Post: #51

(11-24-2017 10:43 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

(11-24-2017 09:08 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

(11-24-2017 08:50 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  ...

More like it is alright for some to do it when you agree but others are bad when you don't agree. Then you will make up excuses like, "They're worth a billion dollars" to side step the hypocrisy.

The ISPs are more of a monopoly than Twitter and you would be willing to give them even more control over what you see. All because some platforms, albeit big ones, don't want you there.

So you're saying that a market monopolised to the point where two social-justice-converged companies can literally brick every device you own, blacklist you and in doing so make you virtually unemployable is a small price to pay for libertarian values and your ability to "watch puppies on youtube"?

No, what I am saying is Twitter, Youtube and Facebook are not monopolies. I rarely use any of them yet I still breathe, make money and have sexy time with beautiful women.

If they banned me I wouldn't get angry and push for a true monopoly to gain even more power just because they hurt my feels.

I don't think your heart is in the wrong place, just that you're a little naive about the power these companies wield.

Twitter, facebook and youtube are literally the largest propaganda wings ever conceived and created in the history of mankind. Meanwhile Apple and Google now have their tentacles so deep in the hardware markets that they have the capacity to digitally unperson anyone they want. And to libertarians that's all ok because it's a private enterprise.

If these companies were federalised then at very least you would have some recourse if they took action against a large swathe of the population. Currently you have none.

Post: #52

(11-24-2017 10:48 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  I don't think your heart is in the wrong place, just that you're a little naive about the power these companies wield.

Twitter, facebook and youtube are

Leonard, the only power these companies have over you is what you are willing to give them.

If you saw my Facebook profile, there wouldn't be much there. I don't think I posted anything in years.

Twitter... never used it.

I'm not saying they don't wield power. They have collected an enormous amount of data. That is the nature of the beast these days. You won't get away from it no matter which platform you use.

In fact, I would say Google Search is damn close to being a monopoly.

In context of this discussion, I can easily not use any of those platforms and nothing much would change for me.

The ISP stuff affects just about everyone. In many locations there is only one provider. We are starting to see people walk away from traditional cable
services (which most ISP also offer) for more streaming services. That is a huge problem for many ISP and them being able to position their traffic over others is a very bad thing for customers.

Google had a hell of a time breaking into this market even with their vast resources. That tells me the barriers of entry are just too big for competition. I wouldn't care about this if there were an easier way for competition to enter with more services.

Google's involvement created enough competition in some markets to make the big ISPs become more competitive. Both in price and in new technology. Still only a dent in the market share these ISPs have.

Technology will help break up these monopolies. Mobile and wifi will probably the one tech that does it once it is fast enough.

It is far easier to create a new platform, on the internet, than entering into the ISP space. I'm not sure why people would want to be on Twitter or Facebook if they censor or ban them. Giving the ISP more power is a much bigger threat, imo. They could turn screw our access to the good platforms just as easily as the evil ones.

Edited to add: I don't see them being any worst on the propaganda stage than our mainstream media. People are starting to turn away from those channels. Many people think it is ok to do something until it is turned onto them. That is exactly my point. If I create a platform, I don't want to be told how to run it as long as I am within the law. I may not agree with Twitter and Google, but I surely don't want my rights to build my platform or how I run it to be curtailed.

Post: #53

(11-24-2017 07:04 PM)Repo Wrote:  Come on Matt, you can't argue that ISPs aren't lining up to jack bills up while also arguing that this decision will allow them to charge more to build their infrastructure.

They already find various ways to do that anyway.

Many have implemented unnecessary data caps on all customers to punish the few rarities the might abuse an ISP's bandwidth. But it's really just a ruse to force more customers into their higher tiers and more costly monthly packages.

The only thing that Net Neutrality ever did for me was allow my ISP to Rape my bandwidth with data caps and pay more. Many ISP's are just price gouging monopolies as there are zero competing ISP's in many areas. So fuck Net Neutrality it never did shit for me!

Post: #54

I would be much more concerned about the tech monopolies than the ISP ones. ISPs have no history of filtering or banning content outright. The ISPs has gotten more competitive lately (Google wants it this way so the internet is faster, which is why they entered the market) and you technically could go to one of the wireless companies if you absolutely had to.

Now to be fair to Google and Apple, they mostly taken the lead because they have the best engineers and the best products., Nonetheless if you go to your wireless store, you're pretty much stuck with either google or apple for a smartphone. That's of course if you don't want to go old school with a flip.

It's also important to factor in that the ISP monopolies are only local and national or worldwide. Android (most concerning) literally has 80%+ market share worldwide. Chrome is growing and approaching 60% and Google Search is 80%.

Post: #55

(11-26-2017 03:50 PM)godzilla Wrote:  I would be much more concerned about the tech monopolies than the ISP ones. ISPs have no history of filtering or banning content outright. The ISPs has gotten more competitive lately (Google wants it this way so the internet is faster, which is why they entered the market) and you technically could go to one of the wireless companies if you absolutely had to.

Google is in very little markets compared to the whole. I haven't seen any plans on moving to new markets like I did in the past. Mobile will increase competition but that will take time.

Quote:It's also important to factor in that the ISP monopolies are only local and national or worldwide. Android (most concerning) literally has 80%+ market share worldwide. Chrome is growing and approaching 60% and Google Search is 80%.

Android is open source and can be heavily customized by the phone manufacturer.

