Net neutrality is all but dead. Here's what happens now.

https://mashable.com/ ^ | 4/23/18 | MJ FRANKLIN

[BBell]

Everyone take a moment of silence please — the free and open internet is all but dead.

In December 2017 the FCC, under chairman Ajit Pai, voted to repeal net neutrality, signaling the end of the open internet as we know it.

The decision was controversial at the time, with everyone from Alyssa Milano to Reddit calling out the FCC in the lead-up to the vote, but the the vote was just the first step toward repeal. To enact the change, the FCC would have to officially list the ruling and provide a timeline for it.

That listing came in February and, now we're even closer to net neutrality's funeral. The listing notes the repeal's effective date as April 23, but there's a big asterisk next to it. The effective date isn't actually the effective date for the most impactful parts of the repeal. We have to wait for an administrative step — a review by the Office of Management and Budget — and then there will be another published notice.

Net neutrality is a series of regulations, instituted by the Obama administration, designed to ensure that the internet is open and free. That sounds very conceptual but basically it means internet service providers (ISPs) like Comcast or Verizon can't slow down specific sites and charge companies for preferential treatment for internet access.

The dominant metaphor used to explain net neutrality is the image of a highway. Under net neutrality, the internet functions as a one-lane highway — everyone and everything flows at the same rate, on the same path (more or less). Every site, no matter how big or small, was given equal access.

"At the core, [net neuatrality] means all data and content on the internet must be given equal rights, whether you're a college student in a dorm room or a mega-conglomerate that uses up a lot of the web's speed for, say, streaming movies and TV shows," Mashable's Samantha Murphy wrote in 2015.

But without net neutrality, ISPs could institute fast and slow lanes, decide to block sites, and charge companies more money varying levels of access to their audience. In other words, hypothetically speaking, a company like Hulu could pay more money to load faster than Netflix, effectively purchasing a competitive edge.

The decision has largely been decried as a move that undermines innovation, making it harder for startups and younger companies to compete with existing corporations that can afford to cover the costs for preferential treatment from ISPs.

"The internet mostly evolved under net neutrality principles. This meant that the internet was something of a meritocracy. The best idea would conceivably win out," Mashable's Jason Abbruzzese wrote in 2017 following the net neutrality vote. "Without net neutrality, this could change, opening up the door to corporate domination of the internet."

For anybody looking for a more visual illustration, Burger King explained it using Whoppers.

So why are we ending net neutrality? On December 14, the FCC voted in a 3-2 decision to repeal the net neutrality legislation put in place by the Obama administration.

Opponents of net neutrality say net neutrality is an overextension of government regulation, that the internet doesn't need federal governance to function fairly.

Instead, the FCC board says that if there is a violation, those violations can go to the FTC.

Explaining the vote, Mashable's Jason Abbruzzese used a cops and courts metaphor. The FCC are the cops preventing crimes from happening. But the FTC is like a court, adjudicating after a crime has been committed.

"The FTC is more like the court system. If someone wrongs you, you have to take them to court. Then you have to wait. Then you have to hope you win. This is what the FTC is—a passive system," Abbruzzese outlined.

But I don't own a business. I just use the internet to browse. Does this affect me too? Yep! The repercussions of net neutrality could also be felt but individual internet users. After all, if an ISP institutes slower load times for your favorite sites, that means more time waiting for them to appear in your browser or app. In other words, without net neutrality, you may see more of those infamous internet buffering icons on your favorite websites.

Another thing that could happen is, in order to pay for a higher tier of internet access, services may start charging higher premiums to offset the increased cost of broadband.

Overall, the industries that will be affected by the net neutrality repeal run the gamut of services — from porn to health care ("These days, electronic health records are often kept in the cloud, and fast and reliable access to this data is vital to patient care," writes Mashable's Jack Morse).

So that's it? Net Neutrality is just over now? Fortunately, not all hope is lost.

First, just because the lack of net neutrality means, technically, ISPs can charge for preferential internet access doesn't mean they necessarily will. And some ISPs have already stated their commitment to keeping the internet open. For instance, Comcast senior executive VP David Cohen wrote a blog post stating, "Comcast customers will continue to enjoy all of the benefits of an open Internet today, tomorrow, and in the future. Period... We’ve said consistently we’ve not entered into paid prioritization agreements and have no plans to do so."

Also, proponents of net neutrality aren't going down without a fight.

