Net Neutrality

[Doc Daneeka]

Since I'm back, at least for the time, I'd like to ask everyone at this fairly large community of film fans to throw in a signature for what I consider to be a very important cause.

http://demandprogress.org/blacklist/?source=fb

I, in all honesty, consider to be the internet to be one of the most important inventions of the past century. It is an instrument through which human beings can communicate nigh-freely and nigh-effortlessly, a place where you can put your opinion forward for anybody to have a pretty good chance of seeing at some point in time. This should not be restricted, lest one of the final frontiers of free speech be restricted (like film or TV)!

I'm asking everyone to sign, and if you're feeling particularly motivated, to print out and put up included fliers as well.

[Rev. Powell]

I have no problem, for example, with the government censoring sites that promote child pornography or other illegal activity.  Senate Bill 3804 is aimed at shutting down illegal piracy sites.  There's no sort of constitutionally protected speech going on at sites that copy the hard labor of others and distribute it to the public for free while making money for themselves off advertising.  As long as there are no due process problems with the implementation (and I'm really not educated as to whether there are or not), I have no problem with it.  I think the fact that the petition compares this law to the kind of actual censorship of free speech that goes on in China or Iran is silly at best. 

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

I have no problem, for example, with the government censoring sites that promote child pornography or other illegal activity.  Senate Bill 3804 is aimed at shutting down illegal piracy sites.  There's no sort of constitutionally protected speech going on at sites that copy the hard labor of others and distribute it to the public for free while making money for themselves off advertising.  As long as there are no due process problems with the implementation (and I'm really not educated as to whether there are or not), I have no problem with it.  I think the fact that the petition compares this law to the kind of actual censorship of free speech that goes on in China or Iran is silly at best. 

The big problem is this though:  The Feds and the FCC have the right to decide what is and what isn't illegal, or should be subject to banning from the Internet ( if I'm right.) and that leads us to Congress.  And,  since partisanship will most likely play a very large part in this (as most politics usually do) you have to ask one thing:

What amount of the law would be "fair for everyone" vs. the amount done just in the name of politiclly motivated revenge ( I.E. those who p**s themselves whenever someone criticizes their favorite candidate or party.)   This could get potentially ugly, and lead to some downright vicious legal battles on top of the Free Speech issues our courts face every day.   

Quite a few interesting legal battles are most likely on the way..

[Doc Daneeka]

I have no problem, for example, with the government censoring sites that promote child pornography or other illegal activity.  Senate Bill 3804 is aimed at shutting down illegal piracy sites.  There's no sort of constitutionally protected speech going on at sites that copy the hard labor of others and distribute it to the public for free while making money for themselves off advertising.  As long as there are no due process problems with the implementation (and I'm really not educated as to whether there are or not), I have no problem with it.  I think the fact that the petition compares this law to the kind of actual censorship of free speech that goes on in China or Iran is silly at best. 

It was the first petition-site against the bill that I found :P

And I do share many of the same fears as Umaril. What really makes me paranoid though, is what might eventually come from the regulation... think of the FCC (again) and the MPAA; think of how much power they have over their respective other forms of media! What if somewhere down the line a "ratings system"/"v-chip type thingy" is imposed for the internet, bringing traffic to good websites (possibly like this one) to a crawl? Think of the information that could get lost that way, if more websites eventually get restricted (due to, say, restrictions on rating at workplaces, or simply "mis-ratings") it could bring about disinterest from their owners to keep them running.

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

I have no problem, for example, with the government censoring sites that promote child pornography or other illegal activity.  Senate Bill 3804 is aimed at shutting down illegal piracy sites.  There's no sort of constitutionally protected speech going on at sites that copy the hard labor of others and distribute it to the public for free while making money for themselves off advertising.  As long as there are no due process problems with the implementation (and I'm really not educated as to whether there are or not), I have no problem with it.  I think the fact that the petition compares this law to the kind of actual censorship of free speech that goes on in China or Iran is silly at best. 

It was the first petition-site against the bill that I found :P

And I do share many of the same fears as Umaril. What really makes me paranoid though, is what might eventually come from the regulation... think of the FCC (again) and the MPAA; think of how much power they have over their respective other forms of media! What if somewhere down the line a "ratings system"/"v-chip type thingy" is imposed for the internet, bringing traffic to good websites (possibly like this one) to a crawl? Think of the information that could get lost that way, if more websites eventually get restricted (due to, say, restrictions on rating at workplaces, or simply "mis-ratings") it could bring about disinterest from their owners to keep them running.