I would appreciate hearing what you guys are imagining that these tech companies can personally do to you.

I honestly don't get it besides not allowing you to post tweets and comments on Facebook pages. The harshest thing I can come up with is Google search removing your sites from listings.

Post: #56

(11-24-2017 06:09 PM)Matt Forney Wrote:  

(11-24-2017 08:42 AM)Suits Wrote:  

(11-23-2017 08:36 PM)Matt Forney Wrote:  "Net neutrality" is a fake concept invented to solve a nonexistent problem. No ISP anywhere in the world has introduced the "tiered pricing" model that net neutrality advocates claim makes the law necessary. This is despite the fact that the vast majority of countries do not have any form of net neutrality legislation.

Not true. I live in the literal capital of Internet censorship.

Major Chinese search engines and companies pay extra to get their websites delivered at high speed, while everything other than those certain websites are delivered at a crawl. I have to use a VPN to access non-blocked websites at a reasonable enough speed to make use of other websites not paying for a top position.

So we have exactly one country where the "tiered package" model of Internet service is used.

Two, Turkey also does this.


I get your point though and as I think more and more about it(from talking with others) I have somewhat changed my mind on the subject. This will force people to vote with their wallets or for another company(s) to fill in the void.

Also it may stop the rampant censorship on the left. The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to take that risk. As far as I know, many other countries (Singapore) dont have NN and dont have tiered packs.

I'd sacrifice a little more money to let the free market have control over the net and see what happens.

Post: #57

(11-24-2017 08:42 AM)Suits Wrote:  

(11-23-2017 08:36 PM)Matt Forney Wrote:  "Net neutrality" is a fake concept invented to solve a nonexistent problem. No ISP anywhere in the world has introduced the "tiered pricing" model that net neutrality advocates claim makes the law necessary. This is despite the fact that the vast majority of countries do not have any form of net neutrality legislation.

Not true. I live in the literal capital of Internet censorship.

Major Chinese search engines and companies pay extra to get their websites delivered at high speed, while everything other than those certain websites are delivered at a crawl. I have to use a VPN to access non-blocked websites at a reasonable enough speed to make use of other websites not paying for a top position.

Pedantic, but the reason for this has to do with China's "great firewall" project and not with net neutrality. They route traffic to the open Internet through a few hops located in a couple major cities.

The Chinese do a lot of deep packet inspection to make sure you haven't committed a thought crime.

Because of this amongst other "filtering" techniques, all non-chinese based content comes off as slow because it has to traverse all of these various intermediaries that slow everything down.

Local services of course are faster because of this. Most likely it's a beneficial side effect (slowing non Chinese stuff down).

Post: #58

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017...ast-lanes/

"Comcast now vaguely says that it won't "discriminate against lawful content or impose "anti-competitive paid prioritization." The change in wording suggests that Comcast may offer paid fast lanes to websites or other online services, such as video streaming providers, after Pai's FCC eliminates the net neutrality rules next month. With no FCC rules against paid fast lanes, it would be up to Comcast to decide whether any specific prioritization deal is "anti-competitive." "

I think we all know where this is going. Now SWJs will start petitioning not just to have Facebook or Twitter block people, but have ISPs drop people so no one can access your site without a vpn.

Post: #59

Ajit Pai just dropped the mic.

In a press conference, he blasted Twitter, Google and other tech companies who support net neutrality, pointing out that the current rules allow them to maintain a monopoly and censor content they don't like... which is what those companies are claiming that ISPs will do:

Quote:"Now look: I love Twitter, and I use it all the time," he said. "But let’s not kid ourselves; when it comes to an open Internet, Twitter is part of the problem. The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate.

"As just one of many examples, two months ago, Twitter blocked Rep. Marsha Blackburn [the Republican chair of the House Communications subcommittee who helped overturn FCC broadband privacy rules] from advertising her Senate campaign launch video because it featured a pro-life message. Before that, during the so-called [net neutrality] Day of Action, Twitter warned users that a link to a statement by one company on the topic of Internet regulation “may be unsafe.” And to say the least, the company appears to have a double standard when it comes to suspending or de-verifying conservative users’ accounts as opposed to those of liberal users. This conduct is many things, but it isn’t fighting for an open Internet."

Pai called out others for similar actions, saying Twitter was not an outlier.

"[D]espite all the talk about the fear that broadband providers could decide what Internet content consumers can see, recent experience shows that so-called edge providers are in fact deciding what content they see. These providers routinely block or discriminate against content they don’t like."

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/wa...sps/170316

This is beautiful and it completely destroys the credibility of net neutrality supporters.

Hopefully this leads to the Trump administration waging war on Silicon Valley. Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and their ilk need to go.

Post: #60

So to combat companies restricting speech, he will also let ISPs restrict speech. And you think think this is a win?

If Twitter blocks you, you can go to gab, or other sites/forums. If an ISP blocks you, you are way more fucked. This is the complete opposite of Trump waging war, this is him submitting.

I didn't know the answer to stopping people from restricting speech was to let more people restrict your speech further upstream.

Post: #61

Everyone know's I'm the guy that usually likes to go air-raid-siren over this sort of stuff but this is a calculated play by Trump. I'm reasonably certain of it.

Trump repeals net neutrality, putting an 18 inch serrated dick in Zuck's bunghole. If the ISPs begin to censor content then Trump will use it as a basis to go after them and federally regulate the entire system, lashing it to the first amendment with iron chains.