States and towns are sticking up for an open internet, passing local legislation to protect and free an open internet. New York's governor Andrew Cuomo, for instance, signed an executive order stating that "the internet is an essential service that should be available to all New Yorkers," and accordingly banned New York State's government from entering any contract with ISPs unless they agree to net neutrality principles. Montana governor Steve Bullock also signed an executive order stating that "the state of Montana will only do business with companies that adhere to net neutrality."

Meanwhile, over 20 state attorneys general — including AGs for New York, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and D.C. — have filed a lawsuit against the FCC and the United States of America.

"An open internet — and the free exchange of ideas it allows — is critical to our democratic process. The repeal of net neutrality would turn internet service providers into gatekeepers – allowing them to put profits over consumers while controlling what we see, what we do, and what we say online," said Attorney General Schneiderman of New York said in a statement about the suit.

The question that remains is how much can ongoing lawsuits and state legislation counter the repeal of net neutrality.

"In some circumstances, a federal agency like the FCC can “pre-empt” state and local laws and rules when they are inconsistent with federal laws and rules. Comcast and Verizon asked for this preemption after Congress repealed the FCC’s strong broadband privacy rules and some 16 states introduced laws that would protect users’ privacy. As usual, Pai gave these powerful companies exactly what they asked for," Gigi Sohn wrote for Mashable in November 2017.

Is there anything that I can do to advocate for Net Neutrality? The fight against net neutrality can seem like it's happening all above us: States and giant tech companies fighting the federal government. But there is a lot that we as consumers can do to stand up for net neutrality rules.

The first, obviously, is to stay informed of any changes that are happening. One way to stay informed about what changes companies are making following the net neutrality is to read the "terms of service," assistant professor of information at the University of Michigan told Mashable in December 2017, following the FCC vote.

"Next time Comcast, Verizon, AT&T update their terms of service (TOS) or privacy policy, what are they actually changing? It's probably not going to be super obvious and might just be things where they kind of loosen the language a little bit to allow them to do stuff they weren't allowed before, but that's the stuff to watch out for."

You can find a helpful explainer on how to be a responsible citizen of the internet in a post-net neutrality world here.

[rurgan]

Soros is behind this “net neutrality” lie. It’s just more comunist/marxist freedom robbing oppression.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/soros-ford-foundation-shovel-196-million-to-net-neutrality-groups-staff-to-white-house

One of the things soros, Obama, and Zuckerberg wanted to do was cripple the ISPs so that Facebook , google etc all marxist companies could censor conservatives more effectively and it was working. No one could complain to the ISPs. Facebook , google , youtube ,amazon, would have a complete monopoly.

CNN, Ny times etc. , Google , twitter,facebook, Soros, Obama etc. all the communists are for “net neutrality” . That should tell you all you need to know.

The Internet was free for 20 years until 1915 when obama and Soros imposed the 400 pages of government regulations called “net neutrality”.

[rurgan]

" It essentially gives the “content providers” like google, streaming services, amazon, etc, tie up limited bandwidth and create bottlenecks that will slow access by smaller entities.”

Good points. This “net neutrality” allowed facebook, google youtube, twitter etc. to keep out competition better so that they could maintain their monopoly and censor the Internet. This was their plan.It's amazing how many conservatives even on this forum were fooled by the propaganda and lies:
>

With Soros’ net neutrrality: One of the things soros, Obama, and Zuckerberg wanted to do was cripple the ISPs so that Facebook , google etc all marxist companies could censor conservatives more effectively and it was working. No one could complain to the ISPs. Facebook , google , youtube ,amazon,twitter would have a complete monopoly.

Now with net neutrality dead conservatives can build facebook , google, twitter , amazon etc. competing alternatives that don't censor and allow true freedom on the internet something we haven't had since 2015 and allowed facbook , google etc. to keep out competitors.

[Excellence]

The repeal of net neutrality would turn internet service providers into gatekeepers – allowing them to put profits over consumers while controlling what we see, what we do, and what we say online,”

And only Facebook, Google, and Twitter should be allowed to do that.

[rurgan]

Facebook, Google, yotutube and Twitter,and Amazon all marxist/democrat companies were censoring conservatives since obama passed this communist net neutrality.

Now with soros’ “net neutrality” dead and as long as Trump is president it stays dead : This allows conservatives to build free speech alternatives to facebook, Twitter, Amazon ,Google , youtube etc.

