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The End of Net Neutrality


The Nehor

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2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The FCC is planning to end net neutrality. What does that mean? Potentially it means the end of the internet as we know it.

It means ISPs (internet service providers) can slow or even block you from getting internet content and speed content from other sites. In practice ISPs could choke back content and offer tiered services such as gaming and streaming packages in order to make them usable. They can launch their own streaming services and make others unusable. They can block content they do not like such as calls for net neutrality. They can censor based on political views. They can hide content behind paywalls. Internet hosting services will probably have to pay/bribe ISPs to get their content available and costs will increase. Competition will be stifled as small businesses will have to pay more to be accessible to potential customers.

ISPs have been salivating at this prospect for years. They already have monopolies in some areas and the idea of tiered access is a big moneymaker. A while back they tried to lower the penalties for throttling access while insisting they would never do it. The equivalent of NAMBLA trying to get sex with a minor changed to a misdemeanor while insisting no one would take advantage of this change.

So what can be done?

The FCC ignored the vast bipartisan objection the change. The President does not seem to understand the issue as shown by nonsensically insisting net neutrality unfairly restricted conservative news so there is likely no help in the executive branch. The FCC rules are also designed to forbid states from forcing companies to be net neutral so they can do little.

- Petition Congress. With the exception of a few getting paid off by the telecom industry there is bipartisan support for net neutrality. A campaign to codify net neutrality into the law could work. I would like a constitutional amendment but that would be harder to pull off.

- There is a chance that some net neutral providers will continue. Freeze out those that do not. This might work but will probably fail as some consumers do not have a choice.

- Court challenge. Unlikely to work.

- One idea being bandied about is for local or state governments to use the existing infrastructure to open their own provider which could be required to be net neutral. The big players would try to crush this but there is an outside chance with a big groundswell of support that they could be beaten.

- Elect a President who is for net neutrality and would get the FCC to reinstate the previous rules. This is a ways off but a simple reversal would fix the problem.

 

I am contacting my congressional reps. I think this is the best chance. A legislative win is very possible. It also has the side benefit of making for a nice bipartisan win which the country could desperately use right now.

I think a legislative win would be the best outcome. It would be better than having the issue ping pong back and forth based on who is President. I want more choice in internet providers...I would love the municipal solution. I hate comcast and it is the only we have available with high speeds. 

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I am not entirely sold on the idea that net neutrality is a good thing.  I am more of a libertarian and believe that the free market is the solution, not more government oversight.  ISPs are private companies and should be able to set the rules regarding how their services are used.  If you don't like one ISP, go to another one that offers services that offer "net neutrality".   Competition should force ISPs to improve.  And, no, I don't believe that ISPs should be granted exclusive territories by the government.  

Arguments against net neutrality:

Opponents of net neutrality regulations include Internet service providers (ISPs), broadband and telecommunications companies, computer hardware manufacturers, economists and notable technologists. Many of the major hardware and telecommunications companies specifically oppose the reclassification of broadband as a common carrier under Title II. Corporate opponents of this measure include Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, IBM, Intel, Cisco, Nokia, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Juniper, D-Link, Wintel, Alcatel-Lucent, Corning, Panasonic, Ericsson, and others.[89][168][169]

Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Gary Becker's paper titled, "Net Neutrality and Consumer Welfare", published by the Journal of Competition Law & Economics, argues that claims by net neutrality proponents "do not provide a compelling rationale for regulation" because there is "significant and growing competition" among broadband access providers.[170][171] Google Chairman Eric Schmidt states that, while Google views that similar data types should not be discriminated against, it is okay to discriminate across different data types—a position that both Google and Verizon generally agree on, according to Schmidt.[172][173] According to the Journal, when President Barack Obama announced his support for strong net neutrality rules late in 2014, Schmidt told a top White House official the president was making a mistake. Google has since supports net neutrality.[173]

Individuals who oppose net neutrality include TCP/IP inventor Bob Kahn,[174][175], Marc Andreessen,[176] Scott McNealy,[177] Peter Thiel,[170] David Farber,[178] Nicholas Negroponte,[179] Rajeev Suri,[180] Jeff Pulver,[181] John Perry Barlow,[182] Mark Cuban[183] and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

Several civil rights groups, such as the National Urban League, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH, and League of United Latin American Citizens, also oppose Title II net neutrality regulations,[184] who said that the call to regulate broadband Internet service as a utility would harm minority communities by stifling investment in underserved areas.[185][186]

A number of other opponents created Hands Off The Internet,[187] a website created in 2006 to promote arguments against Internet regulation. Principal financial support for the website came from AT&T, and members included BellSouth, Alcatel, Cingular, and Citizens Against Government Waste.[188][189][190][191][192]

Robert Pepper, a senior managing director, global advanced technology policy, at Cisco Systems, and former FCC chief of policy development, says: "The supporters of net neutrality regulation believe that more rules are necessary. In their view, without greater regulation, service providers might parcel out bandwidth or services, creating a bifurcated world in which the wealthy enjoy first-class Internet access, while everyone else is left with slow connections and degraded content. That scenario, however, is a false paradigm. Such an all-or-nothing world doesn't exist today, nor will it exist in the future. Without additional regulation, service providers are likely to continue doing what they are doing. They will continue to offer a variety of broadband service plans at a variety of price points to suit every type of consumer".[193] Computer scientist Bob Kahn[194] has said net neutrality is a slogan that would freeze innovation in the core of the Internet.[175]

Farber has written and spoken strongly in favor of continued research and development on core Internet protocols. He joined academic colleagues Michael Katz, Christopher Yoo, and Gerald Faulhaber in an op-ed for the Washington Post strongly critical of network neutrality, essentially stating that while the Internet is in need of remodeling, congressional action aimed at protecting the best parts of the current Internet could interfere with efforts to build a replacement.[195]