If the ISP's are indeed enemies and they're smart then they'll wait until just before the election campaigns to start wiping out conservative internet presences. If they're dumb then they'll take the bait early and give Trump the ammunition he needs to bring in laws that say ISP's can no sooner cut off users for speech than electricity companies can cut off a customer "because they're a Nazi".

Some of the folk here really have no idea how pervasive and effective the google-opoly is on shaping the minds of the masses. Crippling them is one of, if not THE, most important matter of business on the agenda right now. There is a lot more on the line than free market principles. It's no grand stretch to say that fate of the world will be decided by our ability or inability to smash the Zuckerborg.

Post: #62

(11-28-2017 05:56 PM)Repo Wrote:  So to combat companies restricting speech, he will also let ISPs restrict speech. And you think think this is a win?

If Twitter blocks you, you can go to gab, or other sites/forums. If an ISP blocks you, you are way more fucked. This is the complete opposite of Trump waging war, this is him submitting.

I didn't know the answer to stopping people from restricting speech was to let more people restrict your speech further upstream.

Prior to net neutrality being enacted in 2015, ISPs had no history of censoring users for political content, while Twitter et al. had already begun censoring people heavily due to GamerGate.

None of the net neutrality defenders here can make a convincing argument as to why hypothetical censorship from ISPs (and that's all it is, hypothetical) is worse than actual censorship from social media sites/edge providers.

Furthermore, the idea that you can just stop using Google or Twitter or Facebook is wrong. These companies are monopolies, meaning that even if you don't use them, they still affect your life in some way.

Google controls over 90 percent of Internet search traffic. After Trump's inauguration, they started choking off search traffic to right-wing sites, including my own. My book sales and blog income plummeted. Using another search engine wouldn't change this, notwithstanding all the other cookie jars Google has their hands in. For example, if you want to have a smartphone (a necessity in this day and age), you have to go with Google or Apple. Where's your vaunted free market there?

Facebook? I need Facebook to communicate with my friends and girls I meet, since it's the primary messaging service in much of Europe. I also need it for my Tinder account. I've been handed multiple bans ever since the inauguration, the most recent of which lasted thirty days and was because I posted a link to a manosphere blog. When Facebook bans you, it also blocks you from messaging people, gaslighting you by allowing you to see messages from your friends but keeping you from responding. Many of my friends have also been banned at various points.

Twitter? I'm a Gab enthusiast, but Gab has nowhere near the userbase of Twitter. Not only that, Twitter has actively colluded with Google and Apple to keep the Gab app off their respective mobile stores, limiting the site's growth. I imagine it's only a matter of time before Gab gets banned from PayPal, which will cripple the site financially.

I'm not even getting into all the other scummy behavior these sites engage in: manipulating algorithms to keep non-MSM news articles from being seen, auto-unsubscribing people from YouTube channels and hitting them with bogus channel strikes for "hateful" content, shadowbanning etc.

All of these companies explicitly push for more and more control over our lives. They're as much "utilities" as the ISPs themselves, yet they want to control content based on their left-wing sensibilities while simultaneously grandstanding about how ISPs might (and again, might: none of the net neutrality proponents in this thread can point to a case of ISPs censoring people for political content in the U.S. because there aren't any) do the same.

Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.

Sure, it's entirely possible that I'm wrong and the ISPs could turn out to be worse censors than Google and their ilk. But you have no evidence to suggest that this will happen. All you have are "what if" scenarios that frankly don't sound any different than what we have now.

If anything, given how fervently Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc. support net neutrality, I'm wondering if getting rid of it will hurt them significantly. For example, Sleeping Giants, the far-left pressure group that bullies advertisers and other companies into severing ties with right-wing groups (they campaigned against Breitbart's advertisers, for example), is freaking out over Pai's comments:

They know what's coming.

Sorry, but after the events of the past three years, in which the free and open Internet became a dystopia overnight---without any help from the ISPs that everyone wants to demonize---liberal/libertarian arguments about hypothetical censorship and muh free market don't cut it anymore.

If you support net neutrality, you're not standing up for freedom of speech, you're carrying Google's (and Twitter's, and Facebook's) water. Fine by me if that's what you want to do, but don't shit on my shoes and tell me it's a Snickers bar.

Post: #63

(11-28-2017 06:22 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  Some of the folk here really have no idea how pervasive and effective the google-opoly is on shaping the minds of the masses. Crippling them is one of, if not THE, most important matter of business on the agenda right now. There is a lot more on the line than free market principles. It's no grand stretch to say that fate of the world will be decided by our ability or inability to smash the Zuckerborg.

Net neutrality won't stop this and I don't see how it will cripple it. The only way to stop them is to treat them as a monopoly and split them up. I doubt that would even stop them since most of Silicon Valley is made up of these types of people with these types of agendas.

Splitting them up would make it more competitive to allow other groups to create other platforms.

I'm not seeing any platforms created outside of Silicon Valley. Gab looks like a clone of Twitter and their pitch is free speech which we all know didn't work out that way. You're going to have to be much more creative than that if you want to compete. It is much easier to cry censorship and it isn't fair than to come up with a better alternative.

The best thing to do is not use their platforms. You are making them money by tweeting, making facebook posts and posting videos on youtube. Any type of user engagement can be used to solicited more ad dollars. That is why I don't get the people crying about censorship will still use those platforms and thus making them stronger.

