- Detroit Free Press Article Dec. 2017 Disclaimer: Freepress.net is a project of Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund. Being that we, those who may read this, exist in small corners of the internet as we have known it and seen it evolve, Net Neutrality should be a concern upon which we expend a fair amount of energy and awareness. It's possible that the Internet as we know it will change to be a more commercialized, greasy palms earning viewership - type situation but as a small time user I feel like the effect may be intended to be more nefarious. How will people looking to expand their knowledge in niche areas do so? How much patience will need to be displayed when controversial content takes forever to load? How many of the younger generations will understand that their news is white washed to fit the talking points of the status quo? And most importantly what can WE do, collectively and by honestly working together to circumvent these efforts to silence voices that make the status quo annoyed... lest they be heard and then it becomes a discomfort, a concern... A problem to be dealt with.
How can I possibly make a difference in this war against the first amendment, our right to free speech? By using it first and foremost! - https://www.battleforthenet.com/scoreboard/ On the Scoreboard you can find your State Representation and see where they stand, now, to be fair, the vote did run along party lines, so if you have a strong Republican base in your state the work is cut out for you, but a few clicks counts as many voices expressing displeaure in the choices those who are meant to serve and represent us make.
My understanding of net neutrality has been that it is an issue of whether providers can speed up or slow down connection speeds, charge more to sites that have high traffic, etc. Along these lines, based upon personal experiences, I have thought we really haven't had net neutrality for a long time anyway. And, that this move to repeal the currently written law just serves to prevent lawsuits for what is already common practice. Take the Apple predicament I heard about today: They have been caught purposely slowing old IPhones as added "encouragement" to customers desires for new models when they rolled them out. I will keep my comments short about this. It is been my experience no one really cares what I think anyway. Just, please don't take offense if we do not agree on any subject here? Strangely perhaps, after our history (remember when you were going to ban me at Agora and the snide comments I made here at the beginning?), the tide may have turned on my feelings. I would love to know how you happened back here at this time. I suppose I should contact the Ghost about that since he must have approved your membership. He gave me some wise advice once. Well, actually, it was his idea of the point of Atlas Shrugged. He said the point was we don't need to carry the world on our shoulders and we should shrug and let it off. At this new point in my life, that is exactly what I plan to do. Best to you, Cig.
From The New York Times: "Internet service providers, many of which are also media companies, could create faster lanes of delivery for their own sites, which would make it harder for the content of their rivals to show up in front of consumers." Very interestingly the above linked article came out on Dec. 15th, 2017 ...now we know what happened on the 16th, but I will leave that for another thread if that's alright? The repeal of Net Neutrality, from how I understand it, served to remove the roadblock occurring before any misuse could be had, however, the function of Net Neutrality, keeping access to the internet and its many wonders on an even playing field... no matter if you were coming from a massive multi-player gaming service or a personal site on shared servers. In theory, Net Neutrality criminalized setting a tiered system designated to the speed with which one can download, upload or otherwise receive content on the World Wide Web. This is where we may see the smoke billowing soon. In an age of instant gratification it will be the rare researcher who will harken back to the days of dial up... That is to say; Find the URL you are looking for, click to begin loading and go make a sandwich with the hope the page will be readable upon your return. I remember those days, the sounds of connection and everything that followed, basic, beta, beautiful and with far less distraction. Using the internet for its proper and legitimate purposes will likely lose favor over video games, streaming television and of course, porn. But even there we may be resisted, in that so many 'Cam Girls' might just miss a pay day because they don't have a pimp in the connectivity service. Live Stream without the license? Perhaps that is next. Personally I am more concerned for projects such as this and that which I have had involvement in for the past 2 years. Freelancers, Guerrilla Journalism, Truth sodding the consequence, disclosure, revealing of that which has yet to be unmasked. "The net neutrality rules, passed in 2015 during the Obama administration, were intended to be a protective measure for consumers as more Americans migrated to the internet for communications. The regulations were also meant to make sure new and small companies, as well as media companies, could sell their goods and distribute information without restrictions from broadband companies." Hopefully its not about 'sticking it to the little guy' and more about creating more transparent practices in Media & Communications. ... but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Not referring to this story, but I will comment that I have been fairly unimpressed with the reliability of the NYT. When I recently heard a fague reference that Ohr of the DOJ, a member of Mueller's Special Prosecution team into Trump's supposed Russia collusion, had been "re-assigned" and had a wife who worked with Steele on the Fusion GPS dossier during the campaign, I googled for available details. The story had just broken on cable news. My first search "Ohr DOJ" pulled up a number of interesting references. I clicked and read a few including one on an ultra liberal Washington rag. When I went back to my search again, none of the previous references remained. I searched "Ohr DOJ Wife". Original results were back. But, it was the same situation when I returned the second time. All articles had all disappeared. So, lastly, I tried "Ohr DOJ Wife Fusion". Again, an instant replay of the above process occurred. I scratched my head, then finally wised up and delete a cookie from that rag. Further search results became stable. There are apparently abundant means to influence net neutrality outside the scope of the previous law or it's revocation.
