Post: #76

(11-29-2017 07:36 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  "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..."

You sound exactly like a Democrat. The rich paying their fair share is a major talking point with all Dems. I find it amusing watching you try and pretend this isn't about your hatred for rich, successful people.

Post: #77

The less people that can censor the internet the better.

Facebook, twitter, and google can keep doing whatever censorship they're doing now if net neutrality is repealed. The only change they'll have to deal with is to pay a bigger cut of money to ISPs.

In exchange for that you'd give the ISPs power to do the same kind of censorship, which they don't have now.

It's a tradeoff that only a sucker would take. You can say "oh ISP censorship is only hypothetical, oh you can't name an example blablabla..." the possibility is still there and if you'd subject yourself to it just to lower zuckerberg's bottom line a bit you're a sucker.

Post: #78

Are you saying trump is a sucker?

Post: #79

If Trump thinks he's doing this:

(11-28-2017 06:22 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  putting an 18 inch serrated dick in Zuck's bunghole.

Then yeah he's a sucker.

He'd mildly inconvenience zuck, while opening a pandora's box with freeing ISPs from regulation.

Post: #80

So why are the Zucksters screaming so badly?

Why are they throwing tons of money into stopping this?

Why are the progressive overlords working their minions into a fit is this if going to benefit them in the end?

The enemies of masculinity on this planet are all ratcheting up the kvetching to 143% at the threat to end this OBAMA ERA ANTI FREE MARKET REGULATION and yet we're supposed to believe that even though our enemies are twisting in fire over this that we're the ones that are going to lose?

So again, do you want to shiv the progressive gestapo or do you want cheap Netflix?

Own. It.

Post: #81

This argument over picking which 16" cock you want to get fucked in the ass with sure got heated quickly.

Frankly, I see Comcrap getting SJW converged within a year of them gaining any capacity for censorship. But on the other hand the search engines controlled by google are already doing the same thing. Obviously both ISPs and search engines are critical infrastructure in a modern society, and the rational solution is to regulate both of them as common carriers. The libertarian argument against regulating natural monopolies just doesn't work, especially when those natural monopolies get taken over by ideological loonies instead of rational agents.

Also, I'm confused as to why censoring websites has to be joined at the hip with bandwidth usage. The post office isn't allowed to refuse me service based on my politics, but they still get to charge me more if I want to mail a box of lead bricks instead of a letter.

Post: #82

Most people are missing the forest for the trees. Regardless of your opinion on net neutrality, at the end of the day it is yet another undoing of Obama's rule by fiat and replacing it with Trump's strict adherence to the rule of law. Basically the FCC is saying that 1) they do not have the authority to enforce net neutrality under the current laws, 2) it really should be the job of the FTC.

Wikipedia has a very good breakdown on the history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutra...ted_States

Basically, the telecommunications act of 1996 mandated that the internet not be regulated, to encourage more competition and founding of ISPs without regulatory intervention.

From 2000-2010, several attempts were made to pass official legislation regarding net neutrality, but nobody cared so nothing was passed.

Around 2008, several ISPs start throttling Bittorrent traffic, whereupon the FCC steps in to try to regulate such conduct and enforce net neutrality under the telecommunications act. The ISPs challenge their right to regulate, and the court agrees with the ISPs around 2010; the FCC does not have the authority to regulate the internet under current laws.

Around 2014-2015, due to the failures of passing net neutrality legislation, Obama recommends that the FCC reclassify all ISPs as being under title II. FCC agrees, and volia, without any due process or legislation, FCC rebrands all ISPs under title II and then asserts the right to regulate the conduct of ISPs. Rather than litigate, the ISPs wait until the next administration comes in.

Come 2017, new FCC commissioner reverses that unilateral change and decides to strictly follow the telecommunications act of 1996 to respect the will of Congress.

Just like with the unilateral executive actions that Obama did to run around the constitutional process like the dreamers situation that is now being reversed by Trump, net neutrality similarly gets dumped because no legislation was passed, and the FCC was going against Congress's will as specified by the telecommunications act of 1996.

Trump really respects the rule of law. Time and time again, his administration has demonstrated that the federal government is not allowed to cheat the process to obtain the results that it wants. This applies even for things that Trump does want done, like the wall and the tax reform.