This looks solely like sour grapes to me. People are upset because they can't use these platforms and they want them to pay for it.

Post: #64

(11-28-2017 06:49 PM)Matt Forney Wrote:  

(11-28-2017 05:56 PM)Repo Wrote:  So to combat companies restricting speech, he will also let ISPs restrict speech. And you think think this is a win?

If Twitter blocks you, you can go to gab, or other sites/forums. If an ISP blocks you, you are way more fucked. This is the complete opposite of Trump waging war, this is him submitting.

I didn't know the answer to stopping people from restricting speech was to let more people restrict your speech further upstream.

Prior to net neutrality being enacted in 2015, ISPs had no history of censoring users for political content, while Twitter et al. had already begun censoring people heavily due to GamerGate.

None of the net neutrality defenders here can make a convincing argument as to why hypothetical censorship from ISPs (and that's all it is, hypothetical) is worse than actual censorship from social media sites/edge providers.

Furthermore, the idea that you can just stop using Google or Twitter or Facebook is wrong. These companies are monopolies, meaning that even if you don't use them, they still affect your life in some way.

Google controls over 90 percent of Internet search traffic. After Trump's inauguration, they started choking off search traffic to right-wing sites, including my own. My book sales and blog income plummeted. Using another search engine wouldn't change this, notwithstanding all the other cookie jars Google has their hands in. For example, if you want to have a smartphone (a necessity in this day and age), you have to go with Google or Apple. Where's your vaunted free market there?

Facebook? I need Facebook to communicate with my friends and girls I meet, since it's the primary messaging service in much of Europe. I also need it for my Tinder account. I've been handed multiple bans ever since the inauguration, the most recent of which lasted thirty days and was because I posted a link to a manosphere blog. When Facebook bans you, it also blocks you from messaging people, gaslighting you by allowing you to see messages from your friends but keeping you from responding. Many of my friends have also been banned at various points.

Twitter? I'm a Gab enthusiast, but Gab has nowhere near the userbase of Twitter. Not only that, Twitter has actively colluded with Google and Apple to keep the Gab app off their respective mobile stores, limiting the site's growth. I imagine it's only a matter of time before Gab gets banned from PayPal, which will cripple the site financially.

I'm not even getting into all the other scummy behavior these sites engage in: manipulating algorithms to keep non-MSM news articles from being seen, auto-unsubscribing people from YouTube channels and hitting them with bogus channel strikes for "hateful" content, shadowbanning etc.

All of these companies explicitly push for more and more control over our lives. They're as much "utilities" as the ISPs themselves, yet they want to control content based on their left-wing sensibilities while simultaneously grandstanding about how ISPs might (and again, might: none of the net neutrality proponents in this thread can point to a case of ISPs censoring people for political content in the U.S. because there aren't any) do the same.

Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.

Sure, it's entirely possible that I'm wrong and the ISPs could turn out to be worse censors than Google and their ilk. But you have no evidence to suggest that this will happen. All you have are "what if" scenarios that frankly don't sound any different than what we have now.

If anything, given how fervently Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc. support net neutrality, I'm wondering if getting rid of it will hurt them significantly. For example, Sleeping Giants, the far-left pressure group that bullies advertisers and other companies into severing ties with right-wing groups (they campaigned against Breitbart's advertisers, for example), is freaking out over Pai's comments:

They know what's coming.

Sorry, but after the events of the past three years, in which the free and open Internet became a dystopia overnight---without any help from the ISPs that everyone wants to demonize---liberal/libertarian arguments about hypothetical censorship and muh free market don't cut it anymore.

If you support net neutrality, you're not standing up for freedom of speech, you're carrying Google's (and Twitter's, and Facebook's) water. Fine by me if that's what you want to do, but don't shit on my shoes and tell me it's a Snickers bar.

Sorry, but this is completely incorrect. Prior to 2014 there were multiple cases where the FCC intervened or started an investigation when an ISP was accused of throttling certain traffic.

Furthermore, this ruling won't stop any of the problems you mentioned with Google or Facebook, it will only compound them as now you will have to worry about Google, Facebook, AND ISPs. Sure Facebook stick may drop a few ticks due to the extra money they'll have to pay ISPs, but it won't have any other effect on the way they do business.

We are not replacing Twitter censorship with ISP censorship. We are now getting BOTH.

Post: #65

(11-28-2017 07:02 PM)Repo Wrote:  Sorry, but this is completely incorrect. Prior to 2014 there were multiple cases where the FCC intervened or started an investigation when an ISP was accused of throttling certain traffic.

Furthermore, this ruling won't stop any of the problems you mentioned with Google or Facebook, it will only compound them as now you will have to worry about Google, Facebook, AND ISPs. Sure Facebook stick may drop a few ticks due to the extra money they'll have to pay ISPs, but it won't have any other effect on the way they do business.

We are not replacing Twitter censorship with ISP censorship. We are now getting BOTH.

If I was Google, this would embolden me to become much more active in the broadband space knowing they could legally favor their own traffic over competitors.

Post: #66

So to be clear, its OK to demand the government regulates the ISPs but its not OK to demand the government regulates the social media megacorps?

Or is this "whatever keeps my Netflix cheap"?

It's obvious and abundantly clear that this will hurt the Zucksters. One: Trump made the move. Two: All the right people are squealing like stuck pigs.