You bring up an excellent point with cookies, Rose. I don't think I've seen a representation of how they work that shows the nefarious intent quite like the results disappearing from available links as you describe here. Isn't it odd? I thought cookies were only meant to track where you go and then that information can be sold off to the highest bidder in marketing so that ads that pop up (endlessly!) will be deemed more relevant due to their research of you as a consumer. Though it does pose an interesting question of how the repeal of Net Neutrality and forthcoming actions will affect things like online advertising, those short videos-like-commercials that you sit through for 12 to 15 seconds in order to watch a video or view an article freely, that kind of thing. Will it be affected by this movement towards 'transparency'? New Yorker
Although this personal recounting related to Net Neutrality will probably ultimately be heavy on techIness and probably no one's cup of tea, I will post it for your consideration. Background: My story pertains to what used to be Verizon Fios that turned into Frontier Fios in my area when Verizon dumped all their land line services. So, old school as I am, I have land line, internet, and cable TV services with Frontier. (I got a wireless tablet and smart phone a couple of years ago, but I shut them off and they are in a drawer somewhere. I am fond of a good laptop with a 17" screen and I don't want anything else, thank everyone who insisted. My laptops are perfect devices for a recluse normally within range of a home router from a comfy recliner. So, I would say about 6 weeks ago... I was watching my normal cable news program while doing other things and it began intermittently pixelating, not a lot, but enough to be annoying. I tried all the usual fixes, reboots, forcing software reloads, etc. I equate talking to Frontier Tech with a trip to the dentist so I continued for many days making do with the issue until I began to intermittently get a message the station I wanted to watch was unavailable. So, I made the first dreaded call. After enduring jumping through all the usual hoops it was determined (as I expected would happen) that I needed a new DVR box. I didn't think it was the problem, but an agent had already done a reboot from their end that had deleted all my previous saved programming and favorite channel area. I did not object to them sending a new DVR. In a nutshell: received, installed, no change. I kept asking, and continued asking, in my second dreaded call, "HAVE YOU MADE ANY CHANGES TO YOUR PROGRAMMING SOFTWARE LATELY??? To Be Continued... I have to think about making dinner.
Not too tech-y at all Rose and a fair example of the kind of digital harassment to which we may look forward so thank you for sharing. It makes me think of a letter we recently received in the mail from our service provider. They wanted to let us know we'd received an upgrade from 75Mbps to 100Mbps speeds for our one terabyte of data a month, with no change in the monthly fee... ... Yet. Now, the speeds may vary on uploads, downloads and streams, so I'm likely to join my husband on the skeptical perspective that this is very much like every 'Black Friday' sale one's ever seen... Step 1. Jack up the price Step 2. Offer a *Special* discount 3. Watch the suckers scramble to pay the same if not more for a product because it's got a shiny red sale sticker! - Sorry I cannot add too much more today, the wrists are a bit crunchy, ah the joys of cold in one's bones!
So, after installing the new DVR that didn't fix the issue, I gathered up my store of patience and made the call which eventually lasted over an hour. I went through the process of re-doing everything I had already done to satisfy the very nice, polite agent. Then, she continued into to all the second tier possibilities, testing my router, speed confirmation, and such, for quite a while. Each failed test was relayed to her superior who informed her of another thing to try. Finally, she patched me to her superior. After coordinating with another department to further check my account, the very knowledgeable superior threw up his hands and determined the only thing to do was to send a Frontier Repair Specialist to my home. Ackkk! But, I agreed and set up the appointment. AGAIN, I INQUIRED IF THEY HAD MADE ANY SYSTEM WIDE CHANGES THAT MIGHT PIXELATE RECEPTION AND CAUSE STATIONS TO DISAPPEAR. He said, "Yes, they had recently upgraded the system, but it should not have caused these issues. I asked, "What do you think may be causing this?". He cautiously responded, "I THINK YOU MAY HAVE A BAD FILTER" (emphasis mine). I said, "A filter??". Do you mean a digital filter?" Sup said, "No, a physical one at your location." "I inquired what that would do and learned the purpose of their filter is to limit "unwanted signals". to be continued again ...