Great minds think alike, mate.    

Sadly there will be those will say that folk that think like us are paranoid,  or say "we make them sick" or  "asinine" (hmm, all of these seem to ring a current bell)  and the move to discredit us would begin anew.

Lets' say that the FCC requires online news sites to submit their original source material prior to it's release?  How convenient--the FCC can then create their own falsified versions of the stories,  broadcast them over the site in question, and make it look like they violated Net Neutrality w\regard to subject matter. And with the FCC in possession of the original source material, said station cannot prove it's innocence.

What follows?  Financial ruin of the beleaguered network, thru fines and levies. Perhaps a bit futuristic or far fetched, but there would be a great possibility for it (and other things.)

[Menard]

And I do share many of the same fears as Umaril. What really makes me paranoid though, is what might eventually come from the regulation... think of the FCC (again) and the MPAA; think of how much power they have over their respective other forms of media! What if somewhere down the line a "ratings system"/"v-chip type thingy" is imposed for the internet, bringing traffic to good websites (possibly like this one) to a crawl? Think of the information that could get lost that way, if more websites eventually get restricted (due to, say, restrictions on rating at workplaces, or simply "mis-ratings") it could bring about disinterest from their owners to keep them running.

 

Sadly there will be those will say that folk that think like us are paranoid,  or say "we make them sick" or  "asinine" (hmm, all of these seem to ring a current bell)  and the move to discredit us would begin anew.

Lets' say that the FCC requires online news sites to submit their original source material prior to it's release?  How convenient--the FCC can then create their own falsified versions of the stories,  broadcast them over the site in question, and make it look like they violated Net Neutrality w\regard to subject matter. And with the FCC in possession of the original source material, said station cannot prove it's innocence.

What follows?  Financial ruin of the beleaguered network, thru fines and levies. Perhaps a bit futuristic or far fetched, but there would be a great possibility for it (and other things.)

I don't think I'd use the paranoid when confused would work just fine.

The FCC is a regulatory agency; they basically regulate code and monitor that under their jurisdiction for violations. (that's paraphrasing, not a definition)

With the technology at hand to monitor the internet and any other of communication, acting as a filtering agency would be a massive undertaking.

The capability exists at present to crawl the internet; searching for pertinent keywords. The search engines have been doing it for years, to the point where Google can dynamically update their search results within a matter of minutes of content being posted on the internet.

Most forms of communication can be monitored just as easily.

Thousands, most likely millions, of phone conversations are monitored daily. There are not people actually listening to those conversations; the expense alone would be astronomical. Conversations are not monitored to find out about aunt Hilda throwing a birthday party for her grandniece, but for specific words which will set off red flags. Of course words aren't content and that's where human interaction will determine whether something worth looking into or not.

Content on the internet, news sites, media, is not going to be submitted for approval, as it is simply going to be monitored for red flag word as communication has been monitored for some time.

If you want to be concerned about big brother listening in, it's not the monitoring that is a concern. Monitoring is easy on the internet, and anybody with the right equipment and software can do it. What would be the concern is what are the red flag words, and who is deciding that.

Perhaps another consideration would be classification of sites.

Some time ago, and I don't remember the specifics, but I believe it was the FTC which wanted to crack down on phony online advertising by implementing some kind of regulations regarding blogs and the advertising they do.

Though I don't think much came of that, the question that comes to mind is what specifically is a blog and who decides that.

Andrew's site has been a website for years. It is primarily a movie review site where he shares his opinions on bad movies in an entertaining way. Some could classify it as a blog. There are others who will use blog scripts for their websites because they are convenient ways to update websites. But, does using a script make it a blog?

I, in all honesty, consider to be the internet to be one of the most important inventions of the past century. It is an instrument through which human beings can communicate nigh-freely and nigh-effortlessly, a place where you can put your opinion forward for anybody to have a pretty good chance of seeing at some point in time. This should not be restricted, lest one of the final frontiers of free speech be restricted (like film or TV)!

I'm asking everyone to sign, and if you're feeling particularly motivated, to print out and put up included fliers as well.

I frankly think that is spoon feeding the dying.

10 years ago, the internet was a different beast, but certainly on its way to become what it is today.