“Conservative facebook”, Christian Tube, Free speech internet search” etc. .

[jonno]

It’s simple actually - net neutrality was more of the standard leftist “fairness” tripe.

The fact is - like everything else in life, if you want more, if you want better, you should be willing to pay for it.

Imagine a “restaurant neutrality” bill where restaurants can no longer offer prime rib for a higher price and ground chuck at a lower price - that’s not fair; everyone should get the same thing at the same price - right? But of course like everything the left touts in terms of fairness, what will simply happen is that NO ONE will get prime rib anymore. Why? If a restaurant is being FORCED to provide a product, they’re going to provide the cheapest thing they can get away with. Heck, in the “planned economy”, eventually, we might be ecstatic to even get ground chuck.

The bottom line: net neutrality was an innovation killer; by not allowing companies to offer premium products - for a premium price, there would less and less incentive to make better and faster internet widgets.

The irony? While the leftists howl about the rich internet companies getting richer, we all benefit in the end. How? Simple. I may not be able to afford this years fancy new product, but in s few years - when the richest of us are paying for the latest new thing, the older things inevitably fall in price. It’s one of the great benefits of a free market.

[Henry Hnyellar]

So we’ll soon see an article from MJ FRANKLIN on how toll express lanes on highways are bad. And another one on how tolls for roads and bridges should be the same for big trucks as for cars.

Hey MJ, the 1930s called. They want their regulations back.

Apparently, MJ stands for Moron Juvenile.

“Under net neutrality, the internet functions as a one-lane highway — everyone and everything flows at the same rate, on the same path (more or less). Every site, no matter how big or small, was given equal access.”

[Jack Hammer]

I’ve been hearing about this whole ‘net neutrality’ thing for well over a year now (two years?), and I still don’t get it....

[Valpal1]

Yep, it’s about gamers wanting super highspeed internet access at the same price as Grandpa who only uses it for email and Grandma’s friendface thingy.

[BBell]

Join the club.

Remember the old saying? If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS.

[Jack Hammer]

Remember it well. :-)

Seems to me that if someone, somewhere, wasn’t trying to give us the old nyuk nyuk nyuk, they’d just write something clear to sort all this out in print.

I think it’s all a big scam.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Heaven forbid people should be allowed to buy a faster lane on the Information Superhighway. How very un-American. Everybody should be slow and miserable regardless of how much money they have.

[Bikkuri]

I don't quite understand net neutrality. Every time I think I do I find out I don't.

Same here.. :/

[Bikkuri]

Whatever happened to Obungole handing over the net to the international community (China, I think)?

[Bikkuri]

Remember the old saying? If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS.

I had that t-shirt as a kid ;^)

[Bikkuri]

Oh.. my mother ruined that shirt when she wore it once... she kinda ‘stretched’ the chest area, if you know what I mean :p

[Dr. Sivana]

https://www.recode.net/2017/7/12/15957130/amazon-facebook-google-tech-giants-rallying-defend-net-neutrality-rules-fcc-ajit-pai-vote-day-action

Net Neutrality would have kept the current hierarchy (Facebook, Google, Amazon) in place, and limit the ability of companies to create new ways to access the Internet.

If some service wants to provide high speed Internet for everything except Netflix (which uses up an ungodly amount of total Internet bandwidth) and charge accordingly, good on them. There are enough ways to ge to the Internet (DSL, cable, satellite, cell towers, etc.) that there can be genuine competition.

I don’t get to worked up on monopolies over movie viewing. The ability to transact commerce, look for work and send email will continue to be okay.

The Internet has not been broken in this way. We don’t need the government to monitor the ISPs to “fix it”.

[SoFloFreeper]

Bottom line for me? The big internet companies demand it—because it will crowd out small competitors.

Net neutrality is bad.

[mewzilla]

Net neutrality is Obamacare for the internet.

[Mad Dawgg]

It is simple. We are going back to the evil days of the internet prior to Net Neutrality when corporations held sway over all the INTERNETS and poor people died at their hands way back in...

2014... 😎👌

[rlmorel]

You are most welcome. I am an IT professional and a conservative, and I readily admit to being biased in that direction to begin with, and I watched an interview with Trump’s FCC Director Ajit Pai who laid it out quite well and convincingly for me.

I have been trying to find the interview...if I find it I will post it and ping you to it.