If net neutrality is that important, then pass the laws through Congress. To do anything else is rule by fiat.

Post: #83

(11-29-2017 08:03 PM)Repo Wrote:  

(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.

Agreed. Leonard is all over the map on this. Why anyone would want to give companies like Comcast, TimeWarner and Verizon more power is beyond me.

Post: #84

The roads are the internet. Social media is the car. I suppose I should have gone Garrison and painted the actual meanings on the metaphors.

Besides, you guys have once again missed the point.

You give the ISPs the means to charge the social media giants through the nose, crippling their business models and in doing so crippling their ability to wage social and economic warfare on the Right.

If/when the ISPs start censoring right wing material you stomp on them with both feet. You can't cut off a man's electricity service because he's a Nazi, or charge him more for the same product. Neither can you do that for his internet services.

Like I said, you guys need to start thinking chess, not checkers.

Post: #85

Like this post if you work for or have ever worked for a carrier.

Post: #86

(12-01-2017 11:44 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

The roads are the internet. Social media is the car. I suppose I should have gone Garrison and painted the actual meanings on the metaphors.

Besides, you guys have once again missed the point.

You give the ISPs the means to charge the social media giants through the nose, crippling their business models and in doing so crippling their ability to wage social and economic warfare on the Right.

If/when the ISPs start censoring right wing material you stomp on them with both feet. You can't cut off a man's electricity service because he's a Nazi, or charge him more for the same product. Neither can you do that for his internet services.

Like I said, you guys need to start thinking chess, not checkers.

I don't understand why you're so caught up in "the right" and "the left". This isn't about politics at all. This is about money and corporate power. And I'm not sure why you think the ISPs are gonna go after Facebook and Twitter. Not everything comes down to politics.

Post: #87

(11-29-2017 05:57 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

(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.

It's called Messenger and it's doing tremendously well. You need a FB account to use it and on the Android store it has over a billion downloads.

It's become as popular as Whatsapp:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/facebook...tsapp.html

I'm not a business strategy genius nor can I say what went through Zuckerberg's head when buying WhatsApp. But my guess: FB saw Whatsapp growth, realized they couldn't create a competitor in time. Bought Whatsapp, killed its development (anyone else noticed Whatsapp hasn't improved at all in the past few years) and let Messenger get better and better.

I see functions on Messenger that I don't see on WhatsApp. For example when you text with friends on Messenger and set plans, it asks if you want to add it to your calendar (a bit of AI there).

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

Snapchat is struggling. Both Messenger and Instagram (bought by FB) have similar features now that are slowly killing SC. Market strangulation at play right now.

Zuckerberg isn't an idiot. I'm sure he knows how to play the long game.

But to recap:
Instagram: bought out and completely integrated into FB
Whatsapp: bought out and being made obsolete
Snapchat: users are bled out through Messenger and Instagram

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

FB recruits from the same pool as Google - highly sharp kids from top tier schools. Zuckerberg, had he not started FB, would've almost guaranteed ended up at Google or another massive SV company. You can't crush your competition if they're just as talented as you are.

And that's maybe the crux of the problem: the few people that could actually upend the Googles and Facebooks of the world have the exact same political inclinations. And that goes for the vast majority of programmers that work in SV.

What do you need to create a multi-billion dollar software company: entrepreneurial spirit, which is really openness on the big 5 personality traits. What's the best predictor of liberalism - openness...

You can see this in the blockchain sphere. Ethereum for example is a really hot tech right now. The main guy, Vitalik...yeah open border supporter, donates to the SENS foundation (those SV weirdos who want to keep people alive for centuries) and clearly swings to the left hard. You can't separate the two. He had a bit of an awkward moment recently - Gab decided to do an ICO on Ethereum. One of the guys associated with Ethereum - Vinay Gupta - said he didn't want Nazis on Ethereum. Then Vitalik had to step in and say he doesn't want to censor Gab as it beats the point of a blockchain technology. But from his wording, you could tell he wasn't exactly excited about Gab running in Ethereum.

That's actually the big issue: anyone who could potentially take down FB or Google with superior products would swing liberal anyways. We're not going to win against SV with more tech.

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

I'm not sure Microsoft should be counted towards the SV crowd. For starters they're not in the Bay area, but in general they've stayed pretty neutral about politics and haven't exactly censored people as far as I know.