10 years ago, I was looking for a stereo projector, and in searches would find sites for camera stores in other states of which some were nothing more than lists of inventory in their shops. I found a stereo from some guy who had his own little camera shop in Texas.

Today you can't do that. Go searching around for stereo projectors and you'll find anything but as Google is so keyword oriented, and site owners are keen to this, that you likely to be taken to several sites which are loaded with incompetently written articles loaded with keywords for no other purpose than to get you to their sites to click on their Google Adsense ads.

Want to try it?

Search for air purifiers and see how many sites you find using the same informationless reviews. What was the information superhighway has become the misinformation superhighway, and it looks like a truck ahead dumped its entire load of spam on it.

What used to used to be the movers and shakers of the internet was people sharing their ideas, advertising their shops, and communicating over things called forums. Yes, there was a lot more to it, I just simplified it.

What moves the internet today is commerce.

Like the street where people would climb atop their soapboxes expressing their ideas, riling up a crown, playing music; that was until the big store came in and didn't want to share the space, as it was a distraction and taking away from their business.

The internet consists of big sites which exist on commerce, and those of us sharing ideas and opinions, and climbing up on our soapboxes; well, we're littering their storefronts.

Within the next 10 years, probably sooner, the internet will be well integrated with with television sets. It will be easy enough to click on a Amazon.com logo to do some shopping, Netflix to download movies, IMDB to find out information about the movie you are watching, and Facebook to communicate with friends and family as it's a lot better than dealing with them in person.

Yes, of course there will be personal websites, especially blogs on the internet; but keep in mind that the majority of people are interested in having an appliance in their homes which makes life more convenient, not in searching out somebody else's opinions. Those commerce, entertainment, and information which are just a click away on someone's TV screen are not only going to be the movers and shakers as to which way the internet goes, they'll also be the movers and shakers who can lobby for or against regulations on the internet; I imagine that would largely prioritized by how much it benefits them.


If by any chance I actually said anything which someone thinks made sense, it was purely by accident, or just a figment of your overly paranoid imagination.

[Flick James]

I get what Rev. Powell is trying to say. That makes sense to me.

However, what I do have a problem with, and this bill is potentially part of that problem, is that the further we move along, the more rules we have imposed on us, and the less possible it becomes to live life without breaking some rule, violating some regulation, being watched at every turn. The government monitors far too much of what we do. It used to be that if someone infringed on copyrighted material, the government wasn't involved in monitoring that. It was up to the person infringed to witness the violation and take it through due process. That should not require a bill where that kind of thing is monitored, especially not by a governmental regulatory agency of some kind.

Child pornography or illegal activity? Fine, law enforcement can comb the web and do sting operations to their hearts content and track down the wrongdoers

Copyright infringement? Fine, the government should respond to any complaint against it. Shouldn't be too hard to prove. Was copyrighted material provided by the website for free? Did the perpetrator profit off of it? Then make them pay the price. But it's not the government's responsibility to monitor for possible copyright infringement. The victim has to take the initiative.

Anyway, sorry. I was just offering that input. I wasn't commenting on the proposed law specifically.

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

And I do share many of the same fears as Umaril. What really makes me paranoid though, is what might eventually come from the regulation... think of the FCC (again) and the MPAA; think of how much power they have over their respective other forms of media! What if somewhere down the line a "ratings system"/"v-chip type thingy" is imposed for the internet, bringing traffic to good websites (possibly like this one) to a crawl? Think of the information that could get lost that way, if more websites eventually get restricted (due to, say, restrictions on rating at workplaces, or simply "mis-ratings") it could bring about disinterest from their owners to keep them running.

 

Sadly there will be those will say that folk that think like us are paranoid,  or say "we make them sick" or  "asinine" (hmm, all of these seem to ring a current bell)  and the move to discredit us would begin anew.

Lets' say that the FCC requires online news sites to submit their original source material prior to it's release?  How convenient--the FCC can then create their own falsified versions of the stories,  broadcast them over the site in question, and make it look like they violated Net Neutrality w\regard to subject matter. And with the FCC in possession of the original source material, said station cannot prove it's innocence.

What follows?  Financial ruin of the beleaguered network, thru fines and levies. Perhaps a bit futuristic or far fetched, but there would be a great possibility for it (and other things.)

I don't think I'd use the paranoid when confused would work just fine.

The FCC is a regulatory agency; they basically regulate code and monitor that under their jurisdiction for violations. (that's paraphrasing, not a definition)

With the technology at hand to monitor the internet and any other of communication, acting as a filtering agency would be a massive undertaking.