Reduction in investment
According to a letter to key Congressional and FCC leaders sent by 60 major ISP technology suppliers including IBM, Intel, Qualcomm, and Cisco, Title II regulation of the Internet "means that instead of billions of broadband investment driving other sectors of the economy forward, any reduction in this spending will stifle growth across the entire economy. This is not idle speculation or fear mongering...Title II is going to lead to a slowdown, if not a hold, in broadband build out, because if you don’t know that you can recover on your investment, you won’t make it."[89][196][197][198] According to the Wall Street Journal, in one of Google’s few lobbying sessions with FCC officials, the company urged the agency to craft rules that encourage investment in broadband Internet networks—a position that mirrors the argument made by opponents of strong net neutrality rules, such as AT&T and Comcast.[173] Opponents of net neutrality argue that prioritization of bandwidth is necessary for future innovation on the Internet.[169] Telecommunications providers such as telephone and cable companies, and some technology companies that supply networking gear, argue telecom providers should have the ability to provide preferential treatment in the form of tiered services, for example by giving online companies willing to pay the ability to transfer their data packets faster than other Internet traffic.[199] The added income from such services could be used to pay for the building of increased broadband access to more consumers.[121]

Opponents say that net neutrality would make it more difficult for Internet service providers (ISPs) and other network operators to recoup their investments in broadband networks.[200] John Thorne, senior vice president and deputy general counsel of Verizon, a broadband and telecommunications company, has argued that they will have no incentive to make large investments to develop advanced fibre-optic networks if they are prohibited from charging higher preferred access fees to companies that wish to take advantage of the expanded capabilities of such networks. Thorne and other ISPs have accused Google and Skype of freeloading or free riding for using a network of lines and cables the phone company spent billions of dollars to build.[169][201][202] Marc Andreessen states that "a pure net neutrality view is difficult to sustain if you also want to have continued investment in broadband networks. If you’re a large telco right now, you spend on the order of $20 billion a year on capex [capital expenditure]. You need to know how you’re going to get a return on that investment. If you have these pure net neutrality rules where you can never charge a company like Netflix anything, you’re not ever going to get a return on continued network investment — which means you’ll stop investing in the network. And I would not want to be sitting here 10 or 20 years from now with the same broadband speeds we’re getting today."[203]

Proponents of net neutrality regulations say network operators have continued to under-invest in infrastructure.[204] However, according to Copenhagen Economics, U.S. investment in telecom infrastructure is 50 percent higher than in the European Union. As a share of GDP, the United States' broadband investment rate per GDP trails only the UK and South Korea slightly, but exceeds Japan, Canada, Italy, Germany, and France sizably.[205] On broadband speed, Akamai reported that the US trails only South Korea and Japan among its major trading partners, and trails only Japan in the G-7 in both average peak connection speed and percentage of the population connection at 10 Mbit/s or higher, but are substantially ahead of most of its other major trading partners.[205]

The White House reported in June 2013 that U.S. connection speeds are "the fastest compared to other countries with either a similar population or land mass".[206] Akamai's report on "The State of the Internet" in the 2nd quarter of 2014 says "a total of 39 states saw 4K readiness rate more than double over the past year". In other words, as ZDNet reports, those states saw a "major" increase in the availability of the 15Mbit/s speed needed for 4K video.[207] According to the Progressive Policy Institute and ITU data, the United States has the most affordable entry-level prices for fixed broadband in the OECD.[205][208]

In Indonesia, there is a very high number of Internet connections that are subjected to exclusive deals between the ISP and the building owner, and changing this dynamic could unlock much more consumer choice and higher speeds.[150] FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and Federal Election Commission's Lee Goldman wrote in a Politico piece in February 2015, "Compare Europe, which has long had utility-style regulations, with the United States, which has embraced a light-touch regulatory model. Broadband speeds in the United States, both wired and wireless, are significantly faster than those in Europe. Broadband investment in the United States is several multiples that of Europe. And broadband's reach is much wider in the United States, despite its much lower population density."[209]

Significant and growing competition, investment
A 2010 paper on net neutrality by Nobel Prize economist Gary Becker and his colleagues stated that "there is significant and growing competition among broadband access providers and that few significant competitive problems have been observed to date, suggesting that there is no compelling competitive rationale for such regulation".[171] Becker and fellow economists Dennis Carlton and Hal Sidler found that "Between mid-2002 and mid-2008, the number of high-speed broadband access lines in the United States grew from 16 million to nearly 133 million, and the number of residential broadband lines grew from 14 million to nearly 80 million. Internet traffic roughly tripled between 2007 and 2009. At the same time, prices for broadband Internet access services have fallen sharply."[171] The PPI reports that the profit margins of U.S. broadband providers are generally one-sixth to one-eighth of companies that use broadband (such as Apple or Google), contradicting the idea of monopolistic price-gouging by providers.[205]

When FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler redefined broadband from 4 Mbit/s to 25 Mbit/s (3.125 MB/s) or greater in January 2015, FCC commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Reilly believed the redefinition was to set up the agency's intent to settle the net neutrality fight with new regulations. The commissioners argued that the stricter speed guidelines painted the broadband industry as less competitive, justifying the FCC's moves with Title II net neutrality regulations.[210]

A report by the Progressive Policy Institute in June 2014 argues that nearly every American can choose from at least 5-6 broadband Internet service providers, despite claims that there are only a "small number" of broadband providers.[205] Citing research from the FCC, the Institute wrote that 90 percent of American households have access to at least one wired and one wireless broadband provider at speeds of at least 4 Mbit/s (500 kbyte/s) downstream and 1 Mbit/s (125 kbyte/s) upstream and that nearly 88 percent of Americans can choose from at least two wired providers of broadband disregarding speed (typically choosing between a cable and telco offering). Further, three of the four national wireless companies report that they offer 4G LTE to 250–300 million Americans, with the fourth (T-Mobile) sitting at 209 million and counting.[205] Similarly, the FCC reported in June 2008 that 99.8% of ZIP codes in the United States had two or more providers of high speed Internet lines available, and 94.6% of ZIP codes had four or more providers, as reported by University of Chicago economists Gary Becker, Dennis Carlton, and Hal Sider in a 2010 paper.[171]