P.s the concern squad are thinking checkers, not chess. Like I said before, its entirely possible that political ISPs are part of the broader plan. But anyone claiming that people should just create their own platforms is only demonstrating their naievity on matters of market strangulation and crony capitalism.

Post: #67

(11-28-2017 11:37 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  So to be clear, its OK to demand the government regulates the ISPs but its not OK to demand the government regulates the social media megacorps?

Or is this "whatever keeps my Netflix cheap"?

It's obvious and abundantly clear that this will hurt the Zucksters. One: Trump made the move. Two: All the right people are squealing like stuck pigs.

ISPs are utilities at this point. Same as electricity.

Yelling freedom of speech is being censored is plain bullshit. You never had any rights to freedom of speech using the resources of others. That is entitlement talking.

Or is this a "I can't message muy girls on Facebook and I want to get back at them?"

People will still wake up and log into Twitter, Facebook and use Google Search(which is a monopoly).

Quote:P.s the concern squad are thinking checkers, not chess. Like I said before, its entirely possible that political ISPs are part of the broader plan. But anyone claiming that people should just create their own platforms is only demonstrating their naievity on matters of market strangulation and crony capitalism.

Doubtful.

I create and sell my own software products. Please lecture me on this topic from the bush. You won't be able to stop what you are trying to stop when Silicon Valley is producing most of the widely used tech out there. The culture there is the issue and only competition, outside of that culture, will change this course. As of right now, you have a hard-on thinking this will hurt the big tech companies. It won't. It will make a bad situation even worst.

Roosh built his own community right here with free forum software and his own server. Don't tell me others couldn't do the same thing. Yeah, yeah, I hear... "But he isn't worth a bazillion dollars!" Freedom of speech isn't what you guys really want. You want to influence others while using the resources of others. Which is why you want to go back to Twitter/Facebook and cry about being censored.

This will go through and we can revisit this topic to see what has happened. Beers are on the person who got it wrong (i.e. You).

Post: #68

(11-28-2017 11:37 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  But anyone claiming that people should just create their own platforms is only demonstrating their naievity on matters of market strangulation and crony capitalism.

A couple of other points to bring this home.

Facebook paid around 19 billion for Whatsapp. I doubt it was simply because the liked the name. They did it because of Whatsapp's growth. Surely Facebook could have built their own app to push Whatsapp out of the market. Nope and I believe they did try to build their own but I could be mistaken.

Snapchat is also another platform that grew quite big. Facebook even tried to buy them out without success.

Facebook shouldn't exists since the Google behemoth built their own social platform to compete with Facebook. That didn't work.

I've seen Microsoft try to copy other products with huge failures.

Regardless of how much money these companies have, time and time again has shown that throwing a lot of money to copy others does not work. I dare say most of the time.

According to you none of this is possible because of "crony capitalism" and other really cool buzzwords with no specifics.

Post: #69

What you're still failing to comprehend is that this is about hurting the Zuckerborgs. I don't give a crap about twitter. I don't give a crap a facebook. Except of course to say that they're propaganda and datamining operations of literally unprecedented scale that need to be bled however it's possible to bleed them. If that means making them pay through the nose for bandwidth then so be it.

All of this is balanced against the tyranny that these people and acting to undertake into the future, so with that in mind understand that I don't give a shit about free markets and the intellectual property of people who are gearing up to commit the next great communist purge.

If I could click my fingers and disappear facebook, twitter and google from the universe I would do it without a thought. I'm no longer some fanciful libertarian who sees his enemies amassing the machinery of tyranny and then puts on his regulation gloves before brushing up on his Marquess of Queensberry rules. And thank God Trump is no libertarian either.

The billions of dollars these corporate giants make because of favourable anti-free-market government regulation is funnelled into thousands of progressive causes all over the world.

I don't use facebook. I barely use twitter. But I know what they do, why they do it, and in who's name it's done.

This might not kill them, but if it hurts them as much as their protests indicate it will then it will be music to my ears. Personally I trust Trump's strategy over your opinion. I'm backing Trump on this. If it turn out Trump's long term strategy in this arena results in a net negative MAGA assessment then you get your beer.

Post: #70

More buzzwords with no specifics. Without specifics there can be no dialog so I will leave you to it.

Post: #71

(11-28-2017 11:37 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  So to be clear, its OK to demand the government regulates the ISPs but its not OK to demand the government regulates the social media megacorps?

For the first part, you use the world regulation to make it sound bad, but what we are actually talking about is not letting ISPs censor or throttle content based on their own discretion. If I said you think it's ok for ISPs to censor you, then suddenly even though we are talking about the exact same thing the connotation is different. You can play around with words all you want to make anything sound bad if you try hard enough, so let's focus on what the actual action entails.

Regarding the last part, I do agree with worldwidetraveler, but regardless I never said anything about the goverment regulating social media megacorps, and the act would have nothing to do with this either, so it is a moot point. If that is something you want, that would be a completely different discussion.

Post: #72

(11-29-2017 03:25 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  Yelling freedom of speech is being censored is plain bullshit. You never had any rights to freedom of speech using the resources of others. That is entitlement talking.

The Supreme Court's decision in Marsh v. Alabama proves you wrong.

Marsh v. Alabama states that private entities do not have the right to restrict freedom of speech on their property if they happen to hold a monopoly on the means by which speech can take place. The context was that a Jehovah's Witness was arrested for pamphleteering in a company town where the roads and sidewalks---the only means by which she could express her freedom of speech---were owned by the company.

