Ah the FCC. Keeping everyone safe from those dirty dirty harmful words. Without them, surely we would all be robbing, looting, and killing everything in sight.

Also: we all know the "real" words. Everyone does, without exception (because if everyone didn't, bleeping them would be pointless). So every time anyone see's this stuff, they hear "monday to friday!" their brain translates "fucking!". So in reality the FCC is even more pointless than its already pointless (and in my opinion unconstitutional) existence.

Personally, I can't wait until they are involved.

1. This kid thinks he knows how to hack? He'll have to prove that pretty soon when the few non-posers who care about this start taking apart his parents' computer.
2. I'm pretty sure his uncle who works at the FCC, if he exists, wouldn't like his nephew saying these things about him - that could probably send him to PMITA prison.
3. Saying that the FCC, in cooperation with the NSA, FBI, etc., is going to go to war with people expressing their constitutional right to free speech is batshit insane.

I can't wait to see what the internets does to this kid.

>> ^malakai:

Also, why do i have a feeling that 4chan will be involved?


PS. Original YouTube clip at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4v9tfSCaHg

>> ^Yogi:

Is this because of the supreme court ruling earlier this year?


It is exactly because of the supreme court ruling. Corporations = individual citizens in the USA today, so while in years past I'm sure they hid such things, today it is perfectly legal.

Frankly I think the FCC should be suing the pants off Fox News because clearly, it is no longer news. They shouldn't be donating en mass to anyone. John Stewart is 100% correct, the republican party should be donating millions and millions to Fox, not the other way around.

What puzzles me about this is how Google had been buying up alot of dark fiber back in the day (remember then?) they could be their own ISP practically and avoid this mess. As far as the FCC and censoring you can blame organizations like the American Family Association and the like for organized "outrage" spam. Who is to say Google won't eventually cave to the same demands? A few years ago if you wrote how Google was going to be dealing against net neutrality you would have been eaten alive by fanboys.

Either way this is worrysome if it gets to the point you have to pay extra to use the "rest of the internet" thats outside of the Google domain. The "we wont do this, pinky swear" clause of vagueness reeks of what we saw in the 90s.

This all comes from an industry we as a country paid billions for from the same time period and now the providers want to eat their cake and have it too. Perhaps this is the end result of over a decade of overselling bandwidth.

I remember when using a fat connection back in the day (> 10mbit university, 1999) the Internet seemed almost instantaneous compared to dial-up. Now if you try to actually use your connection the result is "lol, psych" and the provider thinking you are a bandwith hog.

<sarcasm>I can't wait till I have to pay the Netflix bandwidth surcharge fee of $5.99 per gigabyte along with the Potential Pirated Content fee at $19.99 per gigabyte and Just Because You Have No Choice fee of $49.99 per month</sarcasm>

Nah. I'm more fearful of a monolithic bureaucracy like the FCC than a Google + Verizon take over. Have we forgotten the atrocities they committed in the name of censorship? They should call it the Federal Christian Committee.

There is an article over at Engadget that explains the proposal pretty well.

Verizon doesn't want neutrality on their wireless network, but any prioritization they do would have to be completely transparent to the public, so nothing would be a secret about what was going on. They also wouldn't be able to prohibit any legal data streams or prevent any legal devices from connecting.

I am curious to see the FCC's stance on the proposal.

Who the hell wants the FCC regulating the internet? Did we forget what they've done with TV? Censorship of obscenity and profanity. Howard fucking Stern! Educational programming requirements for shows for children. And they've been trying to regulate cable for years, which means shows like Louie on FX would probably be censored.

I know, I know...the government is bad. Same song, different day.

I don't really give a rat's ass for the FCC. I don't even care about prioritizing between different types of data. Giving VOIP priority over filesharing traffic is fine and makes perfect sense, one's gap-sensitive and the other isn't. What I want is one simple rule. The -source- of the data packet cannot be used in that prioritization. IOW, all VOIP packets must be treated the same, all video must be treated the same, etc.

Allowing the big network providers to do WHAT THEY'VE ALREADY THREATENED TO DO is just stupid. Allowing them to do so because you're worried about something that -might- happen later is even more so. It's like allowing a mugger to stab you, because you're worried that fighting back or running will allow him to file a claim against your insurance.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

^Stormsinger
I think you are drawing a false dichotomy. There are 2 issues at hand there. Firstly, the government is already involved greatly in the situation and has made the situation very bad. Secondly, just because the government isn't involved with something doesn't mean we all become victimized automatically. For instance, google is a service that has done very well with little government involvement. Additionally, many people are very satisfied with their service. But for those who aren't, they have the choice not to partake of their services, it is what the market is all about. The government has broken this system in phone and radio, where is has eliminated competing markets to "clean" up the way broadcasting was done. What this has done is centralized power in the hands of the very few. For a robber Barron to work effectively, they need to be able to hold a market captive. This is hard to do when the market is allowed to work, but in cable and radio, and telco, this practice is illegal. So the government is the strongman that keeps most markets captive to monopolistic forces; like the wall street mess you pointed out. It was a mess, but when you combine mess with legal precedent you don't help the issue any more.
The government is very great at taking emerging markets and smashing all the small competition to make way for corporate takeovers. You can bet your dimes to dollars that Comcast and NBC will be at the table when all this Net Neutrality law business kicks in, and you can bet your hindquarters they will get to write in all sorts of exceptions that will apply to smaller ISPs and not themselves. I think it is fair to say that we all want to same goal here, as open communications as we can. I just want to make clear that the government, in this case the FCC, has a horrible track record, maybe the worst in government for openness and non-censorship. TV and radio are the ONLY mediums that get censored, in reality, the FCC represents the pinicale of the violation of the first amendment...why in the hell do we want them to help with the internet?