Deterring competition
FCC commissioner Ajit Pai states that the FCC completely brushes away the concerns of smaller competitors who are going to be subject to various taxes, such as state property taxes and general receipts taxes.[211] As a result, according to Pai, that does nothing to create more competition within the market.[211] According to Pai, the FCC's ruling to impose Title II regulations is opposed by the country's smallest private competitors and many municipal broadband providers.[212] In his dissent, Pai noted that 142 wireless ISPs (WISPs) said that FCC’s new "regulatory intrusion into our businesses ... would likely force us to raise prices, delay deployment expansion, or both". He also noted that 24 of the country's smallest ISPs, each with fewer than 1,000 residential broadband customers, wrote to the FCC stating that Title II "will badly strain our limited resources" because they "have no in-house attorneys and no budget line items for outside counsel". Further, another 43 municipal broadband providers told the FCC that Title II "will trigger consequences beyond the Commission's control and risk serious harm to our ability to fund and deploy broadband without bringing any concrete benefit for consumers or edge providers that the market is not already proving today without the aid of any additional regulation".[168]

According to a Wired magazine article by TechFreedom's Berin Szoka, Matthew Starr, and Jon Henke, local governments and public utilities impose the most significant barriers to entry for more cable broadband competition: "While popular arguments focus on supposed 'monopolists' such as big cable companies, it's government that's really to blame." The authors state that local governments and their public utilities charge ISPs far more than they actually cost and have the final say on whether an ISP can build a network. The public officials determine what requirements an ISP must meet to get approval for access to publicly owned "rights of way" (which lets them place their wires), thus reducing the number of potential competitors who can profitably deploy Internet service—such as AT&T's U-Verse, Google Fiber, and Verizon FiOS. Kickbacks may include municipal requirements for ISPs such as building out service where it is not demanded, donating equipment, and delivering free broadband to government buildings.[213]

Counterweight to server-side non-neutrality
Those in favor of forms of non-neutral tiered Internet access argue that the Internet is already not a level playing field, that large companies achieve a performance advantage over smaller competitors by providing more and better-quality servers and buying high-bandwidth services. Should scrapping of net neutrality regulations precipitate a price drop for lower levels of access, or access to only certain protocols, for instance, such would make Internet usage more adaptable to the needs of those individuals and corporations who specifically seek differentiated tiers of service. Network expert[214] Richard Bennett has written, "A richly funded Web site, which delivers data faster than its competitors to the front porches of the Internet service providers, wants it delivered the rest of the way on an equal basis. This system, which Google calls broadband neutrality, actually preserves a more fundamental inequality."[215]

Prevent overuse of bandwidth
Since the early 1990s, Internet traffic has increased steadily. The arrival of picture-rich websites and MP3s led to a sharp increase in the mid-1990s followed by a subsequent sharp increase since 2003 as video streaming and Peer-to-peer file sharing became more common.[216][217] In reaction to companies including YouTube, as well as smaller companies starting to offer free video content, using substantial amounts of bandwidth, at least one Internet service provider (ISP), SBC Communications (now AT&T Inc.), has suggested that it should have the right to charge these companies for making their content available over the provider's network.[218]

Bret Swanson of the Wall Street Journal wrote in 2007 that the popular websites of that time, including YouTube, MySpace, and blogs, were put at risk by net neutrality. He noted that, at the time, YouTube streamed as much data in three months as the world's radio, cable and broadcast television channels did in one year, 75 petabytes. He argued that networks were not remotely prepared to handle the amount of data required to run these sites. He also argued that net neutrality would prevent broadband networks from being built, which would limit available bandwidth and thus endanger innovation.[219] One example of these concerns was the "series of tubes" analogy, which was presented by US senator Ted Stevens during a committee hearing in the US senate in 2006.

Potentially increased taxes
FCC commissioner Ajit Pai, who opposed the net neutrality ruling, claims that the ruling issued by the FCC to impose Title II regulations allow new fees and taxes on broadband by subjecting them to the telephone-style taxes under the Universal Service Fund. Net neutrality proponent Free Press argues that, "the average potential increase in taxes and fees per household would be far less" than the estimate given by net neutrality opponents, and that if there were to be additional taxes, the tax figure may be around US$4 billion. Under favorable circumstances, "the increase would be exactly zero".[220] Meanwhile, the Progressive Policy Institute claims that Title II could trigger taxes and fees up to $11 billion a year.[221] Financial website Nerd Wallet did their own assessment and settled on a possible US$6.25 billion tax impact, estimating that the average American household may see their tax bill increase US$67 annually.[221]

FCC spokesperson Kim Hart said that the ruling "does not raise taxes or fees. Period."[221] However, the opposing commissioner, Ajit Pai, claims that "the plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband ... These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that they have to pay."[222] Pai explained that, "One avenue for higher bills is the new taxes and fees that will be applied to broadband. Here's the background. If you look at your phone bill, you’ll see a 'Universal Service Fee', or something like it. These fees – what most Americans would call taxes – are paid by Americans on their telephone service. They funnel about $9 billion each year through the FCC. Consumers haven't had to pay these taxes on their broadband bills because broadband has never before been a Title II service. But now it is. And so the Order explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes."[168]

Unnecessary regulations
According to PayPal founder and Facebook investor Peter Thiel in 2011, "Net neutrality has not been necessary to date. I don't see any reason why it's suddenly become important, when the Internet has functioned quite well for the past 15 years without it. ... Government attempts to regulate technology have been extraordinarily counterproductive in the past."[170] Max Levchin, the other co-founder of PayPal, echoed similar statements, telling CNBC, "The Internet is not broken, and it got here without government regulation and probably in part because of lack of government regulation."[223] Opponents of new federal net neutrality policies point to the success of the Internet as a sign that new regulations are not necessary. They argue that the freedom which websites, ISPs and consumers have had to settle their own disputes and compete through innovation is the reason why the Internet has been such a rapid success. One of Congress’s most outspoken critics of net neutrality regulations is Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, who points out that "innovation [on the Internet] is happening without having to go to government and say 'Mother, may I?' What happens when the government starts regulating a service as a public utility is it calcifies everything and freezes it in place."[224] In regulating how the Internet is provided, opponents argue that the government will hinder innovation on the web.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who was one of the two commissioners who opposed the net neutrality proposal, criticized the FCC's ruling on Internet neutrality, stating that the perceived threats from ISPs to deceive consumers, degrade content, or disfavor the content that they dislike are non-existent: "The evidence of these continuing threats? There is none; it's all anecdote, hypothesis, and hysteria. A small ISP in North Carolina allegedly blocked VoIP calls a decade ago. Comcast capped BitTorrent traffic to ease upload congestion eight years ago. Apple introduced Facetime over Wi-Fi first, cellular networks later. Examples this picayune and stale aren't enough to tell a coherent story about net neutrality. The bogeyman never had it so easy."[168] FCC Commissioner Mike O'Reilly, the other opposing commissioner, also claims that the ruling is a solution to a hypothetical problem, "Even after enduring three weeks of spin, it is hard for me to believe that the Commission is establishing an entire Title II/net neutrality regime to protect against hypothetical harms. There is not a shred of evidence that any aspect of this structure is necessary. The D.C. Circuit called the prior, scaled-down version a 'prophylactic' approach. I call it guilt by imagination."[225] In a Chicago Tribune article, FCC Commissioner Pai and Joshua Wright of the Federal Trade Commission argue that "the Internet isn't broken, and we don't need the president's plan to 'fix' it. Quite the opposite. The Internet is an unparalleled success story. It is a free, open and thriving platform."[90]