That was just one dinky little company town in Alabama. Google, Facebook etc. hold more power over freedom of speech than the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation ever did. A decent lawyer could sue all of these companies (as well as ISPs) for restricting freedom of speech (and in the case of ISPs, for throttling sites arbitrarily) and win thanks to the Marsh v. Alabama precedent. The fact that it hasn't been tried yet speaks to the ignorance of the general public and the uselessness of the government.

Marsh v. Alabama makes "net neutrality" meaningless from a freedom of speech perspective.

(11-29-2017 03:25 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  According to you none of this is possible because of "crony capitalism" and other really cool buzzwords with no specifics.

You seem to exist in this libertarian fantasy world where we have a perfect free market and anyone don't like an app/service or gets banned from using it can just build or move to another one. (Yet this libertarian fantasy world somehow requires the government to keep ISPs from charging the proper value for their bandwidth. Who is John Galt?)

You're completely ignorant to how the left has subverted capitalism by infiltrating every corporation imaginable and using them to enforce cultural Marxism, all perfectly within the rules of your vaunted free market. AnonymousBosch used to write about this extensively before he quit the forum (and frankly I don't blame him at this point), but here are some examples.

I already named Gab as an example of how tech giants are already colluding to shut out competition, which "net neutrality" rules have done nothing to prevent. Gab is prohibited from listing its mobile app on either Google's or Apple's stores because of "hate speech," a completely nebulous, undefined concept that in practice means anything the left doesn't like. Apple even hilariously rejected Gab over supposedly "obscene," pornographic content on the site, even though Twitter and Tumblr are full of porn.

I suppose your counterargument to this is that Gab should just suck it up and develop their own mobile OS/line of phones if they don't like being blacklisted from Google's and Apple's.

Let's take the Daily Stormer being banned from every domain registrar in existence. Net neutrality did nothing to prevent this. Is Andrew Anglin supposed to just suck it up and build his own ICANN-accredited registrar that won't ban him? Pax Dickinson already floated that idea. It would cost several million dollars, a sum that most people don't have lying around.

And isn't it weird how despite having a supposedly free market, all these different companies in different fields hold the exact same opinions and ban people for the exact same reasons? It's almost like they're being subverted by a certain group of people... but nah, that's impossible, cause muh free market. Who is John Galt?

Let's take Christopher Cantwell being deplatformed from everything. Not only was he banned from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and PayPal, he was banned from OkCupid and Tinder. Odd how every single one of these services thought he was equally objectionable. If we had a free market, the ideological uniformity displayed by such disparate platforms as a social media network, a payment processing service, and a freaking dating app would not exist.

The fact that you think "crony capitalism" is just a "buzzword" despite all the evidence for its existence shows that you aren't paying attention. Or you're invested in the myth of libertarianism and muh free market to such a degree that you aren't willing to consider any countervailing evidence.

Here's the reality: the left realized that they would never be able to pass hate speech laws in the U.S. due to the First Amendment, like they have in other countries. Instead, they infiltrated and pressured companies like Facebook---who have deliberately tried to make themselves into necessary parts of everyday life---into doing an end run around the Constitution instead.

They're also using these companies to push other parts of their agenda that they can't enact via the government (especially now with the Democrats reduced to a regional party of the North, the Left Coast, and Chicago). You don't think it's odd how corporations, despite being supposedly "right-wing," are all about gay rights now, for example?

Here's another example (not related to tech) of how the left uses corporations to push cultural Marxism:

Quote:Coastal communities from Maine to California have been put on notice from one of the top credit rating agencies: Start preparing for climate change or risk losing access to cheap credit.

In a report to its clients Tuesday, Moody’s Investors Service Inc. explained how it incorporates climate change into its credit ratings for state and local bonds. If cities and states don’t deal with risks from surging seas or intense storms, they are at greater risk of default.

"What we want people to realize is: If you’re exposed, we know that. We’re going to ask questions about what you’re doing to mitigate that exposure," Lenny Jones, a managing director at Moody’s, said in a phone interview. "That’s taken into your credit ratings."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...downgrades

In other words, if a government doesn't kowtow to the global warming cult now, they'll have their credit ruined. Doesn't matter if the people there think climate change is a crock and elect Republicans who believe that as well. The left has done an end run around the Constitution again.

But I guess I just have "sour grapes" because I'm pointing all this out. I should just shut up and kneel before the sanctity of the Free Market. Muh Free Market! Muh Free Market! Who is John Galt?

Net neutrality is not some glorious battle of freedom of speech vs. tyranny, or consumer rights vs. megacorporations. It's two groups of corporations vying for power, the outcome of which will have little effect on anyone commenting on this thread.

As I said in my first post: not my people, not my problem. Net neutrality will go away and our lives will be exactly the same as before. Until a lawyer sues these companies on the Marsh v. Alabama precedent, nothing will change for any of us.

Post: #73

(11-29-2017 11:47 AM)Matt Forney Wrote:  

(11-29-2017 03:25 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  Yelling freedom of speech is being censored is plain bullshit. You never had any rights to freedom of speech using the resources of others. That is entitlement talking.

The Supreme Court's decision in Marsh v. Alabama proves you wrong.

