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462

FCC Aims to Reinstate Net Neutrality Rules After US Democrats Gain Control of Panel (www.bloomberg.com)

submitted 2 years ago by narwhal@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml

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[–] itsonlygeorge@reddthat.com 54 points 2 years ago (3 children)

How about passing internet privacy laws? Or stopping the enshittification and commercialization of the internet? Or passing laws to protect youth from social media companies? Or curbing the reach of advertising companies? How about passing laws to keep our data from being sold to advertisers?

[–] evatronic@lemm.ee 24 points 2 years ago (1 children)

All cool, but not what the FCC can do.

To pass laws, look to Congress. Remember to vote for the candidates you think will help accomplish those sorts of things.

[–] itsonlygeorge@reddthat.com 7 points 2 years ago

Congress is broken. Unfortunately a bunch of geriatric old fucks who care about corporate money are in charge. But yeah, the govt needs to do its fucking job.

[–] PHLAK@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

You say this like restoring net neutrality prevents these things from happening. They're not mutually exclusive.

[+] SupraMario@lemmy.world -19 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I don't want the gov. Touching the Internet. You're asking for a bad time if you do. Commercializing the Internet is from people using it as such. Build your own site and host it. The enshittification is coming not just from the companies that created/own these sites, it's the people who use them as well.

[–] CosmicTurtle@lemmy.world 28 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The government "not touching the internet" is how we got here when NN rules were rolled back by that shit eating, giant Reese's cup drinking, FCC chairman that we had under Trump.

Not sure if we can do anything about enshittification though. That is shareholders demanding the line go up and I don't think we can change people's desire for greed.

[–] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

We absolutely can. Break up every company at 999 mil and we‘re golden. It’s the lack of competition that makes enshittification possible.

[–] MajorHavoc@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Yep. There needs to be a legally mandated market cap after which the federal government automatically supervises the company breaking into smaller competitors.

Or, ideally, liquidated and sold a department at a time to existing competitors, to ensure actual competition.

[–] teejay@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Or, ideally, liquidated and sold a department at a time to existing competitors, to ensure actual competition

Oh my sweet, summer child...

[–] MajorHavoc@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah, yeah. Wishes not miracles, and all that. I'll take world peace and a pony, too.

But there's value in discussing where the target belongs.

As long as we're belaboring the point, mehacompanies should be require to sell divisions of their choice (cough Amazon Web Services cough.) to competitors to stay below the market cap. That way we don't create a cliff, but still see things broken up.

[–] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 years ago

We have a sane person in this comment section! I love it. Can you please run for some public office?

[–] itsonlygeorge@reddthat.com 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So who is supposed to regulate corporations? I agree that the current government is not knowledgeable enough and is beholden to corporations. The problem we have is there is no agency that really governs and enforces any kind of rules.

The ‘build your own’ mentality is what got us to where we are. Just look at what Twitter has become under Musk. He is doing what he wants with a platform that was operating in a very different manner before he took it over and decided to make changes. It’s not a real answer to let everyone do what they want.

Btw, that’s how google and facebook get away with all the evil shit they do.

We need a governing body to make better rules for privacy amongst many other things. I agree that the government or even the FCC may not be the right fit. However, we need some kind of of oversight and regulation. Industry will never selflessly give up rights or power if it means they make less money. They only do what the laws tell them they can get away with.

[–] Skiptrace@lemmy.one 2 points 2 years ago

You know what we need? The government sans Judiciary branch to be run by unpaid people. The President? Yeah, he also has to work a normal 9 to 5. Congress? Same deal. Judiciary branch is paid because they have to deal with the absolutely shitty job of interpreting legalese and ruling on major things. And Law school is expensive as fuck.

Maybe if Congress had to work with the layperson and deal with their struggles we would have significantly less shitty laws passed that benefit the people at the top, and hurt everyone else. Because Congress wouldn't be any different than a regular Joe.

[–] danielton@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 49 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Blows my mind how many conservatives think net neutrality is a bad thing just because the TV told them it's bad.

None of them can even tell me what the hell net neutrality even is.

[–] Dasnap@lemmy.world 26 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They hear the basic description and call it internet communism.

[–] rynzcycle@kbin.social 14 points 2 years ago

Most I've seen haven't even gotten that far. They hear "neutrality", think it has something to do with the Fairness Doctrine, and panic that they might have to step outside the echo chamber.

[–] PupBiru@kbin.social 20 points 2 years ago

at the very least constant whip-lash from changes might see ISPs not being able to sign long-term contracts and businesses not being able to plan around availability of things like “fast lanes”, which might make them uncommon even if net neutrality keeps getting repealed

[–] marx_mentat@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago

Cool it only took them 4 years

[+] rhacer@lemmy.world -10 points 2 years ago (6 children)

Can anyone point me to any cases where the lack of net neutrality has harmed customers.

I don't believe I've seen any, but I also have not been paying very close attention to the subject.

[–] wagoner 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Post trump FCC ending net neutrality, AT&T self-preferenced its online streaming service HBO Max, unfairly disadvantaging its streaming competitors. This only ended when California passed its own net neutrality law. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/atts-hbo-max-deal-was-never-free

To learn more on the subject, you could read: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/where-net-neutrality-today-and-what-comes-next-2021-review

[–] rhacer@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Thank you. Much appreciated.

[–] riskable@programming.dev 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Simple example every Comcast customer suffers with: Comcast services (including VoIP and streaming TV) don't count towards the monthly bandwidth cap. So if you watch 2 seasons of a show in 4k via Comcast's streaming service that doesn't count towards the cap but if you watch the very same show via Netflix it'll put you over your bandwidth cap, resulting in additional fees.

It's an egregious violation of network neutrality and, IMHO an abuse of their natural monopoly. Internet providers should not be allowed to also sell content/streaming services or own media companies! It's a huge conflict of interest that will always disfavour the consumer.

Furthermore, when Comcast streams their own services they get priority over all other traffic; even traffic going to your neighbor's Internet connections. So if your neighborhood is experiencing a bandwidth crunch and your neighbor decides to watch some 4k stream via Comcast's service the back-end routers will prioritize that traffic over any and all other traffic which will interfere with everyone's else's Internet connections. So if your video stream suddenly drops to 480p for no reason (wired connection, no bad weather) it's probably because someone in your neighborhood decided to watch something via Comcast's streaming service.

[–] rhacer@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

This fantastic. Thank you very much.

[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Imagine getting downvoted for admitting you are ignorant on a subject and asking a question about it to try to get educated on said subject.

[–] Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz -2 points 2 years ago

People here mostly seem to vote on basis of who they think the commenter is - not what they're saying.

[–] waspentalive@lemmy.one 3 points 2 years ago

There was a local ISP that was seeing its workforce trying to unionize. So they blanked and blocked any website that mentioned the union.

Any instance where packets are treated differently due to their content violates net neutrality.

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

T-Mobile had plans for zero-rating preferred streaming services.

[–] rhacer@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

How does this apply here? "Had plans" sounds to me like they were never implemented. If they executed on those plans that worked certainly have been an issue.

[–] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

"Can anybody point me to specific examples where the government took away people's rights and civil liberties and it wasn't good for those people?". My god the implications of a non-neutral internet are obvious, we don't need to take those rights away in a real-world study to prove it.

[–] rhacer@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

Wait, rights? Civil liberties?

I'm probably in favor of net neutrality legislation (I'm not 100% sold on the concept as the whole issue of monopolistic ISPs is a government created issue, so asking government to resolve it doesn't necessarily work for me).

But you completely lose me when you equate Internet access with civil liberties and rights. We have no more right to an Internet than we do to an ice cream stand on the corner.