The Battle For The Internet's Next Round: Internet Slowdown Day
from the time-to-speak-up dept
A whole bunch of startups and activist groups are taking part today in Internet Slowdown Day -- showing just what kind of internet we might be facing if the FCC caves in to the pressures of the big broadband access providers, allowing them to set up tollbooths on the internet, pick winners and losers, and generally limit the ability of innovative new startups to face an even playing field online. It would enable the big broadband players to double charge service providers, limit upstarts and competition, and generally make the overall internet a lot less dynamic and innovative. For these reasons and more, we're quite concerned with where the FCC is heading, and are joining in today's protests -- we hope you will too. If you missed them, you can read our comments to the FCC on this matter, and you still have a few more days (until the 15th) to file your own.Later today, we'll also be posting a blockbuster "everything you need to know about net neutrality but were afraid to ask" post, and will likely have a few more posts on the topic as well... Stay tuned...
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Filed Under: internet slowdown day, net neutrality, open internet
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An absolute waste! LEARN GEO already!
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Hope they'll fix the form
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so-call ed
I can't help but wonder if a lot of people are "signing" this thing without even reading it.
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Re: so-call ed
The form doesn't work, it's useless for people outside of the US, and doesn't cookie so there is no way to stop it from popping up over and over again.
It's a fail in all sorts of ways.
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If you don't like it don't read it, go elsewhere. Actually you'd be doing us a favor.
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Re: so-call ed
For press inquiries, please contact us at:
978-852-6457 or 617-690-9547 or press@fightforthefuture.org
201-533-8838 or tkarr@freepress.net
269-267-0580 or nathan@demandprogress.org
All other inquiries, contact team@fightforthefuture.org
Send them a nod about the typo. I usually skip them due to context (I'm bad at spotting typos).
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There's no way this can go wrong...
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The server at www.©©©©.com is taking too long to respond.
The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network connection.
If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.
"Try again button"
If that is all people are seeing, I don't think it is being very helpful to anyone except competitor sites and computer repair shops.
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they aren't relevant to people living outside of the US
So:
LEARN WORLDWIDE already!
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Arrogant Americans At Work... (AAAW)
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It's not exclusively an US political agenda already!
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While I do agree that having pop-ups is a hassle they are there for pretty useless things too so this is not a problem exclusive to this campaign. Also, having this battle discussed and spread around is important because even though the campaign is American the problem pretty much happens in quite a few places around the world.
So yeah, sorry for not getting what you meant in the first place.
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Calm down and get a grip.
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If This Site Was Still Loading, Would You Still Be Here?
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If This is Such a Waste of Your Time
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Re: If This Site Was Still Loading, Would You Still Be Here?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8248056.stm
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Re: they aren't relevant to people living outside of the US
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Net neutrality as a concept is wonderful. Too many people however think it's a license for a free for all, thinking that it will do things like make it impossible to deal with piracy, promote the dark web, and generally render the internet lawless. If anything was that simple, I am sure everyone would have signed up for it already.
You are much more likely to see any net neutrality agreement come with one of those lovely political asterisk, where it says "does not apply to illegal activities", which will then lead to the inevitable fights. Companies will not want to be held on the hook to provide support for illegal activities. You could also bet that ISPs will push for a "no P2P" type clause, meaning that IP services that go direct to consumers would be okay, but consumer to consumer (bit torrent, chat, telephony, and the like) would all be considered outside of the net neutrality arrangement and more seriously subject to restriction.
Look before you leap... supporting the heck out of something without knowing what you are buying is the first step towards hell.
So starting a "write in" campaign that can be defeated with a single line in a spam filter isn't anything other than perhaps mental masturbation, you make yourself feel good but the effects are lost because the only one who got anything out of it was you.
it's also annoying to see that it's a "US Only!" thing, but the whole world is being subjected to the annoyance.
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The whole point of net neutrality is that ISPs do not decide what services run over their pipes, and also are not held responsible for what their users do over their pipes. They should be like the phone service, they just connect people and companies, and have no responsibility for any form of policing. To take any other attitude to the ISPs services is the same as expecting the phone service to prevent people using the system to obtain drugs, guns and prostitutes.
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Take your Ferrari and go on a road trip. Your starting point is a no speed limit 6 lane highway at 2am with no traffic or police. You can go as fast as you want. Halfway there your highway turns into a single lane road in a rinkey dink town that doesnt pay to fix the roads so its full of major potholes and the speed limit of 20 kph is enforced by spike strips and roadblocks every 500 meters.
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So, why don't you stop with this:
"it's also annoying to see that it's a "US Only!" thing, but the whole world is being subjected to the annoyance."
It is not a "US only"-thing.
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????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????
After this line that's what your article is. A mouthful of incoherent bullshit. Net neutrality has nothing to do with legal or illegal activity, it has to do with treating all packets equally. The fact that some packets can be used for illicit activity does not mean you get to prioritize your own 'content' or 'ip' traffic over indie stuff, netflix, google, etc.