Marsh v. Alabama states that private entities do not have the right to restrict freedom of speech on their property if they happen to hold a monopoly on the means by which speech can take place. The context was that a Jehovah's Witness was arrested for pamphleteering in a company town where the roads and sidewalks---the only means by which she could express her freedom of speech---were owned by the company.

Keyword is monopoly which you haven't proved Facebook and Google are monopolies for speech. I think that is the main point we are disagreeing about.

People can exercise their freedom of speech without having to sign into Facebook to do so.

What we can prove, easily, is that ISP's are monopolies in many different areas.

Quote:That was just one dinky little company town in Alabama. Google, Facebook etc. hold more power over freedom of speech than the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation ever did. A decent lawyer could sue all of these companies (as well as ISPs) for restricting freedom of speech (and in the case of ISPs, for throttling sites arbitrarily) and win thanks to the Marsh v. Alabama precedent. The fact that it hasn't been tried yet speaks to the ignorance of the general public and the uselessness of the government.

I would agree if we were talking about Google Search. Once you bring in Facebook and Twitter you lose your argument.

Again, we could take your argument and use that for ISP's throttling traffic for certain sites and thus censoring those sites. There is also nothing stopping them from totally turning off traffic to certain sites. Of course, they may never do that, but if they did, there would be nothing people could do about it since they may be the only provider within the area.

Quote:You seem to exist in this libertarian fantasy world where we have a perfect free market and anyone don't like an app/service or gets banned from using it can just build or move to another one. (Yet this libertarian fantasy world somehow requires the government to keep ISPs from charging the proper value for their bandwidth. Who is John Galt?)

Nope, but it doesn't surprise me that someone who complains they can't post on others platforms would think that. I believe in low regulations when there is plenty of competition and/or low barriers of entry.

ISP's are neither competitive enough nor are the barriers of entry low enough to allow them unregulated control over our internet access.

We already talked about building software platforms and I pointed out a few apps that were able to achieve high growth even though they faced competition from Google and Facebook along with their billions of dollars.

But, but, that is just a liberal fantasy. lol

You used Gab, as an example, which looks to be nothing new besides their attempt at branding itself as a freedom of speech Twitter clone. The problem is there isn't enough of a reason for the majority of people, on Twitter, to move over to that platform. You and your banned cronies are a very small segment in the grand scheme of things.

In other words, you have to be creative instead of trying to clone another app. You can't bring the same ole thing and expect people to fall over themselves signing up.

Quote:You're completely ignorant to how the left has subverted capitalism by infiltrating every corporation imaginable and using them to enforce cultural Marxism, all perfectly within the rules of your vaunted free market. AnonymousBosch used to write about this extensively before he quit the forum (and frankly I don't blame him at this point), but here are some examples.

I already named Gab as an example of how tech giants are already colluding to shut out competition, which "net neutrality" rules have done nothing to prevent. Gab is prohibited from listing its mobile app on either Google's or Apple's stores because of "hate speech," a completely nebulous, undefined concept that in practice means anything the left doesn't like. Apple even hilariously rejected Gab over supposedly "obscene," pornographic content on the site, even though Twitter and Tumblr are full of porn.

That sounds like more entitlement to me. The days of being an instant success by listing on the Apple and Google store is long over. It may surprise you, but you can be successful without those stores.

Quote:I suppose your counterargument to this is that Gab should just suck it up and develop their own mobile OS/line of phones if they don't like being blacklisted from Google's and Apple's.

No, my counter argument is that Gab offers nothing to get people to switch. It looks more like a refugee for people that were banned from Twitter.

Sort of like NaughtyNomad's forum.

Quote:Let's take the Daily Stormer being banned from every domain registrar in existence. Net neutrality did nothing to prevent this. Is Andrew Anglin supposed to just suck it up and build his own ICANN-accredited registrar that won't ban him? Pax Dickinson already floated that idea. It would cost several million dollars, a sum that most people don't have lying around.

ICANN is the bigger threat to freedom of speech, imo.

Quote:And isn't it weird how despite having a supposedly free market, all these different companies in different fields hold the exact same opinions and ban people for the exact same reasons? It's almost like they're being subverted by a certain group of people... but nah, that's impossible, cause muh free market. Who is John Galt?

I just pointed this out a few times. It is about the Silicon Valley culture and how most of the tech being used today comes out of that group.

Even if you throttle their traffic, even if break up the companies, you will still have the same problem because that whole area is composed of a toxic culture.

The only way to beat them is to out compete. It sounds like you want to government to take these companies over and make them play nice. The problem with line of thinking is when the next White House administration comes in they may go after the group that you support.

Quote:The fact that you think "crony capitalism" is just a "buzzword" despite all the evidence for its existence shows that you aren't paying attention. Or you're invested in the myth of libertarianism and muh free market to such a degree that you aren't willing to consider any countervailing evidence.

You haven't shown me any evidence to change my mind. I'm not married to my opinion, unlike you seem to be. I don't use their platforms, unlike you. Whether they get taken over by the government or whether they do business as usual, will not affect me in any way.

I am for low regulations and high competition. I am for monopolies being broke up to allow for more competition if they are indeed monopolies. I don't agree they are monopolies. Nor do I agree that my freedom of speech requires me to sign into Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Quote:Here's the reality: the left realized that they would never be able to pass hate speech laws in the U.S. due to the First Amendment like they have in other countries. Instead, they infiltrated and pressured companies like Facebook---who have deliberately tried to make themselves into necessary parts of everyday life---into doing an end run around the Constitution instead.

