulation? (Score:4, Insightful)
it seems to me that the poster has given good reason to bolster his claim
Really? How so? Because I cannot find the actual text of the regulation they just passed. All else then is speculation, except for a few leaked tidbits that indicate the regulation is nothing like the idea of network neutrality most people had. So then, it seems more right to be concerned about what it actually is than arguing that a mythical variant of network neutrality that we will never see in practice, is awesome and you should vote for it.
Re:Such hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
Insightful my a$$.
So, it is OK with your conservative values if *corporations* restrict your access to internet content? To take your "views" to a logical extreme, it is OK with you if, as a Comcast subscriber, you only have access to content made available by NBC even though you are paying for flat-rate or volume internet access? Oh, you will play your "free market" card and switch? To what? Maybe the single other monopoly that can provide you broadband?
The 'Net is pretty much neutral now. There is a place for government regulation to keep it that way.
Re:The Democrats don't help (Score:5, Insightful)
Normally I would dismiss your post, which seems full of crazy conspiracy theories that you're pulling from memory "but can be found on Google". However some bright sparks have seen fit to moderate your post as +5 Informative. So please, give me some citations. The only things I've been able to find on Google are completely unverifiable claims from conspiracy-theorist websites.
But more fundamentally --- what is the implication of your post? That opposing Net Neutrality legislation is going to make it harder for governments to censor? Cause it seems to me that a small number of powerful telecoms dominating what people read is more or less a precondition for a modern totalitarian state.
The "unfairness" of critisizing the right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
"Gov't regulating lead-free drinking water is not an attack on liberty."
But government fluoridation of drinking water is a communist plan to weaken our essence.
Re:I have to deal with this all the time.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just like everybody who wants less government, or who is worried about heaping trillions of new debt on the bonfire that is our economy is ... a racist who actively wants, as their goal in life, for poor people to be sick and die. That is, if you listen to Al Franken and MSNBC, right?
I'm not that short-sighted, of course. I'm perfectly aware that conservatives aren't actively working to kill off all the poor and underprivileged. Who would be left to work factory jobs in abject conditions for minimum wage (or worse)?
Re:The evil "American Right"... (Score:1, Insightful)
The government is telling us what we can't eat now.
So its agreed then! All of your health problems, be it directly or indirectly related to your obesity absolutely should not be covered by health insurance.
For those who don't understand the connection, its government reclassification of obesity as a desease which mandated coverage of self destructive behavior which we all now pay for - both in taxes and health insurance.
So now a government representative says, you might want to consider stop eating stuff which only an idiot constantly eats on a regular basis...and your response is...the gubberment, which is funding my stupidity, wants to control me...Ahhhh.....
Riiight....
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, other than the part where people in the current administration and congress actually are talking about Fairness Doctrine-esque riders on this legislation. Or when people working at the FCC expressly mention giving though to the FD for broadcase and web content. It's vocal, and repeated condemnation of those notions that keep them OUT of the legislation, despite the liberal urge to have them enacted.
You Can Stop Reading At "Takeover" (Score:3, Insightful)
And now
The right screamed nonstop about the inevitability of the first three, none of which actually happened. Now they are screaming that the fourth will happen (either instead, or as well, depending on your take on reality). I'm not holding my breath.
Basically, if someone is claiming the government is about to "takeover" something, and they don't specify a military invasion as a tool in doing so, they have likely been listening to conservative media again. If you actually try to start a serious conservation with them on the issue you will likely find out in less than 30 seconds that they have no factual information to support their claims.
Or maybe not so... (Score:4, Insightful)
The "lefts" crown jewels was single payer and it failed.
Mandatory national insurance was the sweetener to get the congress critters who were in the pockets of the health insurance lobbyists to vote for the bill. I don't think either side was enthusiastic about it but it was necessary to get the whole thing passed.
Isn't compromise fun?
Re:Of course (Score:2, Insightful)
No, just no. The only ones mentioning the Fairness Doctrine are those that claim that the left is trying to bring it back.
Re:The evil "American Right"...yup (Score:5, Insightful)
No, just evil people who grab and increase their power over us because we are dumb enough to let them. We've even let them destroy the language -- liberal used to mean something a lot more like "libertarian"
No it didn't. The libertarian position is one that honestly did not exist in politics until about 50 years ago.
I know, in conservative mythos, the founding fathers were libertarians, but they were not. Liberal, in that day, was basically anti-classism and anti-crown, a position that really doesn't exist anymore in modern politics.
Once the crown was gone, it continued to be anti-special-rules-for-the-ruling class, a position it still holds, at least in theory. (As we don't actually have any liberal political party, it doesn't really hold any position anymore.) All liberal fights, though the entire history of this country and back to John Locke, are to stop one group of withholding power-sharing from another group, with the groups being the crown, nobles, slaveowners, the superrich, the corporate owners, the whites, the straights...and, apparently, the superrich again. Except now the superrich have intelligently bought both parties.
