Mozilla Leads Push for FCC To Reinstate Net Neutrality (cnbc.com) 78
Tech companies led by Mozilla are urging the Federal Communications Commission to swiftly reinstate net neutrality rules stripped away under the Trump administration. From a report: In a letter to FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Friday, ADT, Dropbox, Eventbrite, Reddit, Vimeo and Wikimedia joined Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox web browser, in calling net neutrality "critical for preserving the internet as a free and open medium that promotes innovation and spurs economic growth." [...] In a blog post Friday, Mozilla Chief Legal Officer Amy Keating said the pandemic has made the need for net neutrality rules even more clear.
"In a moment where classrooms and offices have moved online by necessity, it is critically important to have rules paired with strong government oversight and enforcement to protect families and businesses from predatory practices," Keating said. "In California, residents will have the benefit of these fundamental safeguards as a result of a recent court decision that will allow the state to enforce its state net neutrality law. However, we believe that users nationwide deserve the same ability to control their own online experiences."
"In a moment where classrooms and offices have moved online by necessity, it is critically important to have rules paired with strong government oversight and enforcement to protect families and businesses from predatory practices," Keating said. "In California, residents will have the benefit of these fundamental safeguards as a result of a recent court decision that will allow the state to enforce its state net neutrality law. However, we believe that users nationwide deserve the same ability to control their own online experiences."
Mozilla (Score:5, Insightful)
Mozilla: Net neutrality is "critical for preserving the internet as a free and open medium that promotes innovation and spurs economic growth"
Also Mozilla: "We need more than deplatforming" when it comes to removing certain people, groups and organizations off of the internet
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/... [mozilla.org]
I would like to hear about their philosophical underpinnings where internet companies should be content neutral, unless they shouldn't be content neutral.
Re:Mozilla (Score:5, Insightful)
Mozilla: Privacy is job one. Transparency is job two.
Also Mozilla: We're going to spend $20M of your donations on Pocket, which is a way for us to know what you're saving, after disabling the functionality that addons used to use to save web pages locally instead of uploading them the cloud (e.g. Scrapbook+). And we're going to build it into the browser so it's always there, wasting space and memory, and hide the ability to disable it in about:config.
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I like pocket.
I tried it out of spite after so many people complained about it and started finding it useful.
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I fundamentally do not want my activity reported to anyone.
I take some effort to block tracking.
I do not want to use pocket, nor does it belong in the browser. Like anything else Firefox does beyond basic browsing, it should be an add-on.
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Well, that's an easy one. "Free speech for me, but not for thee." When you view it from the Critical Theory lens, it's not even contradictory. They really do have a profoundly different way of looking at the world, one that's impenetrable to people raised on classical liberal values like the ones we ordinary folk have here in America. You can look at the link in my sig which does a good job explaining it (and please share it on all your social media) or here's a recent writeup called The Subject Princip [areomagazine.com]
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Re:Mozilla (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually that worked thoughout our history. There's a reason why priests preached in Latin to masses that weren't even allowed to learn this language, and why Communist Parties that get into power have extensive and extremely exclusive legal codes related to political offences. When masses don't know what the rules are, they can be corralled into any number of actions, and suppressed should they become undesirable, individually or by the millions.
Mao and Stalin were very strong rulers, ruling over very internally stable countries. It's just that cost of enforcing that stability was so extreme, that their countries struggled to become economic powerhouses that could compete with societies where enforcement costs were far lower due to them being what we call "free societies" today.
In this regard, Critical Theorists are simply returning us to human median of totalitarian rule by the aristocracy.
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The modern Russian and Chinese oligarchs have abandoned a lot of those utterly stupid Marxist economic policies in favor allowing capitalist policies as long as they can keep their boot on everyone to some degree.
Pinochet should have been proof enough that it doesn't matter what economic system you a
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You can make fun of them if you want, but they're kicking our asses right now. They are racking up victory after victory and there is nobody to stop them. They are arguing, in all seriousness, that 2+2!=4. [newdiscourses.com] No, really.
If you can have everyone who disagrees with you or questions your narrative silenced, you arenâ(TM)t oppressed.
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James Lindsay is a crackpot who thinks he's defending western values when he doesn't really understand what he's criticizing. If his academic work was as shoddy as his social media writings, it's no wonder he couldn't get an actual job as a mathematician.