I agree and that is the culture of Silicon Valley. As long as they continue to supply the tech we all use that will always be an issue. No amount of government interference will stop it. Too much government interference will kill advancement, though.

The only way to stop it is to compete.

Quote:They're also using these companies to push other parts of their agenda that they can't enact via the government (especially now with the Democrats reduced to a regional party of the North, the Left Coast, and Chicago). You don't think it's odd how corporations, despite being supposedly "right-wing," are all about gay rights now, for example?

Look, I'm not saying companies don't push bullshit agendas.

I actually agreed that they do. I just don't agree with how you want to address this.

You have Comcast, one of the biggest ISP's, own MSNBC. These big ISP's are in the content business. You think they don't have agenda's?

Quote:But I guess I just have "sour grapes" because I'm pointing all this out. I should just shut up and kneel before the sanctity of the Free Market. Muh Free Market! Muh Free Market! Who is John Galt?

I do think you have sour grapes about this issue. I am baffled at you trying to say that Google, Facebook and Twitter are necessary for free speech.

Anyway, I do appreciate you taking the time to write out those specific points. It gives me a better idea where you are coming from. Like I said, I am not married to my opinion on this. I agree with many of your points, but I think the main difference we have is you believe certain online platforms are a necessity when I don't.

You believe there is a conspiracy to crush any right wing software apps. I find it strange that these big companies would allow any competition, whether they were left or right leaning, to come into their markets and take money away if they could stop them. Yet we do see it happening even with their massive resources.

Post: #74

Joe invents car.
Joe begins mass producing cars.
Joe registers the cars to their owners on a corporate level "to prevent crime".
Nearly everyone likes cars and thinks Joe is super.
Some other people start to make cars but Joe is rich.
He buys the ones that look promising and allows the failures to fail.
People adjust their lives. Live further from work and family.
You can still get a job without a car but lots of jobs are off limits in that regard.
Joe suddenly stops selling cars to people with certain political opinions.
People wake up one day to find their car doesn't work. It's been bricked, under the terms and conditions of the initial purchase contract. They are given the value of the car. There is no "loss", but they are told that Joe doesn't want their business any more. Joe does not want to "enable hate".
Many people lose their jobs and the list of "non car persons" grows.
People without cars find their job applications are are going nowhere.
"Why don't you have a car", is the death knell of the interview process for any government or corporate job, which is now the vast majority of them.
For some reason all the corporations are on board with Joe's ethos. "If you're not ok with Joe, then..."
Applications for education are now also overshadowed. "What did you do or say to upset Joe?"
Meanwhile you walk everywhere or ride a bike or take inconvenient public transport. Much of your time is wasted in transit. Much more is wasted in trying to devise and build a new car, but it's somewhat pointless because the real issue has become your "enemy of Joe" status.
You hope people will see this as unfair or immoral, but it turns out they have screens in their car that constantly tell them that Joe-folk are the best folk and that non-Joe folk are vicious Nazis.
You ask a libertarian for help.

"Joe is within his rights", he tells you, "but cars will be more expensive if you keep pushing for Joe to pay a fair share for the roads that his empire is functionally built on so please shut up about that..."

"...if we give power to the guys building the roads, there's no telling what kind of tyranny we'd be opening ourselves to."

Post: #75

(11-29-2017 07:36 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  Joe invents car.
Joe begins mass producing cars.
Joe registers the cars to their owners on a corporate level "to prevent crime".
Nearly everyone likes cars and thinks Joe is super.
Some other people start to make cars but Joe is rich.
He buys the ones that look promising and allows the failures to fail.
People adjust their lives. Live further from work and family.
You can still get a job without a car but lots of jobs are off limits in that regard.
Joe suddenly stops selling cars to people with certain political opinions.
People wake up one day to find their car doesn't work. It's been bricked, under the terms and conditions of the initial purchase contract. They are given the value of the car. There is no "loss", but they are told that Joe doesn't want their business any more. Joe does not want to "enable hate".
Many people lose their jobs and the list of "non car persons" grows.
People without cars find their job applications are are going nowhere.
"Why don't you have a car", is the death knell of the interview process for any government or corporate job, which is now the vast majority of them.
For some reason all the corporations are on board with Joe's ethos. "If you're not ok with Joe, then..."
Applications for education are now also overshadowed. "What did you do or say to upset Joe?"
Meanwhile you walk everywhere or ride a bike or take inconvenient public transport. Much of your time is wasted in transit. Much more is wasted in trying to devise and build a new car, but it's somewhat pointless because the real issue has become your "enemy of Joe" status.
You hope people will see this as unfair or immoral, but it turns out they have screens in their car that constantly tell them that Joe-folk are the best folk and that non-Joe folk are vicious Nazis.
You ask a libertarian for help.

"Joe is within his rights", he tells you, "but cars will be more expensive if you keep pushing for Joe to pay a fair share for the roads that his empire is functionally built on so please shut up about that..."

"...if we give power to the guys building the roads, there's no telling what kind of tyranny we'd be opening ourselves to."

Did you change your opinion on the issue?

Everything in this analogy is why I support net neutrality. The car is the internet, and the ISPs are Joe, except they didn't actually invent shit. When they cut websites off, they will say "you can access that site with a different ISP", even though in many areas of the country there is either no choice or only 2-3 choices.