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/69892-the-end-of-net-neutrality/?tab=comments#comment-1209774637

Here is another good argument:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2014/05/14/am-i-the-only-techie-against-net-neutrality/#2c78ae9170d5

 

Link to comment
46 minutes ago, pogi said:

I am not entirely sold on the idea that net neutrality is a good thing.  I am more of a libertarian and believe that the free market is the solution, not more government oversight.  ISPs are private companies and should be able to set the rules regarding how their services are used.  If you don't like one ISP, go to another one that offers services that offer "net neutrality".   Competition should force ISPs to improve.  And, no, I don't believe that ISPs should be granted exclusive territories by the government.  

Arguments against net neutrality:

Opponents of net neutrality regulations include Internet service providers (ISPs), broadband and telecommunications companies, computer hardware manufacturers, economists and notable technologists. Many of the major hardware and telecommunications companies specifically oppose the reclassification of broadband as a common carrier under Title II. Corporate opponents of this measure include Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, IBM, Intel, Cisco, Nokia, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Juniper, D-Link, Wintel, Alcatel-Lucent, Corning, Panasonic, Ericsson, and others.[89][168][169]

Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Gary Becker's paper titled, "Net Neutrality and Consumer Welfare", published by the Journal of Competition Law & Economics, argues that claims by net neutrality proponents "do not provide a compelling rationale for regulation" because there is "significant and growing competition" among broadband access providers.[170][171] Google Chairman Eric Schmidt states that, while Google views that similar data types should not be discriminated against, it is okay to discriminate across different data types—a position that both Google and Verizon generally agree on, according to Schmidt.[172][173] According to the Journal, when President Barack Obama announced his support for strong net neutrality rules late in 2014, Schmidt told a top White House official the president was making a mistake. Google has since supports net neutrality.[173]

Individuals who oppose net neutrality include TCP/IP inventor Bob Kahn,[174][175], Marc Andreessen,[176] Scott McNealy,[177] Peter Thiel,[170] David Farber,[178] Nicholas Negroponte,[179] Rajeev Suri,[180] Jeff Pulver,[181] John Perry Barlow,[182] Mark Cuban[183] and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

Several civil rights groups, such as the National Urban League, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH, and League of United Latin American Citizens, also oppose Title II net neutrality regulations,[184] who said that the call to regulate broadband Internet service as a utility would harm minority communities by stifling investment in underserved areas.[185][186]

A number of other opponents created Hands Off The Internet,[187] a website created in 2006 to promote arguments against Internet regulation. Principal financial support for the website came from AT&T, and members included BellSouth, Alcatel, Cingular, and Citizens Against Government Waste.[188][189][190][191][192]

Robert Pepper, a senior managing director, global advanced technology policy, at Cisco Systems, and former FCC chief of policy development, says: "The supporters of net neutrality regulation believe that more rules are necessary. In their view, without greater regulation, service providers might parcel out bandwidth or services, creating a bifurcated world in which the wealthy enjoy first-class Internet access, while everyone else is left with slow connections and degraded content. That scenario, however, is a false paradigm. Such an all-or-nothing world doesn't exist today, nor will it exist in the future. Without additional regulation, service providers are likely to continue doing what they are doing. They will continue to offer a variety of broadband service plans at a variety of price points to suit every type of consumer".[193] Computer scientist Bob Kahn[194] has said net neutrality is a slogan that would freeze innovation in the core of the Internet.[175]

Farber has written and spoken strongly in favor of continued research and development on core Internet protocols. He joined academic colleagues Michael Katz, Christopher Yoo, and Gerald Faulhaber in an op-ed for the Washington Post strongly critical of network neutrality, essentially stating that while the Internet is in need of remodeling, congressional action aimed at protecting the best parts of the current Internet could interfere with efforts to build a replacement.[195]

Reduction in investment
According to a letter to key Congressional and FCC leaders sent by 60 major ISP technology suppliers including IBM, Intel, Qualcomm, and Cisco, Title II regulation of the Internet "means that instead of billions of broadband investment driving other sectors of the economy forward, any reduction in this spending will stifle growth across the entire economy. This is not idle speculation or fear mongering...Title II is going to lead to a slowdown, if not a hold, in broadband build out, because if you don’t know that you can recover on your investment, you won’t make it."[89][196][197][198] According to the Wall Street Journal, in one of Google’s few lobbying sessions with FCC officials, the company urged the agency to craft rules that encourage investment in broadband Internet networks—a position that mirrors the argument made by opponents of strong net neutrality rules, such as AT&T and Comcast.[173] Opponents of net neutrality argue that prioritization of bandwidth is necessary for future innovation on the Internet.[169] Telecommunications providers such as telephone and cable companies, and some technology companies that supply networking gear, argue telecom providers should have the ability to provide preferential treatment in the form of tiered services, for example by giving online companies willing to pay the ability to transfer their data packets faster than other Internet traffic.[199] The added income from such services could be used to pay for the building of increased broadband access to more consumers.[121]