Look before you leap... supporting the heck out of something without knowing what you are buying is the first step towards hell.
Really now? Are you Satan himself then?
So starting a "write in" campaign that can be defeated with a single line in a spam filter isn't anything other than perhaps mental masturbation, you make yourself feel good but the effects are lost because the only one who got anything out of it was you.
Dude. Stop. SOPA campaign was just like that and it won awesomely. You are making a fool of yourself, really.
it's also annoying to see that it's a "US Only!" thing, but the whole world is being subjected to the annoyance.
It's annoying to see your "ME ONLY" attitude but everyone else is being subjected to the annoyance. Got the hint?
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Funny, that's what they said about SOPA and other laws, but all the RIAA clones worldwide continue to get a version implemented somewhere.
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Re: Hope they'll fix the form
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It's only made to send spam to US elected officials, and only from Americans.
Thus, it is US only. The concept is NOT US only, but the implementation is, which is arrogant tail wagging the dog stuff.
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This may be true, but the US is second only to China in number of users.
More importantly though, is the fact that well over half of internet sites are hosted within the US or are using a domain name (.com, .net, ,org, etc...) controlled by the US.
Thinking that this issue isn't important because you don't reside in the US is a mistake, in my opinion.
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'Sign up for Glacier Broadband today, our lightning-speed connection is almost as fast as carrier pigeon!'
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(Techdirt has been doing the same thing all week. I could barely read it yesterday.)
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Besides if we get people from outside the country expressing their concerns it could make this "Fast Lane" business a concern on a global scale. All you really have to do is say: "I'm from X and while it doesn't seem like it this problem will eventually effect the entire world. This makes me and many others around here very concerned." Or something to that extent...
Unless of course I'm completely misinterpreting your statement when you say you CAN'T contact our government or the FCC in the literal sense and you are not allowed to do so.
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Well at least you don't get what that saying means. That's good to know.
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Carrier pigeons are to the entertainment industry as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.
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Whaaa?
I've not heard that concern, and I'm pretty baffled by it. What does net neutrality have to do with lawbreaking? What is the reasoning that connects the two?
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In a "net neutral" situation where all services are treated absolutely equally, the ISPs would be common carriers devoid of any responsiblity. DMCA? Forget about it. They are common carriers. You can't DMCA the company providing the wire, they have no real control over it.
True Net Neutrality would be a two way street as well - ISPs would not be allowed to discriminate against any type of traffic, which in turn could potentially mean that their TOS would have to change to allow end users to do what they like - including running servers, Tor exit nodes, seedboxes... whatever you like.
How far would common carrier status extend? ISPs? Hosting companies? interconnect companies? True common carrier status could possibly remove any responsibility or liability under DMCA, as they would not be in a position to turn off the services in the manner they do today.
Think of it as a potential sea change in the way the internet works in the US.
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It's actually just undoing all the badness that has been layered on -- returning the internet back to the way it used to work.
Much of what you say about the DMCA is true -- and that's a good thing. It means that liability will fall on those who are actually engaging in the lawbreaking rather than uninvolved parties. I don't call that rendering the internet lawless at all (because it isn't) -- I call that ensuring justice.
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True Net Neutrality would be a two way street as well - ISPs would not be allowed to discriminate against any type of traffic, which in turn could potentially mean that their TOS would have to change to allow end users to do what they like - including running servers, Tor exit nodes, seedboxes... whatever you like.
Which are all legal. If one of these servers is carrying illegal material the police can go for a warrant and get to the source. Again the carrier has nothing to do with it and all packets were treated equally until suspicion was raised.
How far would common carrier status extend? ISPs? Hosting companies? interconnect companies? True common carrier status could possibly remove any responsibility or liability under DMCA, as they would not be in a position to turn off the services in the manner they do today.
That's what should happen indeed. The suspension should be demanded by a court after a full trial where the other party can defend themselves.
Think of it as a potential sea change in the way the internet works in the US.
If FCC slams title II on them it will surely be a 'sea changer'. Net neutrality will truly be enforced (not your delusional definition by the way).
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ugh
When I saw the "slowdown"-popup, it made me curious, so I read this article, got interested, started searching for related stuff here in Europe.
Can I contact any politician representing me with the form? Nope. But I think the main goal - getting me involved - has been achieved. So: It may be suboptimal, it may "taste americentric", but it is far from an annoyance.
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battle for the net
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Re: Hope they'll fix the form
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questions?
* Why should it work for people outside the US if it's an AMERICAN regulatory issue?
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Derp on.
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Make any difference?
I am on the web for most days and yesterday was no different. I didn't notice any slow downs on any of the websites I visited. Did anyone see an actual slowdown on a website?
I don't see any headlines today trumpeting the success of yesterday's slowdown.
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