^xxovercastxx
I am sorry man. Really, I wasn't trying to be hostile. I was more frustrated that you were frustrating yourself. It seemed like you wanted to have a good conversation on the subject, but instead got tangentilized. My apologies. I would like to suggest, however, there is a third option. The main problem with both of those situations is choice. In ISPs, and in some net neutrality law, you really don't have any consumer choice. Both situations in reality, though, have come from a system of bad laws. If we were to remove the monopoly system that protects these mega media dirt bags, then consumers that don't like the NBC, Comcast pipes can leave. Right now, in many areas, that would be against the law, which is bull crap. We need to restore balance, I think that is something we all agree on, but the way to do so isn't with more bad legislation that could backfire, but to undo that which was a mistake from 50 years ago.

^Stormsinger
I think you are drawing a false dichotomy. There are 2 issues at hand there. Firstly, the government is already involved greatly in the situation and has made the situation very bad. Secondly, just because the government isn't involved with something doesn't mean we all become victimized automatically. For instance, google is a service that has done very well with little government involvement. Additionally, many people are very satisfied with their service. But for those who aren't, they have the choice not to partake of their services, it is what the market is all about. The government has broken this system in phone and radio, where is has eliminated competing markets to "clean" up the way broadcasting was done. What this has done is centralized power in the hands of the very few. For a robber Barron to work effectively, they need to be able to hold a market captive. This is hard to do when the market is allowed to work, but in cable and radio, and telco, this practice is illegal. So the government is the strongman that keeps most markets captive to monopolistic forces; like the wall street mess you pointed out. It was a mess, but when you combine mess with legal precedent you don't help the issue any more.

The government is very great at taking emerging markets and smashing all the small competition to make way for corporate takeovers. You can bet your dimes to dollars that Comcast and NBC will be at the table when all this Net Neutrality law business kicks in, and you can bet your hindquarters they will get to write in all sorts of exceptions that will apply to smaller ISPs and not themselves. I think it is fair to say that we all want to same goal here, as open communications as we can. I just want to make clear that the government, in this case the FCC, has a horrible track record, maybe the worst in government for openness and non-censorship. TV and radio are the ONLY mediums that get censored, in reality, the FCC represents the pinicale of the violation of the first amendment...why in the hell do we want them to help with the internet?



^xxovercastxx

I am sorry man. Really, I wasn't trying to be hostile. I was more frustrated that you were frustrating yourself. It seemed like you wanted to have a good conversation on the subject, but instead got tangentilized. My apologies. I would like to suggest, however, there is a third option. The main problem with both of those situations is choice. In ISPs, and in some net neutrality law, you really don't have any consumer choice. Both situations in reality, though, have come from a system of bad laws. If we were to remove the monopoly system that protects these mega media dirt bags, then consumers that don't like the NBC, Comcast pipes can leave. Right now, in many areas, that would be against the law, which is bull crap. We need to restore balance, I think that is something we all agree on, but the way to do so isn't with more bad legislation that could backfire, but to undo that which was a mistake from 50 years ago.

Each packet is already treated differently on the internet and people haven't had a problem with it. For instance, I have a premium membership at file planet. As such, I don't wait in lines, and have faster service on the whole. AOL, and Google treat individual users to different ad experiences based on their profile. These types of explicit and implicit relationships make the internet the crazy mashup that it is, it is what makes it work. There might be a market for people who want to pay extra to have their traffic prioritized. When you are talking about a finite thing, that is worth paying for. For example, if someone on the bogged down AT&T network wanted to pay extra to have a bigger piece of the network pie, companies should be allowed to offer such things.

The REAL problem is that new network infrastructure isn't allowed to be installed by anyone other than explicit government enforced companies. As such, the network gets more and more crowed and the cable companies can charge people for these "deluxe rate plans" and not have to keep their services competitive. This has only changed small amounts in the era of high speed; once cable and DLS started to offer similar rates and speeds both sides tried to get the leg up. But in reality, they are still dealing with huge areas of influence against outsiders making it even more competitive. If Comcast becomes as data unfriendly as AOL did in its hayday, people have no choice due to decades of government control.