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If he's going to criticize critical theory, and there is a lot to criticize, then he should probably learn what it is rather than concoct a mishmash of contradictory social theories, many of them absolutely incompatible with each other.
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Not true at all.
Educate yourself. [stanford.edu]
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Don't be a moron. Even a quick reading of the text linked by the article you linked to will clearly show that there are people arguing "just because 2+2=4 does not mean x". It is your own bubble that is lying and claiming they are saying "2+2=4 is false". Linking and writing explicit lies is exactly what you claim to be against.
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Holy crap, you misquoted the most obvious example. She clearly said "Just because 2+2=4 does not mean mathematics is not a <white privledge or whatever she is complaining about>". Very very very very clearly she stated that "2+2 is 4" is a true fact. And she also very very very clearly stated this is UNRELATED to "white privledge" (or whatever silly thing she is talking about).
Yet you and the article claim she is saying that "2+2=4 implies white privledge" (which is logically equivalent to saying that
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"All of that is completely incomprehensible babble to anybody outside of the social-science bubble, and it also tends to be very annoying and patronizing"
It's intentionally incomprehensible babble because the person you're responding to hates it and wants you to hate it, too. If you're going to evaluate it, at least evaluate what it is, not what its opponents characterize it as.
Re:Mozilla (Score:5, Insightful)
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But the West rejected tribalism when the Enlightenment happened. That's how we skyrocketed into prominence.
Critical Theory is an explicit rejection of Enlightenment thinking, and as you point out it literally is attempting to put us back into a pre-Enlightenment state where it was a battle of all against all. No, really they are.
"Despite proclaiming that "all men are created equal," the argument runs, there was widespread support for slavery, which made a mockery of Enlightenment aspirations of liberty.
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The knowledge principle states that all knowledge is culturally constructed, defined through language by the culture in which one lives and that different cultures construct knowledge differently. The political principle is that knowledge is constructed by oppressor groups in a way that perpetuates their oppressive and advantageous position, to the detriment of oppressed groups. This implies that all knowledge must be biased. Given that different cultures have different socially constructed forms of knowledge, no specific form of knowledge can be more authoritative than any other. In this view, knowledge systems are simply stories about reality. Science, for example, has no more authority than religion or superstition."
What sceptics typically don't see is that these two principles are sound, even almost trivial. For a believer in religion or superstition, of course their beliefs are more authoritative than science, and there's no way you'll convince them otherwise unless you manage to completely change their beliefs.
These principles are a fancy way of saying: "a believer in system X will find it more compelling than any other opposing system Y"; what baffles me is how sceptics can't see how this is practically self-eviden
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https://mobile.twitter.com/Con... [twitter.com]
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You want more evidence that CSJ sceptics behave that way? Here [slashdot.org] it's yourself the one who's doing the strawman and misinterpreting arguments in support of CSJ's position, just as spitzak points out to you. [slashdot.org]
It makes it hard to distinguish whether you are trolling on purpose or really are incapable of understanding the argumentative position presented to you
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Re:Mozilla (Score:5, Informative)
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Yeah, but it let all those people above complain about Mozilla for... let's see: +3, +4, +4, +5, +3, +4. Yay!
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Bingo. Conservatives are just lying (again) to try to bolster an indefensible and untrue premise.
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They're hard left...
:-) That's funny shit! Twitter's "neutrality" is totally and utterly irrelevant. Your ISP's neutrality is what matters. We have to turn them into dumb pipes, and the client can purchase additional filtering if that is what they want.
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Net neutrality is about whether your ISP can block you from going to twitter or any other site they don't like, not whether twitter has to do anything.
Without access, it doesn't matter what various platforms do.
Ideally, your internet connection should be like a road, open for everyone to go where ever they choose. Stores on that road are still free to ban people for disruptive behaviour and it is up to them what is disruptive behaviour with a few limits like calling your skin colour disruptive.
Re:Mozilla (Score:4, Informative)
Oooh, oooh! I got one for you:
I have the freedom to state any belief, however odious, so long as it doesn’t threaten anyone’s safety or impinge on anyone else’s freedom [mozilla.org]
But also:
Join the growing movement against hate speech and misinformation online [mozilla.org] and companies should 2. Submit to regular, third party, independent audits of identity-based hate and misinformation... [stophateforprofit.org] for speech including "white supremacy, militia, antisemitism, violent conspiracies, vaccine misinformation, climate denialism, hate, misinformation or conspiracies to users." [stophateforprofit.org]
So freedom of speech, except for speech the foundation does not like, at which point boycott and censorship is the solution.
