This is just one-upping the discussion by taking issue with the mechanism, rather than the issue at hand. Watch, I can do it too:
Pah, you believe Congress is answerable to voters? It’s all well and good to pass laws which prevent total corporate control over digital life, but the proper way to do it isn’t through Congress, which suffers from entrenched power-brokers and corrupt insider politics. There should be a national referendum or a constitutional amendment or something else sufficiently unrealistic. Barring that, the only fair course is to let the megacorps do as they please.
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This is a fabulous idea, and really does get the point across. But on the outside chance it actually succeeds, it’s likely the FCC would just provision a leased line to his house…at obscene expense.
Google’s been in the censorship business since 2002, when they yanked a Norwegian site that didn’t want to submit to a US court’s jurisdiction to resolve a DMCA claim.
As is well known, Cloudflare rejected the Nazis and, as a result, they were booted off the respectable web.
As is not so well known, Cloudflare rejected GhostGunner and, as a result, nothing happened.
Maybe Cloudflare is less powerful than some people think.
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The EFF was very critical of this; where did Cory express a contrary view?
My legislators are consistently very responsive to their constituents. If yours aren’t, maybe you need to convince your neighbors to get more active politically, and get people who agree with your politics to go to the polls.
That’s a bit like bringing a knife to a gunfight, isn’t it?
You got some good points here, and I got some of my facts wrong. I’m just not convinced that not having NN would have made things any better. It goes without saying that these companies have way too much power and control over our lives. How does repealing NN help things?
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Two things:
First, it’s not taking issue with the mechanism. It’s taking issue with the absence of rule of law. The FCC’s legislative mandate, it’s statutory authority, does not include the authority to do what it did. But it decided to do it anyway. This is called “illegal”; note that the FCC’s order against Comcast was rejected by a court specifically because the FCC lacked statutory authority. Do you think Executive agencies should be able to decide on their own to exceed the authority delegated to them by Congress? Even with Trump as President?
Second, the mechanism matters. See, if net neutrality was really important in 2014, then its advocates could have asked Congress to encode it in law. If Congress chose not to do so, then we’d have been stuck with the 2014 status quo (which, again, was hardly the electronic dystopia that I’m told to expect if we revert to that state of regulation). But if Congress did pass legislation enacting net neutrality, then the current FCC under Trump wouldn’t simply be able to repeal it, because it’d be law, and would require action from Congress. This is the whole point of having Congress, and laws, and messy things like that instead of just unelected Executive agencies who can do what they want according to the whims of the guy sitting in the big chair.
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Do you not remember who was in charge of Congress in 2014?
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I don’t care about the rule of law, I care about freedom. If the law is helpful in securing internet freedom, great, but beyond that I see no reason to prioritize these concerns about legality over the actual freedoms which are being threatened. This isn’t a discussion about whether the executive should be able to exercise power through the FCC, it’s about whether the internet should be free. Obviously we care about unaccountable executive power too, but it seems like you want us to care about it instead.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened. And since Congress is also an unaccountable non-democratic body of career politicians, advocates wisely didn’t pin all hope entirely on them. They pursued any available avenue to keeping the internet free. The FCC got results. Yes, it’s imperfect, and it’s important to acknowledge the limitations. But none of that leads to the conclusion that we should now be complacent about the internet becoming even less free.
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Without rule of law, you don’t have freedom, you have capricious and arbitrary decisions made by the people who you might hope are better than Donald Trump, but won’t always be.
So how’s that working out for you?
" it’s about whether the internet should be free"
The internet was way more free prior to net neutrality than it is today. So, again, how’s that working out for you?
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Are you not aware who is in charge of the executive branch today?
Well, that escalated quickly! We’re already at the core of the authoritarian world-view, so there’s not really anywhere to go from here. Suffice to say I don’t share your belief about law as the creator of everything good and protector from everything bad.
It’s true that the internet was more free in the past, but it was also far less valuable (i.e. capturing control was not as profitable), and made of different pieces. It’s sloppy to think that if we use the mechanisms that maintained freedom in 1996, it will make the internet of 2017 behave as though it’s 1996. The system which exists now is dramatically different. I’m not wedded to the FCC or any particular strategy for maintaining freedom, because I recognize circumstances change over time. This appeal to the past as guidance on how we should secure internet freedom today is so obviously bad that I have to question the motivations of those who counsel it.
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I don’t think you understand what the phrase “rule of law” means if you think it means that law is the creator of everything good and protector from everything bad.
" This appeal to the past as guidance on how we should secure internet freedom today is so obviously bad that I have to question the motivations of those who counsel it."
If you care about “freedom,” then how do you address the fact that the current regulatory regime gives ISPs an incentive to filter content and to offer tiered service?
If ISPs choose to engage in content-based filtering, they are allowed to do so if they are up-front about their filtering. And if they take this route, they are exempt from the FCC’s reclassification order!
The fact that ISPs have not chosen to do so is a pretty big indication that you’re crying wolf.
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Like actually exerting effort and working within the system rather than yelly slactivism?
Say what now?
The funny thing is that the “free” internet of the past wasn’t “free” at all and only existed thanks to law and governing bodies.
Thats several non facts rolled into one right there. These advocates you speak of didnt ever do anything related to the legislative body at all, they did not pursue any available avenue in the slightest. The first of those claims could be tin-foil hat or not.
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“I don’t care about buoyancy, I just want to float.” I concur with @Phanatic, you have absolutely no idea of what you’re talking about.
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