(Please note when I say 'liberals', I am, indeed, aware that liberals used to be on the right, and flopped to the left around when I said 'the whites')
Libertarianism is not classical liberalism, it is neo-classical liberalism. It reinvents the idea that the problem is 'the crown'. Which, frankly, would be a rather strange idea to various classical liberal thinkers, whose biggest problem with the government is the fact that it often failed to enforce laws equally, and not that those laws existed at all!
and "conservative" used to mean, you know, look before you leap, spend less than you make, stuff like that. Or even "not all change is for the better, so examine it first before deciding".
Here, you're right. Conservatives, to paraphrase something David Brin wrote on the topic, used to be the serious guys in suits at NASA who did the math. The guys running around in the background monitoring stuff that seemed entirely pointless (Until it was wrong, then they calmly and efficiently saved everyone's life.), and wasn't glamorous, and they went home to their family and read the paper each evening. Whereas liberals were the astronauts and the sci-fi writers and the dreamers, and got all the credit, but without the guys in suits, wouldn't know how to do what they were trying to do. There's the guys who try to do everything, and the guys who figure out what can and can't happen and managed to get some of it done, while otherwise raining on the parade.
But that ended about two decades ago, when it was decided that the best way to rule the country is not to point out the parts of the left's plans that can't work, and invent better ways...but to simply assert, very loudly, that anything the left wants is wrong. Morally wrong, politically wrong, won't work, every single possible objection.
Even stuff like cap and trade or the public mandate for health insurance, both of which were conservative alternatives to the left's previous plan. Or stuff like bills attempting to stop child 'marriage', which the Republicans shot down for absurd reasons two week ago. (Apparently, educating women that it is not acceptable for them to be sold to older men when they're 13 as his 'wife' is...um...pro-abortion.)
Re:The evil "American Right"... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is this American left? I want to join their party. All I see is the Democrats on the right and the Republicans on the far right. A major left party would be wonderful.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:2, Insightful)
Obama's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, expressly called for a net-oriented "fairness doctrine" that would require web sites posting opinions to link to opposing opinions. He was, of course, derided by the right for this, and he's backed away, speaking now in more vague terms about it, to avoid being directly quotable. He knows it's offensive on the face of it. On the other hand...
Obama's "diversity czar" at the FCC has (along with even-handed, thoughtful gems like, "White people need to be forced to step down so someone else can have power" and his gushing praise for Hugo Chavez's handling - read: nationalization and government programming - of media in Venezuela) said that he finds the Fairness Doctrine, as it was used previously, to have gone not nearly far enough in having hard and fast rules about the content of communication.
Re:As the son of a politician (Score:2, Insightful)
You meant 8,000x not 800,000x. Unless you meant $1.08 million for the other program. However your point remains.
It's one of the things I don't understand about Democrats. Why don't they hold Republicans' feet to the fire? They say they want to repeal health care reform. Dems should say, "OK, why do you want to allow insurance companies to deny coverage to 6-year-olds with leukemia?" Then run an ad with some little kid at the hospital saying how health care reform has saved their parents from bankruptcy.
That's what the GOP used to do all the time with defense spending. They'd lament how the Democrats want US troops to die in combat since they wouldn't vote for a defense spending bill (that had a rider authorizing ANWR drilling).
Re:yeah, "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
The "right" is against NN because they are paranoid of increased government powers.
Wow you have been brainwashed.
Ok, if that were even close to the case where was 'the right' during the 8 years of HUGE power grabs during W's years? Oh they were busy telling anyone that if they disagreed with such measures that they were un-American and whatnot.
But seriously, if you have even the slightest bit of integrity you will apologize to everyone who had to read that and offer up something better.
Re:Or maybe not so... (Score:3, Insightful)
"The sweetner"? If you can guarantee that anyone can get insurance regardless of prior conditions, people are just going to opt out when they're healthy and opt in when they're sick. If you're going to prevent folks from being rejected on the basis of preexisting conditions, making participation mandatory is the only way it works at all.
Re:Give link please (Score:5, Insightful)
Why shouldn't ISPs be allowed to block unlawful content? That's just good common sense. If they know kidsxxx.cx is a vendor of child porn, then they should be allowed to block it.
I've only ever torrented legal stuff, so I don't know why you bring up torrents. If you had said "Bye-bye unlawful torrents," then you would have been correct. I don't see any problem with that. The way I see it, this basically guarantees that my ISP can't slow down my latest Linux download or Netflix movie just because some other asshole is using a torrent stream to download a movie they didn't want to pay for.
I generally consider myself pro-neutrality, but if your viewpoint is shared by most of the NN crowd, maybe I'm on the wrong side of the argument after all.
Re:Mod Parent Up Please! (Score:4, Insightful)
Right, more precisely, a government agency, the FCC is attempted to wiggle into it's structure, power that congress didn't instill upon them after a court pointed that out.
It's not the net Neutrality that is of concern, it's a government agency bypassing congress and giving itself more power then a competent court of law said it had. In other words, this is like the FBI or NSA all the sudden determining it has the power to arrest and detain people without due process because of information gathered from once illegal wiretaps that were somehow justified through NSA laws.
It's fucking frightening to see that parts of the government can magically give itself more power without congress doing so. And whether you like Rush or not, this one thing should at least grab your attention and we should all have something in common with it. Congress sets the rules and laws, not some entity of government who already was told by a court that they didn't have the powers to regulate it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)