As for MS and products - they were a bit lost for a while, though they're doing well again now. Their Surface line competes quite well with Apple products, something most people couldn't have imagined a few years ago.

Quote: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.

I strongly disagree based on what I wrote above about Whatsapp and Instagram (being bought out with money) and Snapchat (getting slowly destroyed).

Facebook should terrify you. If it doesn't, read this:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/...oogle-plus

Post: #88

I can confirm that whatsapp is alive and well!!!

Post: #89

The reason why this is so partisan, is because when tech companies talk about protecting freedom and stopping censorship online, the right/conservatives know tech companies are already cnspring and banning political view they don't like.

All the people you see talking about preventing censorship are people that has not experience the PC far left tech companies conservative have faced for years.

Post: #90

(12-02-2017 11:52 PM)godzilla Wrote:  I can confirm that whatsapp is alive and well!!!

I didn't say it wasn't. But you should see the user growth of Whatsapp vs. Messenger. About 3-4 years ago Whatsapp had about 400 million users, FB Messenger only a third of that. They're both at 1.3bn now. Messenger has grown far faster and I expect that trend to continue.

I use both extensively and Messenger has several more features than Whatsapp. I expect that trend to continue as well:

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/facebook-m...ever-need/

PS here's an article on the recent trouble Snapchat is facing, including drop in monthly downloads of its app:

http://fortune.com/2017/06/08/snap-downloads-fall/

Post: #91

(12-02-2017 09:40 PM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  Facebook should terrify you. If it doesn't, read this:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/...oogle-plus

Damn that was a good article thanks for sharing. For any of you who have been, are currently in, or are considering getting into the corporate rat race, read this article. Basically a modern corporate data sheet better than any I can write.

It’s not so much a reason to fear Facebook in of itself. All competitive corporations are this way. How do you think Apple churns out new products at the rate that it does? By hiring fresh meat straight out of school with no families that make work their life and go along with the ideological views of the company.

Not to steer this thread to far off topic. But this is an example of the future NWO corporatocracy that we have to look forward to. Once borders and governments go the way of monarchy and are mere symbolic relics of the past....there won’t be welfare to fall back on. You will be a corporate slave that works and sleeps. For compensation you’ll be provided healthcare, money for food and consumerism, a place to live on the corporate campus, security.... Don’t perform well and get let go? Well there goes all that stuff as well.

Post: #92

(12-01-2017 09:46 PM)Mr. Accuride Wrote:  Trump really respects the rule of law. Time and time again, his administration has demonstrated that the federal government is not allowed to cheat the process to obtain the results that it wants. This applies even for things that Trump does want done, like the wall and the tax reform.

If net neutrality is that important, then pass the laws through Congress. To do anything else is rule by fiat.

You mean like all those Executive Orders that he's passed that get continuously shut down by the judicial branch? Trump is having trouble with 1D chess so far.

This thread has some serious cucking going on. The FCC guy has quite a punchable face. It's funny that guys on this forum were talking about "civil uprising" and overthrowing the gubbmint four years ago.

Post: #93

I might as well plug this ROK article I wrote on net neutrality, synthesizing my arguments against it as well as my argument for a free speech legal case based on Marsh v. Alabama:

http://www.returnofkings.com/140063/why-...sary-fraud

Post: #94

(12-03-2017 09:41 AM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:  

You mean like all those Executive Orders that he's passed that get continuously shut down by the judicial branch? Trump is having trouble with 1D chess so far.

This thread has some serious cucking going on. The FCC guy has quite a punchable face. It's funny that guys on this forum were talking about "civil uprising" and overthrowing the gubbmint four years ago.

Which of your president's 51 executive orders have been "shut down" other than the travel ban which was recently allowed by the supreme court?

Post: #95

(12-03-2017 09:41 AM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:  You mean like all those Executive Orders that he's passed that get continuously shut down by the judicial branch?

It's the judges that are violating the law by issuing rulings based on feelings and hearsay instead of, you know, actual laws on the books.

Your argument is like saying that the man whose house is continuously being broken into doesn't respect property rights.