Opponents say that net neutrality would make it more difficult for Internet service providers (ISPs) and other network operators to recoup their investments in broadband networks.[200] John Thorne, senior vice president and deputy general counsel of Verizon, a broadband and telecommunications company, has argued that they will have no incentive to make large investments to develop advanced fibre-optic networks if they are prohibited from charging higher preferred access fees to companies that wish to take advantage of the expanded capabilities of such networks. Thorne and other ISPs have accused Google and Skype of freeloading or free riding for using a network of lines and cables the phone company spent billions of dollars to build.[169][201][202] Marc Andreessen states that "a pure net neutrality view is difficult to sustain if you also want to have continued investment in broadband networks. If you’re a large telco right now, you spend on the order of $20 billion a year on capex [capital expenditure]. You need to know how you’re going to get a return on that investment. If you have these pure net neutrality rules where you can never charge a company like Netflix anything, you’re not ever going to get a return on continued network investment — which means you’ll stop investing in the network. And I would not want to be sitting here 10 or 20 years from now with the same broadband speeds we’re getting today."[203]

Proponents of net neutrality regulations say network operators have continued to under-invest in infrastructure.[204] However, according to Copenhagen Economics, U.S. investment in telecom infrastructure is 50 percent higher than in the European Union. As a share of GDP, the United States' broadband investment rate per GDP trails only the UK and South Korea slightly, but exceeds Japan, Canada, Italy, Germany, and France sizably.[205] On broadband speed, Akamai reported that the US trails only South Korea and Japan among its major trading partners, and trails only Japan in the G-7 in both average peak connection speed and percentage of the population connection at 10 Mbit/s or higher, but are substantially ahead of most of its other major trading partners.[205]

The White House reported in June 2013 that U.S. connection speeds are "the fastest compared to other countries with either a similar population or land mass".[206] Akamai's report on "The State of the Internet" in the 2nd quarter of 2014 says "a total of 39 states saw 4K readiness rate more than double over the past year". In other words, as ZDNet reports, those states saw a "major" increase in the availability of the 15Mbit/s speed needed for 4K video.[207] According to the Progressive Policy Institute and ITU data, the United States has the most affordable entry-level prices for fixed broadband in the OECD.[205][208]

In Indonesia, there is a very high number of Internet connections that are subjected to exclusive deals between the ISP and the building owner, and changing this dynamic could unlock much more consumer choice and higher speeds.[150] FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and Federal Election Commission's Lee Goldman wrote in a Politico piece in February 2015, "Compare Europe, which has long had utility-style regulations, with the United States, which has embraced a light-touch regulatory model. Broadband speeds in the United States, both wired and wireless, are significantly faster than those in Europe. Broadband investment in the United States is several multiples that of Europe. And broadband's reach is much wider in the United States, despite its much lower population density."[209]

Significant and growing competition, investment
A 2010 paper on net neutrality by Nobel Prize economist Gary Becker and his colleagues stated that "there is significant and growing competition among broadband access providers and that few significant competitive problems have been observed to date, suggesting that there is no compelling competitive rationale for such regulation".[171] Becker and fellow economists Dennis Carlton and Hal Sidler found that "Between mid-2002 and mid-2008, the number of high-speed broadband access lines in the United States grew from 16 million to nearly 133 million, and the number of residential broadband lines grew from 14 million to nearly 80 million. Internet traffic roughly tripled between 2007 and 2009. At the same time, prices for broadband Internet access services have fallen sharply."[171] The PPI reports that the profit margins of U.S. broadband providers are generally one-sixth to one-eighth of companies that use broadband (such as Apple or Google), contradicting the idea of monopolistic price-gouging by providers.[205]

When FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler redefined broadband from 4 Mbit/s to 25 Mbit/s (3.125 MB/s) or greater in January 2015, FCC commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Reilly believed the redefinition was to set up the agency's intent to settle the net neutrality fight with new regulations. The commissioners argued that the stricter speed guidelines painted the broadband industry as less competitive, justifying the FCC's moves with Title II net neutrality regulations.[210]

A report by the Progressive Policy Institute in June 2014 argues that nearly every American can choose from at least 5-6 broadband Internet service providers, despite claims that there are only a "small number" of broadband providers.[205] Citing research from the FCC, the Institute wrote that 90 percent of American households have access to at least one wired and one wireless broadband provider at speeds of at least 4 Mbit/s (500 kbyte/s) downstream and 1 Mbit/s (125 kbyte/s) upstream and that nearly 88 percent of Americans can choose from at least two wired providers of broadband disregarding speed (typically choosing between a cable and telco offering). Further, three of the four national wireless companies report that they offer 4G LTE to 250–300 million Americans, with the fourth (T-Mobile) sitting at 209 million and counting.[205] Similarly, the FCC reported in June 2008 that 99.8% of ZIP codes in the United States had two or more providers of high speed Internet lines available, and 94.6% of ZIP codes had four or more providers, as reported by University of Chicago economists Gary Becker, Dennis Carlton, and Hal Sider in a 2010 paper.[171]

Deterring competition
FCC commissioner Ajit Pai states that the FCC completely brushes away the concerns of smaller competitors who are going to be subject to various taxes, such as state property taxes and general receipts taxes.[211] As a result, according to Pai, that does nothing to create more competition within the market.[211] According to Pai, the FCC's ruling to impose Title II regulations is opposed by the country's smallest private competitors and many municipal broadband providers.[212] In his dissent, Pai noted that 142 wireless ISPs (WISPs) said that FCC’s new "regulatory intrusion into our businesses ... would likely force us to raise prices, delay deployment expansion, or both". He also noted that 24 of the country's smallest ISPs, each with fewer than 1,000 residential broadband customers, wrote to the FCC stating that Title II "will badly strain our limited resources" because they "have no in-house attorneys and no budget line items for outside counsel". Further, another 43 municipal broadband providers told the FCC that Title II "will trigger consequences beyond the Commission's control and risk serious harm to our ability to fund and deploy broadband without bringing any concrete benefit for consumers or edge providers that the market is not already proving today without the aid of any additional regulation".[168]

According to a Wired magazine article by TechFreedom's Berin Szoka, Matthew Starr, and Jon Henke, local governments and public utilities impose the most significant barriers to entry for more cable broadband competition: "While popular arguments focus on supposed 'monopolists' such as big cable companies, it's government that's really to blame." The authors state that local governments and their public utilities charge ISPs far more than they actually cost and have the final say on whether an ISP can build a network. The public officials determine what requirements an ISP must meet to get approval for access to publicly owned "rights of way" (which lets them place their wires), thus reducing the number of potential competitors who can profitably deploy Internet service—such as AT&T's U-Verse, Google Fiber, and Verizon FiOS. Kickbacks may include municipal requirements for ISPs such as building out service where it is not demanded, donating equipment, and delivering free broadband to government buildings.[213]