In reality, you don't want the government telling people what they can do with their pipes, the end result is worse than if you just opened up the markets to outsiders wanting to string up new services. It is no small stretch of the imagination to presume if the government starts getting in the business of telling ISPs what they can or can't transmit with priority, it will lead to what they can transmit at all. Like if they decided to crack down on cyber bulling, a very hot political subject right now, the FCC could demand that ISPs can no longer deal traffic to sights that have anonymous posting. That would be letter of law now instead of just one punk ISP trying to pull one over on consumers. The internet will remain more free the more you keep the FCC out of it, just look at their track record. How many small independent radio broadcasts companies exist? Well, it has gone form about 70% before the FCC to about 5% now, and less than 1% for television. If you want huge media corporations taking over the internet, then you want the FCC involved in the regulation of the internet.

Ask Howard Stern or George Carlin about the FCC and how open they are.

Net neutrality only addresses the symptom of a much more insidious problem. All of the companies he named have their major revenue stream in some form of government protected monopoly industry. Cable and telco media giants are the creations of government entanglement in the market. They created the monster they now claim they need to subdue. While it wasn't Al Franken that created these government protected monopolies, he proposes a solution that has time and time again shown to worsen our plight rather that help it. Any short lived deregulation ability the FCC would impose would surely over time be twiddled down by people who have billions to spend on lobbies and the ear of regulators. His sentiments of protecting free speech are admirable, but the prescription is that of an even greater disaster. Open up cable, telco, and radio markets to ACTUAL competition and their strangle hold over media will start to dissipate.

In other words, trying to kill the beast with the same thing that made the beast is foolish. Just undue that which made the beast first, then clean up any loose ends that didn't solve. It is practical, fair, and not reactionary, and doesn't open Pandora's box like it did for radio and TV (which are now HIGHLY regulated mediums).

>> ^bobknight33:

The government does not believe in personal freedom. It hasn't in over 40 years. Therefore it will sell out and screw the people.


The real key to this is that any real legislation done to protect the net will only be used in time to regulate it. The FCC has a terrible record with openness of their mediums, any and all of them. The fact is, they REGULATE them, not deregulate them. They aren't in the business of erasing rules but creating them. Why can't you curse on tv or radio, it isn't because of the companies themselves, it is the FCC. The REAL issue is that fact that state sanctioned monopoly status of media companies is still the order of the day. Why can't you have 2 sets of cable companies in the same area, mostly because of state and municipal laws. The FCC taking control of the internet will do more damage to it than any other source. If you care about net neutrality, then your real battle needs to be the deregulation of the cable and phone industry. Their monopoly status gives them tremendous power. They leverage every cent from consumers they can with little innovation. By in large the slower adaption of high speed in the US has its roots tied up in this. You don't want the FCC regulating the internet, it is a very very very bad idea.

"Destroyed in Seconds: Because the FCC won't let you title a program "Shit Blows Up".

Also, when has the government ever made or kept anything fast or unregulated? Has anyone watched TV, listened to radio or driven a car? Would anyone even consider those neutral, at all, like even a little? The government never misses an opportunity to regulate, ever. If not today, next administration after some other girl commits suicide from something, they will be forced by political pressure to do something, no matter how liberty restricting. You can not fight this phrase as a politician "think about the children....". Any talk of the FCC keeping it open today will be over once they flex more might over it.

The only reason we are having this debate at all is because of government caused media monopolies. Get rid of legal monopoly protection from cable and telco, and there isn't any need for this debate. This is just covering up bad legislation with even worse legislation.

Blankfist, aren't you an IT guy? Flash programmer or somethign? You should know better. This is AT&T, NBC-Comcast, money flowing right through reason.tv right into the youtube.

Remember how much money people wasted buying myspace and what not?
http://www.observer.com/2010/media/media-companies-have-lost-15-billion-social-networking

I'm not going to say that they want to carve the internet up into little profit ponds. I'm saying I know I would want to. Making billions, doubling your market cap, being a CEO of a glamourous media company. I would carve up the internet if i were them.

As a libertarian you know that large corporations often push regulations thu congress so that smaller, more competitive companies can't enter the market. Deregulation is good.

So why are you posting this shit? This video actually says that the FCC has to regulate content. What a terrible lie.

Just like billionaires got the estate tax repealed by scaring dumfux about some death tax... they sent buses around claiming to be grassroots, trying to pass this flat tax shit. Meanwhile all the dumasses don't know that if you made less than 3.5 million in 2009, you aint paying the death tax.

I guess I'm saying you're as dum as the idiots who let themselves be terrorized into repealing the estate tax. Terrorized by some propaganda a few billionaires bought with their pocket change.

look at the phone and cable companies. They are in backroom deals with the FCC in order to shut out your internet and pipe their internet in. it's happening now. Reason.tv doesn't give a shit about a free internet. They care about keeping the lights on for Reason.tv. They won't report on the backroom deals that will turn your internet connection into a NBC.com pipe. Why do you think comcast is buying NBC? Do you think they like peacocks? No so they can turn your goddamn internet into a shopping mall for NBC.

Anyhow the wall street journal reports on the deal.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/the-fate-of-the-internet_b_620690.html

what do you think will happen if NBC doesn't get it's way? Exactly what is the FCC going to fuck up? Reason.tv would have you think it's going to turn the internet into some kind of communist propaganda newspaper. Really, what exactly is the FCC going to do?