[MW Forums]

The House of Representatives defeats a net neutrality provision. more

[jmincey]

Ah yes, the United States Government at work -- it knows on what side its bread is buttered. And it's not about the merits of legislation either -- it's about who lines whose pocket.
Or as Molly Ivins is fond of saying in that Texas folk idiom, when it comes to the US Congress, you dance with them what brung ya.
How charming. Our corrupt officials at work.

[Grapho]

I agree. This once again shows that Iraq didn't need a regime change, we do! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[migeon]

This is NOT the US government in action! It is PART of the US government in action!. But as usual, the story doesn't identify those who supported the bill and those against so that the readers could understand what factions stand for which side of the issue. And I'm NOT talking about 100% of Republicans voted this way and 100% of Democrats voted that way. It never works that way. But there are large generalities that can almost always be drawn. I know, for instance, that there are leading democrats on both side of the issue. But I don't know which faction in the congress is on one side and which on the other because. Any decent reporter can answer these questions. And without knowing the answers, readers and citizens can't be properly informed and know who to vote for.

[Uncommon]

The "net neutrality" thing sounds like speculative legislation to me, so it doesn't bother me that that part didn't pass.
What does bug me is when these comments veer sharply off into general criticism of the government. Regardless of whether the criticism is valid (and it's usually more of a vague rant instead), this just isn't the place.

[b_baggins]

Interesting how it's Keep the Government out of our Internet, until it's one of your ideologies you want to promote, then all of a sudden it's How Dare Government Not Take Action!

[b_baggins]

Comments like these make me long for the days of limited franchise. I just keep telling myself that maybe the stupid people won't vote in the next election.

[tallscot]

This is NOT the US government in action! It is PART of the US government in action!. But as usual, the story doesn't identify those who supported the bill and those against
Sure it did! Big evil corporations don't want the bill and good, noble consumer-advocates do want it.
This article was horribly biased since the only anti-regulation group they cited is backed by the "evil corporations", and they made sure to point that out. There are many organizations that are bi-partisan that don't want this government regulation.
This always happens the same way:
1. We need the government to regulate something.
2. The government then says it needs to tax whatever its regulating so it can have revenue to regulate it.
3. The original reason the government started regulating something gets lost and what you wanted to not happen ends up happening anyway.
Oh, and we need the government to keep all that hate speech off the Internet, right? And, oh my, there's way too much porn on the Internet. We need the government to come in and regulate that too...to protect the chiiiiildren.
It's always a slippery slope. Keep the door shut. Don't open it even a crack.
Keep the government out of the Internet - period. Special interest groups all want something for themselves, on both sides of the aisles, and they all have lobbying efforts. Only an idiot believes that it's only the "evil corporations" who put money into politics. The biggest checks come from unions and trial lawyers. A single union will spend millions on ads during an election over a single issue. The unions spent ~$130 million alone on the special election last year in California to keep their union members from opting out of political spending easily. The teachers unions defeated a measure that would have made teachers work for 4 years instead of 2 before they get tenure (can't be fired except for murder, multiple rapes, or genocide). Sorry, off topic. Don't get me started on politics... /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Ha!
And I guess Microsoft isn't a big corporation since they were backing this bill. Ugh!

[jmincey]

"Interesting how it's Keep the Government out of our Internet, until it's one of your ideologies you want to promote, then all of a sudden it's How Dare Government Not Take Action!"
In your all-or-nothing eyes, the world divides into two camps: (1) The government can do no wrong and (2) the government can do no good. To the typical American, a "nuanced" position that in some areas the government has a role while in other areas it does not is a contradiction. But it's not a contradiction in the least. Quite the contrary, I'm logically consistent in my positions on this issue.
Whatever the 40-year origins of the internet, the fact is that today it is a global utility. As such, it should not reside in the hands of any single entity -- whether a single government or a single corporation.
The internet should be a level playing field. Quick and easy access to a specific web site should be determined by the merits of the web site and not by back-room deals. National governments are the only parties which can ensure this. We can't leave this to profit interests because the well being of the internet as a whole is not their concern.
What's best for private corporations is not synonymous with what's best for the internet, and thus some provision has to be made to safeguard the integrity of this important resource. And while Americans worship the idea that the free market solves all problems, the rest of the civilized world has moved beyond this discredited notion that the random, self-motivated actions of individual profit interests just happens in the aggregate to coincide with what is best for all.
As both a consumer and a service provider on the internet, I want equal access to sites across the board. This has served us well all these years and I see no reason to tamper with this success.
So now that American corporations (predictably) want to do for the internet what unfetterred laissez-faire capitalism has done for America as a whole -- to wit, turn it into a landscape of haves and have nots -- I advocate that oversight of the internet lie in the hands of a multi-national body which has no economic vested interest in it nor any monolithic political agenda, (because of its multi-national composition). This way neither would a single corporation, industry, or government exert undue sway.

[jdb8167]

In reply to:

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I advocate that oversight of the internet lie in the hands of a multi-national body which has no economic vested interest in it nor any monolithic political agenda

---

I was with you up to this point. I don't understand how that would work for a US company who owns the pipes in the US. At the very least the US government would need a law giving this multi-national body the power to tell Verizon what they can do with their network. This law would be subject to the exact same pressures as a comprehensive net neutrality law so you might as well just go with the US defining the law about how US companies must behave.

[fisheye]

More info:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/

http://www.storieson...o.com/cope.html

[jmincey]

"I was with you up to this point."
I'm thinking of something like a more comprehensive ICANN except that it is beholden to no corporation, no industry, and no government. It is composed of engineers, scientists, sociologists, etc. from multiple nations -- based on merit and not based on whether they are American. If it's a multi-national body (but not functioning at the behest of any single government) -- it will then have global legitimacy. Absent that, it will always be a target of accusations of conflict of interest, favoritism, even possibly racism.

[spiderbat]

Since i live in Italy, I don't claim to understand the problems of U.S. politics, but I'd say that, at least in principle, compelling the companies that actually manage internet not to discriminate among packets on the basis of their origin and contents is more like enforcing laws against racial discrimination than advocating over-regulation.
I fear the problem is not limited to U.S.: our biggest telecommunication company, that actually owns and manages almost all the physical appliances by which the network content is delivered, is changing its ADSL offer in a way that will privilege its own paid contents (movies, soccer matches, etc. on a pay-per-view basis) over "normal" net traffic. Practically, the customers with a 4Mb/s (very theoretical speed!) contract will have the choice to downgrade to 640Kb/s or to upgrade to a 20Mb/s ADSL 2+ connection with a very low minimum assured BW (40kB/s) and therefore, most probably, slower than before for every use but the reception of paid contents.

[jmincey]

Yes, this is simply capitalism at work -- whether in the USA or elsewhere. If this trend continues, the entire internet will look like a passenger plane -- with a few web sites in "first class" and the rest of us crammed together in the coach section.