Counterweight to server-side non-neutrality
Those in favor of forms of non-neutral tiered Internet access argue that the Internet is already not a level playing field, that large companies achieve a performance advantage over smaller competitors by providing more and better-quality servers and buying high-bandwidth services. Should scrapping of net neutrality regulations precipitate a price drop for lower levels of access, or access to only certain protocols, for instance, such would make Internet usage more adaptable to the needs of those individuals and corporations who specifically seek differentiated tiers of service. Network expert[214] Richard Bennett has written, "A richly funded Web site, which delivers data faster than its competitors to the front porches of the Internet service providers, wants it delivered the rest of the way on an equal basis. This system, which Google calls broadband neutrality, actually preserves a more fundamental inequality."[215]

Prevent overuse of bandwidth
Since the early 1990s, Internet traffic has increased steadily. The arrival of picture-rich websites and MP3s led to a sharp increase in the mid-1990s followed by a subsequent sharp increase since 2003 as video streaming and Peer-to-peer file sharing became more common.[216][217] In reaction to companies including YouTube, as well as smaller companies starting to offer free video content, using substantial amounts of bandwidth, at least one Internet service provider (ISP), SBC Communications (now AT&T Inc.), has suggested that it should have the right to charge these companies for making their content available over the provider's network.[218]

Bret Swanson of the Wall Street Journal wrote in 2007 that the popular websites of that time, including YouTube, MySpace, and blogs, were put at risk by net neutrality. He noted that, at the time, YouTube streamed as much data in three months as the world's radio, cable and broadcast television channels did in one year, 75 petabytes. He argued that networks were not remotely prepared to handle the amount of data required to run these sites. He also argued that net neutrality would prevent broadband networks from being built, which would limit available bandwidth and thus endanger innovation.[219] One example of these concerns was the "series of tubes" analogy, which was presented by US senator Ted Stevens during a committee hearing in the US senate in 2006.

Potentially increased taxes
FCC commissioner Ajit Pai, who opposed the net neutrality ruling, claims that the ruling issued by the FCC to impose Title II regulations allow new fees and taxes on broadband by subjecting them to the telephone-style taxes under the Universal Service Fund. Net neutrality proponent Free Press argues that, "the average potential increase in taxes and fees per household would be far less" than the estimate given by net neutrality opponents, and that if there were to be additional taxes, the tax figure may be around US$4 billion. Under favorable circumstances, "the increase would be exactly zero".[220] Meanwhile, the Progressive Policy Institute claims that Title II could trigger taxes and fees up to $11 billion a year.[221] Financial website Nerd Wallet did their own assessment and settled on a possible US$6.25 billion tax impact, estimating that the average American household may see their tax bill increase US$67 annually.[221]

FCC spokesperson Kim Hart said that the ruling "does not raise taxes or fees. Period."[221] However, the opposing commissioner, Ajit Pai, claims that "the plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband ... These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that they have to pay."[222] Pai explained that, "One avenue for higher bills is the new taxes and fees that will be applied to broadband. Here's the background. If you look at your phone bill, you’ll see a 'Universal Service Fee', or something like it. These fees – what most Americans would call taxes – are paid by Americans on their telephone service. They funnel about $9 billion each year through the FCC. Consumers haven't had to pay these taxes on their broadband bills because broadband has never before been a Title II service. But now it is. And so the Order explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes."[168]

Unnecessary regulations
According to PayPal founder and Facebook investor Peter Thiel in 2011, "Net neutrality has not been necessary to date. I don't see any reason why it's suddenly become important, when the Internet has functioned quite well for the past 15 years without it. ... Government attempts to regulate technology have been extraordinarily counterproductive in the past."[170] Max Levchin, the other co-founder of PayPal, echoed similar statements, telling CNBC, "The Internet is not broken, and it got here without government regulation and probably in part because of lack of government regulation."[223] Opponents of new federal net neutrality policies point to the success of the Internet as a sign that new regulations are not necessary. They argue that the freedom which websites, ISPs and consumers have had to settle their own disputes and compete through innovation is the reason why the Internet has been such a rapid success. One of Congress’s most outspoken critics of net neutrality regulations is Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, who points out that "innovation [on the Internet] is happening without having to go to government and say 'Mother, may I?' What happens when the government starts regulating a service as a public utility is it calcifies everything and freezes it in place."[224] In regulating how the Internet is provided, opponents argue that the government will hinder innovation on the web.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who was one of the two commissioners who opposed the net neutrality proposal, criticized the FCC's ruling on Internet neutrality, stating that the perceived threats from ISPs to deceive consumers, degrade content, or disfavor the content that they dislike are non-existent: "The evidence of these continuing threats? There is none; it's all anecdote, hypothesis, and hysteria. A small ISP in North Carolina allegedly blocked VoIP calls a decade ago. Comcast capped BitTorrent traffic to ease upload congestion eight years ago. Apple introduced Facetime over Wi-Fi first, cellular networks later. Examples this picayune and stale aren't enough to tell a coherent story about net neutrality. The bogeyman never had it so easy."[168] FCC Commissioner Mike O'Reilly, the other opposing commissioner, also claims that the ruling is a solution to a hypothetical problem, "Even after enduring three weeks of spin, it is hard for me to believe that the Commission is establishing an entire Title II/net neutrality regime to protect against hypothetical harms. There is not a shred of evidence that any aspect of this structure is necessary. The D.C. Circuit called the prior, scaled-down version a 'prophylactic' approach. I call it guilt by imagination."[225] In a Chicago Tribune article, FCC Commissioner Pai and Joshua Wright of the Federal Trade Commission argue that "the Internet isn't broken, and we don't need the president's plan to 'fix' it. Quite the opposite. The Internet is an unparalleled success story. It is a free, open and thriving platform."[90]

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/69892-the-end-of-net-neutrality/?tab=comments#comment-1209774637

Here is another good argument:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2014/05/14/am-i-the-only-techie-against-net-neutrality/#2c78ae9170d5

 

I disagree. Many areas have only one option for high speed internet. Some only have one. Relying on competition to sort it out is madness.