Post: #96

Yeah I don't understand how people are spinning this as a positive at all. ISP's have no business censoring you. There are a lot of people who don't have the ability to choose their ISP, they only have one option for internet service to their residence. That in essence makes them a utility. Should an electric company have the right to deny a customer with one option for electric service for their beliefs? I don't know how anyone can't see the potential for abuse here especially by left leaning corporations, once Trump is out of office. Tech companies are already doing it on social media and its bad enough. Search companies like Google are filtering results to deliver you what they want you to see. I'm quite surprised people on this forum see this as a positive, as this legislation could allow ISP's to undermine this community in time. You'll see groups like the SPLC pushing to create a blacklist by publicly shaming ISP's that don't utilize the power afforded to them to "protect the population from dangerous thinking". All in all a terrible idea to give ISP's this power.

Post: #97

(11-23-2017 08:36 PM)Matt Forney Wrote:  We don't need "net neutrality" because we already have it. It's just not being enforced.

As far as I'm concerned, this entire argument is a bum fight. It's completely irrelevant to us because neither side has our best interests at heart.

Not my people. Not my problem.

Ok I get what you're saying and I wholeheartedly agree with you when it comes to social media. But an ISP having that power is a whole new ballgame. ISP's should not have the power to blacklist people or websites from the internet. Your current issue of *finding* content because of censorship will become an issue of *accessing* content. A much bigger problem indeed.

To me this is a very serious case of a slippery slope being created where a future president who does not care about rights afforded to us begins to have the government directly censor the internet like China does. If you give ISP's the power the next logical step would be governments direct censorship of websites and limitation of internet access to users based on their beliefs, which should scare people a lot.

Post: #98

(12-06-2017 04:56 AM)Razor Beast Wrote:  ISP's should not have the power to blacklist people or websites from the internet.

People keep saying this. Where are you seeing that this is the result of an absence of the policy known as "net neutrality"?

Websites are being blacklisted and disappeared every day via cancellation of domain name registration and cancellation of hosting services, as we've seen happen to many wrongthink sites this past year. It is very easy to do so- far easier than convincing an ISP (the "utility" company) to take that action. SJW's only need to tweet to a CEO of a host or registrar for one afternoon and he can wake up the next day and just decide that your site will not be accessible. That is today, right now, and will not be changing anytime soon or at all most likely.

ISP's already have - and will always retain - the ability to disappear sites that violate federal law, like CP, spamming operations etc.

This is simply about money and being able to charge the large bandwidth users more.

Given that Google, Facebook etc already have significant censoring operations running, why would they suddenly be concerned about you being censored by your ISP (which is and will remain highly unlikely outside of violations of the law)? Why would they be fighting tooth and nail, supposedly for the principle of a free internet, which they don't even believe in? Does that not set off alarm bells?

They are worried they are about to take a major hit to the wallet, nothing more, and they are - quite ridiculously - trying (and succeeding it seems) to convince people that this is a fight for "internet freedom". It's absurd even under the most shallow scrutiny.

"Net Neutrality" may or may not be a policy worth having, we'll have to see what happens, but one thing is certain- the policy has almost no effect on "censorship" one way or the other.

Post: #99

(12-06-2017 05:32 AM)GlobalMan Wrote:  

(12-06-2017 04:56 AM)Razor Beast Wrote:  ISP's should not have the power to blacklist people or websites from the internet.

People keep saying this. Where are you seeing that this is the result of an absence of the policy known as "net neutrality"?

Websites are being blacklisted and disappeared every day via cancellation of domain name registration and cancellation of hosting services, as we've seen happen to many wrongthink sites this past year. It is very easy to do so- far easier than convincing an ISP (the "utility" company) to take that action. SJW's only need to tweet to a CEO of a host or registrar for one afternoon and he can wake up the next day and just decide that your site will not be accessible. That is today, right now, and will not be changing anytime soon or at all most likely.

ISP's already have - and will always retain - the ability to disappear sites that violate federal law, like CP, spamming operations etc.

Could you give some examples? That's a pretty sweeping generalization. I'm sure there's plenty of hosting companies to choose from. New hosting companies will spring up that accommodate right leaning websites if this continues to happen. Nothing I said should be used as an argument endorsing illegal activity under federal law. The problem is the increasing political polarization of the population and politically motivated actions by companies to combat "the other side".