Confused is better than paranoid, thanks for that one 

However, with regard to the statement that monitoring the 'Net and filtering it would be a massive undertaking, always remember that a country that's big enough to give you everything you want and need, is also big enough to take it away from you.

And since the FCC is regulatory, and Federally regulated, I would assume that they have the power to also legislate as well as regulate what should and shouldn't be monitored, and that Congress would be there to make sure they do just that.

[Menard]

However, with regard to the statement that monitoring the 'Net and filtering it would be a massive undertaking, always remember that a country that's big enough to give you everything you want and need, is also big enough to take it away from you.

And since the FCC is regulatory, and Federally regulated, I would assume that they have the power to also legislate as well as regulate what should and shouldn't be monitored, and that Congress would be there to make sure they do just that.

Monitoring the net is not a massive undertaking, compared to the human equivalent of filtering content beforehand.

A popular scenario in film and television of the future is the police state; feds on every corner, cameras and people monitoring your every move.

Though that makes for good fiction, the reality of such is not feasible. The manpower and expense involved are both excessive.

Perhaps such would be feasible in the largest cities, but certainly not in Nowhereville USA, and there's a lot more Nowhereville than there is the big city.

Given the choice, when it's put on the table to a legislator, of manpower and equipment versus the allotment of funds for their pork barrel spending, they'll probably put votes, favors, and financial security for themselves over spending for something we already have the technology and capability to do.

The FCC learned how expensive enforcement can be back in the 70s. Trying to enforce regulations on minor rule breakers when CB radio exploded led to a no license requirement for CB, and anything but the most blatant violations just simply were ignored; it became impossible to enforce the regulations.

Electronic surveillance is the ideal way to monitor people; and computers and internet are the perfect electronic surveillance.

If people speak freely, all you have to do is listen. If they can't speak freely, they'll find a way to do it where you can't hear them.

Despite what individual legislators may be trying to push, there is a Supreme Court in this country. Though there have been controversial decisions, and we not always agree with the politics of the individual members, overall they have done a pretty good job of upholding freedom of speech. There was, after all, that 1997 decision on the internet and freedom of speech.

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

However, with regard to the statement that monitoring the 'Net and filtering it would be a massive undertaking, always remember that a country that's big enough to give you everything you want and need, is also big enough to take it away from you.

And since the FCC is regulatory, and Federally regulated, I would assume that they have the power to also legislate as well as regulate what should and shouldn't be monitored, and that Congress would be there to make sure they do just that.

Monitoring the net is not a massive undertaking, compared to the human equivalent of filtering content beforehand.

A popular scenario in film and television of the future is the police state; feds on every corner, cameras and people monitoring your every move.

Though that makes for good fiction, the reality of such is not feasible. The manpower and expense involved are both excessive.

Perhaps such would be feasible in the largest cities, but certainly not in Nowhereville USA, and there's a lot more Nowhereville than there is the big city.

Given the choice, when it's put on the table to a legislator, of manpower and equipment versus the allotment of funds for their pork barrel spending, they'll probably put votes, favors, and financial security for themselves over spending for something we already have the technology and capability to do.

The FCC learned how expensive enforcement can be back in the 70s. Trying to enforce regulations on minor rule breakers when CB radio exploded led to a no license requirement for CB, and anything but the most blatant violations just simply were ignored; it became impossible to enforce the regulations.

Electronic surveillance is the ideal way to monitor people; and computers and internet are the perfect electronic surveillance.

If people speak freely, all you have to do is listen. If they can't speak freely, they'll find a way to do it where you can't hear them.

Despite what individual legislators may be trying to push, there is a Supreme Court in this country. Though there have been controversial decisions, and we not always agree with the politics of the individual members, overall they have done a pretty good job of upholding freedom of speech. There was, after all, that 1997 decision on the internet and freedom of speech.

Very good points!  It's just that with governments, you never know what they're going to do.   

Electronic surveillance is the ideal way to monitor people; and computers and internet are the perfect electronic surveillance.

Look to England. There's a CCTV almost everywhere you go, and they say it's impossible to even smoke in public w\o being seen.  Be that as is, it's reported that a great deal of their crimes go unsolved.  Perhaps because of how many crimes take place there on a daily basis (just a guess, there may be other factors involved, most likely legal in nature.)