Libertarian solutions do not work for utilities.

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"The market always does a better job than the government at providing services."

Then why did the market not provide drugs I got elsewhere because of government subsidizing and therefore I was saddled with older drugs that aggravated my disorder and turned me into a compulsive eater?  The company said there wasn't a large enough market to justify pushing it.

Edited by Calm
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2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Always? So we should privatize all roads and allow the owners to charge whatever they wish for their use? If someone buys up all the land around my home and thinks I am ugly and decides to put up a 50 foot high wall topped with barbed wire around it that should be allowed? Privatize the military and hope the owners do not turn on us? Farm out all our diplomacy to lobbying firms? Privatize the police? The courts?

Most libertarians I have met (there are a few exceptions) seem to have taken Econ 101 where as a starting point for economics they describe perfect markets where everyone behaves rationally and conclude that markets are perfect. Then they leave class to run off and become libertarians before they learn about monopolies, oligopolies, externalities, assymetric information, that you have to adjust because people are not rational, and much much more.

Libertarianism is just as unrealistic and naive as communism.

Edited by Gray
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On 11/22/2017 at 9:58 AM, The Nehor said:

The FCC is planning to end net neutrality. What does that mean? Potentially it means the end of the internet as we know it.

It means ISPs (internet service providers) can slow or even block you from getting internet content and speed content from other sites. In practice ISPs could choke back content and offer tiered services such as gaming and streaming packages in order to make them usable. They can launch their own streaming services and make others unusable. They can block content they do not like such as calls for net neutrality. They can censor based on political views. They can hide content behind paywalls. Internet hosting services will probably have to pay/bribe ISPs to get their content available and costs will increase. Competition will be stifled as small businesses will have to pay more to be accessible to potential customers.

ISPs have been salivating at this prospect for years. They already have monopolies in some areas and the idea of tiered access is a big moneymaker. A while back they tried to lower the penalties for throttling access while insisting they would never do it. The equivalent of NAMBLA trying to get sex with a minor changed to a misdemeanor while insisting no one would take advantage of this change.

So what can be done?

The FCC ignored the vast bipartisan objection the change. The President does not seem to understand the issue as shown by nonsensically insisting net neutrality unfairly restricted conservative news so there is likely no help in the executive branch. The FCC rules are also designed to forbid states from forcing companies to be net neutral so they can do little.

- Petition Congress. With the exception of a few getting paid off by the telecom industry there is bipartisan support for net neutrality. A campaign to codify net neutrality into the law could work. I would like a constitutional amendment but that would be harder to pull off.

- There is a chance that some net neutral providers will continue. Freeze out those that do not. This might work but will probably fail as some consumers do not have a choice.

- Court challenge. Unlikely to work.

- One idea being bandied about is for local or state governments to use the existing infrastructure to open their own provider which could be required to be net neutral. The big players would try to crush this but there is an outside chance with a big groundswell of support that they could be beaten.

- Elect a President who is for net neutrality and would get the FCC to reinstate the previous rules. This is a ways off but a simple reversal would fix the problem.

 

I am contacting my congressional reps. I think this is the best chance. A legislative win is very possible. It also has the side benefit of making for a nice bipartisan win which the country could desperately use right now.

How can this possibly be if Net Neutrality is only about two years old in the United States whereas the internet has existed since the 1990s? Wouldn’t the scenario be that eliminating Net Neutrality will simply return the internet to way it always was until 2015? 

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5 minutes ago, Darren10 said:

How can this possibly be if Net Neutrality is only about two years old in the United States whereas the internet has existed since the 1990s? Wouldn’t the scenario be that eliminating Net Neutrality will simply return the internet to way it always was until 2015? 

The tech keeps changing; the Internet is not and never has been the "way it always was" but has always been in a state of flux.

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On Net Neutrality Libertarianism is definitely the best route. The internet is a business and except for criminal behavior such as  chuld porn, money laundering, etc., it makes no sense to get government to control it. 

Libertarian Magazine Reason has a great article found HERE on this issue. It interviews FCC head Ajit Pai (I thought Trump was a racist...I must have heard wrong)

First, by taking away an ISP’s control over its product, one result has been less internet investment:

Quote

Pai stressed that regulating the Internet under a Title II framework originally created in the 1930s had led to less investment in infrastructure and a slower rate of innovation. "Since the dawn of the commercial internet, ISPs have been investing as much as they can in networks in order to upgrade their facilities and to compete with each other," he says. "Outside of a recession we've never seen that sort of investment go down year over year. But we did in 2015, after these regulations were adopted." In a Wall Street Journal columnpublished today, Pai says Title II was responsible for a nearly 6 percent decline in broadband network investment as ISPs saw compliance costs rise and the regulatory atmosphere become uncertain. In his interview with Reason, Pai stressed that the real losers under Net Neutrality were people living in rural areas and low-income Americans who were stuck on the bad end of "the digital divide."

The first non recession decline in internet investment “year after year”. Obvioulsy if one cannot expect a financial return on an investment then obvioulsy people will be less inclined to invest. How does this benefit the internet and its users? 

Then the crackdown on...free data? 

Quote

Proponents of Net Neutrality maintain that rules that went into effect in 2015 are the only thing standing between rapacious businesses such as Comcast, Verizon (where Pai once worked), and Spectrum and an Internet choking on throttled traffic, expensive "fast lanes," and completely blocked sites that displease whatever corporate entity controls the last mile of fiber into your home or business. Pai says that is bunk and noted that today's proposed changes, which are expected to pass full FCC review in mid-December, return the Internet to the light-touch regulatory regime that governed it from the mid-1990s until 2015.

 

"It's telling that the first investigations that the prior FCC initiated under these so-called Net Neutrality rules were involving free data offerings," says Pai, pointing toward actions initiated by his predecessor against "zero-rating" services such as T-Mobile's Binge program, which didn't count data used to stream Netflix, Spotify, and a host of other services against a customer's monthly data allowance. "To me it's just absurd to say that the government should stand in the way of consumers who want to get, and companies that want to provide, free data."