(12-06-2017 05:32 AM)GlobalMan Wrote:  Given that Google, Facebook etc already have significant censoring operations running, why would they suddenly be concerned about you being censored by your ISP (which is and will remain highly unlikely outside of violations of the law)? Why would they be fighting tooth and nail, supposedly for the principle of a free internet, which they don't even believe in? Does that not set off alarm bells?

Ok see Google is not removing websites entirely from their search queue. They stack the top pages with results that contain what they want you to see. Then you'll get all the non-filtered results on the pages that follow. That's completely different from blocking your access to connect to a website entirely, which can easily happen with giving that ISP the ability to do so. This is not an issue of something that will immediately happen, but more so as people move to further and further extremes of the political spectrum. People are moving further apart, not to the middle. If people were moving to the middle it would be less of a concern.

(12-06-2017 05:32 AM)GlobalMan Wrote:  This is simply about money and being able to charge the large bandwidth users more.

They are worried they are about to take a major hit to the wallet, nothing more, and they are - quite ridiculously - trying (and succeeding it seems) to convince people that this is a fight for "internet freedom". It's absurd even under the most shallow scrutiny.

"Net Neutrality" may or may not be a policy worth having, we'll have to see what happens, but one thing is certain- the policy has almost no effect on "censorship" one way or the other.

I'm not too concerned with the implications it has for the profitability of any large tech company. They are a publicly traded company that has an obligation to support the decision that best impacts the bottom line for their shareholders. I don't care what corporations think about it. Just because there happens to be some overlap this time between corporate and public interest doesn't mean its a bad thing. It's dangerous to view things from the lens of Trump being completely infallible. I'm more concerned with the potential for encroachment on my rights down the road after Trump is gone. You are naive if you don't think this will be used against the right wingers in the future when a much more radical left leaning president than Obama gets elected. Obama was a weak leader but pretty moderate compared to what's coming out of the left these days. The modeled demographic and socioeconomic trends don't favor someone with views like Trump has getting elected ever again.

Post: #100

(12-06-2017 05:59 AM)Razor Beast Wrote:  I'm sure there's plenty of hosting companies to choose from. New hosting companies will spring up that accommodate right leaning websites if this continues to happen.

To get this straight: You are gravely concerned about the ISP utility censoring you for your beliefs - which there is no history of them doing, "net neutrality" in place or otherwise - while at the same time you find dubious the talk of hosts, registrars, etc cancelling services in order to silence wrong think when that is the method currently being used or even possible to use to censor websites. I don't know what to say to this, besides "hello Mark", I guess.

How can you be - or why are you - suddenly passionate about censorship yet you don't seem to be aware of or concerned about the main means of censorship of websites right now?

Quote:Ok see Google is not removing websites entirely from their search queue. They stack the top pages with results that contain what they "want" you to see. That's completely different from [an ISP] blocking your access to connect to a website entirely

You are certainly right, they are completely different: One is happening right now on a large scale, and is completely legal. The other has no real history of happening, except in cases of violations of the law, and even without a "net neutrality" policy, which has not been around for the majority of the history of the internet.

Quote:I'm not too concerned with the implications it has for the profitability of any large tech company.

Well if you're interested at all in damaging the entities who are actually censoring you right now then you may want to hope for those entities to take a financial hit.

Quote:Just because there happens to be some overlap this time between corporate and public interest doesn't mean its a bad thing.

There is no problem with an overlap of interests, in the cases where there actually is one. It's not an overlap of interests when their interest succeeding means a direct hit at the interests you've been fooled that you're fighting for. Again, why do you think Big Tech is fighting this so hard and trying to rally people like you given that they don't actually believe in the (supposed) principles of the policy?

Quote:I'm more concerned with the potential for encroachment on my rights down the road after Trump is gone.

Everyone is gravely concerned about their "rights", except for every day and all the time when corporations laugh at them and violate them in practical terms if not legal ones.

"Net Neutrality" seems to have as much to do with a "free internet" as the "Patriot Act" has to do with "patriotism".

I don't even have a strong stance on this really, but whenever something is named "Awesome Name/Free Everything/We Are Only Thinking of You Policy" that is a cue to look closer- and when I look closer at this I see that "net neutrality" has done zero to help keep a "free internet" for the average citizen as a practical matter, but it has massively helped those people are actually and currently pissing on that freedom.