FCC guts net neutrality - [news]
Recently, the FCC has voted to end net neutrality. That basically means that the FCC can now control what you see on the internet. This means that content that is viewable in the United States may not be viewable in Canada. I thought this was an interesting topic, so I'll go a bit in depth and explain this furthermore.
So, before net neutrality was discontinued, everyone around the world could access data, videos, photos, and websites from various countries, without restriction (Except for North Korea). This basically meant internet freedom, for all devices, in all countries (Again, except North Korea). This also included mobile data for tablets and phones.
But now with net neutrality discontinued, this ends internet "freedom". So far, I haven't noticed any changes, but this is a new FCC regulation that likely hasn't been put into effect yet.
What does this mean for us?
This means that certain websites may be blocked in different countries by the FCC. For example, if you're in Canada, and you're reading a news topic that applies to the United States (Trump), and the article portrayed Donald Trump, it may be blocked in Canada, simply because the FCC might not want people in Canada to know.
So, what do you think about this? Do you like the change?
Thanks for reading.
-Alixnator
Comments
Thankfully, I'm in the UK and I'm not affected by this but still, this is bad news for all Americans out there and already, the FCC are given plenty amount of flack for it. So severe, that attorneys across the nation are planning to sue them for it. Oh, and Ajit Pai has like the most punchable face ever.
This will not last... trust me on this one. Especially when 83% of the American people actually support net neutrality so from what is done, a great violation on their mutual opinion perhaps? It seems that way.
This forum really isn't a place for politics, but there are plenty of technical issues to discuss here, some of which could theoretically even cause problems for Winworld.
I kind of doubt we will see much outright censoring. Many web sites already limit content by geographical area, although this does open the gate for ISPs to further throttle or prohibit traffic to and from other countries.
More importantly, ISPs will now throttle or prohibit traffic from anyone they don't like or who does not pay them behind the scenes fees.
ISP: Hey Netflux, you want your videos to get to consumers without stuttering? Yea, pay us some money! We have a monopoly in a bunch of areas, so it is not like they are going to switch to a different ISP.
Or worse yet...
Comcast: Hey, we offer our own video services. You think we are going to allow competition? Here is how your site looks now: "/!\ Server Not Found"
Worst case, I see a future where people will have to subscribe to multiple ISPs to get the content they want. Best case, prices will go up for everyone.
"This will not last... trust me on this one. Especially when 83% of the American people actually support net neutrality"
You forget who is in charge here. The corporations. Actual humans have zilch to do with laws these days.
You want to talk about something really fucked up that is "by the corporations, for the corporations"? How about health care? Where I am, health insurance costs have close to doubled this year! Unless I magically get a truckload more money coming in here this next year I am going to be without health insurance.
I think it's the ISPs that will block content, not the FCC.
I think that bandwidth limiting will be far more likely than outright censorship.
Net Neutrality is one the worst things ever. It doesn't make sense on a technical standpoint, as some content does indeed require more bandwidth than other (eg. youtube takes up more bandwidth than winworld). Also, net neutrality prevents mobile carriers from offering unlimited netflix and hulu streaming as that would be content prioritization, which is banned under net neutrality. And anyways platform services are a much bigger threat to online freedom than connection services (haven't you seen all those youtube demonetizations lately).
My problem with Net Neutrality is that someone has to get involved in order to enforce it, which sounds a lot like potential surveillance to me.
That's doesn’t make a lot of sense. I don't know the specifics of how they were trying to implement this, but typically how stuff like that with the FCC works is that someone reports problems and then the FCC investigates. If a company is caught breaking a law, then they get fined. Not much surveillance needed.
"Also, net neutrality prevents mobile carriers from offering unlimited netflix and hulu streaming as that would be content prioritization,"
WTF is that supposed to even mean? That doesn’t make sense. They can offer as much of any service as they want. Ok, so if half of the users are downloading some other kind of large content that might cause their precious video services to slow down. But are these other large files really so unimportant that they should be throttled in to nothingness?
(Also, video over MOBILE? I don't care how much they prioritize... l lll ll aa a g g gg g. Get a real internet connection. And won't they just charge for each bit anyway?)
No, it's not a simple thing to implement. Net neutrality is a general idea and applying that to all the fine details involved in moving bits around, naturally will be a bit cloudy.
It sounds like some people have been drinking the corporate kool-aid.
This isn't quite right, what it means is the FCC is REDUCING their oversight of ISPs, they are taking a step back and essentially allowing ISPs to manage their networks as they see fit.
This is up to content providers, not Government or ISPs (Look at the BBC across the pond)
This has largely been the truth since the internet started... the US Government really didn't need to do anything to influence this, nor should it be involved.
Again, its more of a deregulation, and any changes would come from ISPs, and if they ever actually happen surely we'll all hear about it...
Again, the FCC isn't managing the ISPs, and all of this entirely misses the core issue with Net Neutrality. The core issue is that businesses shouldn't have to pay access fees for their content to receive the same bandwidth potential that an ISPs own competing content would, or other larger businesses who can readily pay for prioritized access.