I had to look into this and so I used, ironically, the power of the internet provided by AT&T and found a C/Net video about 1 1/2 minutes long explaining this move by government to benevolently halt free data usage. Basically the FCC under Net Neutrality feared ATT and Verizone will get an unfair advantage over the competition by offering Zero Rating data which do not count towards a users data quota. 

https://www.cnet.com/videos/fcc-att-verizon-free-data-programs-violate-net-neutrality-rules/

How is cracking down on this good for us today? I would not mind getting free data from my ISP; but government says they are not allowed to provide me free data. 

 

Edited by Darren10
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27 minutes ago, Calm said:

The tech keeps changing; the Internet is not and never has been the "way it always was" but has always been in a state of flux.

Correct, so how will this apocalypse come about by ending a two year regulation? How will ending an infant rule bring an end to the internet “as we know it”, when all it’ll do is return it to the “state of flux” it has always been in before 2015?

Edited by Darren10
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On 11/22/2017 at 3:13 PM, pogi said:

No, relying on the government is madness.  The market always does a better job than the government at providing services.  Public utilities don't compete, they don't innovate, they don't serve consumers (they serve regulators). 

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/07/07/why-treating-the-internet-as-a-public-utility-is-bad-for-consumers/?utm_term=.c9a3f73bb341

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/04/regulate-internet-providers/dont-make-the-internet-a-public-utility

Very, very few areas have only one option for high end internet.  In June 2014, over 70% of American households have a choice among 3 or more wired internet providers. I am sure that number is much higher now.   If you want more options in those areas, the last thing you want to do is to make the internet a utility.  That will only hamper investment and growth into more rural areas.  See: http://thehill.com/policy/technology/331970-rural-internet-providers-applaud-fcc-move-to-kill-net-neutrality-rules

There is also this:

Net neutrality (internet as a utility) has only been around since 2015.  There is no evidence to suggest that there was anything wrong with the system before that. Look at the growth!  That kind of growth would never have happened with net neutrality.  Rural areas are the ones who will be hurt the worst, in the long run, by net neutrality. 

Get government out of the way for innovation, growth, and respectable customer service. 
 

 

On 11/22/2017 at 7:37 PM, The Nehor said:

Always? So we should privatize all roads and allow the owners to charge whatever they wish for their use? If someone buys up all the land around my home and thinks I am ugly and decides to put up a 50 foot high wall topped with barbed wire around it that should be allowed? Privatize the military and hope the owners do not turn on us? Farm out all our diplomacy to lobbying firms? Privatize the police? The courts?

Most libertarians I have met (there are a few exceptions) seem to have taken Econ 101 where as a starting point for economics they describe perfect markets where everyone behaves rationally and conclude that markets are perfect. Then they leave class to run off and become libertarians before they learn about monopolies, oligopolies, externalities, assymetric information, that you have to adjust because people are not rational, and much much more.

Pogi, are you advocating privatizing the US military, police, and judicial system again? You are so kooky at times I tell ya’. 

As for roads, no, let’s keep the, as they are and let local governments keep building tolls on them so that well after the roads are paid for they can affectively create slush funds for the personal interests of whatever politicians are in charge. Don’t even think of privitizing the roads. 

(Note: I do not really think roads should be privatized but doing such is a novel idea. There are, I think, some merits to doing so). 

Edited by Darren10
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Since net neutrality is an issue I first learned about sone years ago on a home theater forum when a Canadian poster praised how well it was working in Canada, Canada was the first country I searched regarding net neutrality. I did so now and I found an interesting article.

 Here’s what it says about the author:

Quote

Adam Kingsmith is a writer, digital activist, and PhD student in political science at York University, where his research explores radical political subjectivities within socio-digital spaces.

And if you read the article Adam clearly supports net neutrality. But in that article he notes:

Quote

Nowadays, fears of a two-tiered system are redundant as powerful tech empires such as Google, Facebook and Apple already run dedicated computer servers inside ISPs like Rogers, Bell and Telus. As such, they have direct and unencrypted access to all the data that runs through the average person's router and thus already benefit from what is essentially a virtual back door into our information.

http://rabble.ca/news/2014/07/net-neutrality-fighting-internet-has-never-been-neutral

Well, so much for government regulating big greedy corporations. Now, those Zero Rating offerings, now that’s a boil to pop. Glad government can keep me safe from getting free data. 

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"It interviews FCC head Ajit Pai (I thought Trump was a racist...I must have heard wrong)"

You have never heard of antiSemites using Jews as their attorney or banker because of their racist beliefs?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Jews

People hire others based on a variety of reasons, not all of them admirable.  Sometimes the primary reason is to make themselves look good as in "look! I gave a minority this very important job which proves I am not a racist!'.

Edited by Calm
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2 hours ago, Calm said:

"It interviews FCC head Ajit Pai (I thought Trump was a racist...I must have heard wrong)"

You have never heard of antiSemites using Jews as their attorney or banker because of their racist beliefs?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Jews

People hire others based on a variety of reasons, not all of them admirable.  Sometimes the primary reason is to make themselves look good as in "look! I gave a minority this very important job which proves I am not a racist!'.

Oh, sntisemitism too. The first US President to have a devout Orthodox Jewish son-in-law, daughter, and grandchildren feeds on anti semitism. It gives him focus and makes him strong:)

I’m sure you find inspiration in this truth. And remember, he’s not Republican or Democrat, nor an Obama supporter (Yeah, right. Bwahahahahaha!!)

Now I made my political rants for this thread. If you want to continue, I’ll give you my email. No thread bans or shutdowns please. :)

Edited by Darren10
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7 hours ago, Darren10 said:

How can this possibly be if Net Neutrality is only about two years old in the United States whereas the internet has existed since the 1990s? Wouldn’t the scenario be that eliminating Net Neutrality will simply return the internet to way it always was until 2015? 

No. Monopolization throws a monkey wrench into that idea.

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I was using antisemiticism as an example demonstrating hiring practices in and of itself is a poor indicator of nonracism, especially if it looks more like token hiring or stereotyping  

Not accusing Trump of antisemitism..  Perhaps you don't believe that exists in most places.  Or that token minorities and women were hardly uncommon in the past.

Hiring someone is not a perfect sign of lack of prejudice.  or the reverse...

Edited by Calm
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