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Part of freedom of speech is being able to speak against stuff you don't like, and freedom of association means being able to do it as a group.
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100% agreed. But be aware that they aren't speaking up against white supremacy, antisemitism, etc. They are calling for the operator of the web site to install a censorship board.
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Be careful with the "censorship is okay if it is done by a private company" argument. The result is that people have free speech... just not on the internet, since it is run by private companies. What good is that? The principle of free speech does not concern itself with *who* is doing the censoring. Someone who supports free speech may disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it. They won't say "oh, well its okay that you are censored because a private company runs t
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Freedom of speech means you are free to say dumb shit and I'm free to call you a dumbass for it.
There is no contradiction there.
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Agreed. I wish that is what they were doing. Follow the link - they are trying to tell the operator of the web site that they must install a censorship board. That's the opposite of freedom of speech.
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You posted a bunch of links. Pick one.
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Net neutrality is supposed to be about your ISP not being able to control where you go, not that those places that you go have to accept you.
It's like having a rule that anyone can use the sidewalk or road, the stores on that sidewalk/road are still free to have rules about who they do business with.
Due to a shortage of alternative sidewalks/roads/ISP's, they have much more control and if your ISP decided that certain political groups can't go certain places, you have a problem.
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Mozilla: Net neutrality is "critical for preserving the internet as a free and open medium that promotes innovation and spurs economic growth"
Also Mozilla: "We need more than deplatforming" when it comes to removing certain people, groups and organizations off of the internet
Both real objectives in a democracy, just replace the "the internet" with any platform for communication you wish. Can you imagine a private, for profit entity achieving that for the sake of the general public without being forced to? How about a non democratic body and those objectives?
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Mozilla: Net neutrality is "critical for preserving the internet as a free and open medium that promotes innovation and spurs economic growth"
Also Mozilla: "We need more than deplatforming" when it comes to removing certain people, groups and organizations off of the internet
I would like to hear about their philosophical underpinnings where internet companies should be content neutral, unless they shouldn't be content neutral.
The umbrella term "internet companies" is too broad. The network is not the platform. Platforms communicate with their users via the network. They are two different things, and the US Supreme Court has considered the distinction valid for over a century now.
The network needs to be neutral. By its very nature if it's not, vast injustices can be perpetrated. This can be understood in the context of the electrical network and newspapers first. It has been exhaustively litigated until even lawyers can und
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Mozilla: Net neutrality is "critical for preserving the internet as a free and open medium that promotes innovation and spurs economic growth"
Also Mozilla: "We need more than deplatforming" when it comes to removing certain people, groups and organizations off of the internet
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/... [mozilla.org]
I would like to hear about their philosophical underpinnings where internet companies should be content neutral, unless they shouldn't be content neutral.
I think that I pay quite a lot per month for each gigabyte my home has transferred. Every extra gigs beyond the contracted amount costs me a dollar. If I download a Linux ISO, and if I am over my TV/Firestick quota, that download sucks two dollars out from my budget. With the three kids zooming for their lectures, and exchanges with the teachers, my internet fees are about $50/month above my annual contracted agreement. Yes, net-neutrality is essential during these corona virus days.
Kill the Filibuster (Score:2)
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Your threshold doesn't solve LARGER problems. If the binary system splits near the 2/3 threshold then it will flip flop between sides just as much as an even split. The stability has to come from the people not your arbitrary threshold outside the current situation.
The constitution defines the threshold; the people and their politicians create the bad laws and instability. The real problem is the culture is foobar and making a system more broken to compensate so that when it really matters it's worse.
Easil
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It'll be hugely unpopular and they'll get smacked down in the next election cycle.
Most people do not have a clue what Net Neutrality is. If you tried to tell them they would stop listening 1/2 way through your explanation.
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Net neutrality is a dumb pipe. Replace all ISP routers with switches to prevent redirection and other roadblocks to an open internet. Guess we'll have to turn the WAN into an ad hoc network
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What ever bandwid
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Democrats need the filibuster to continue their "obstruction" blame game throughout the election season. They will always have a few of their own, like Manchin, to help keep it in place.
Quaint (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole debate seems so quaint now ... like we'd even allow you to send any packets that we don't approve of, lol
Merely slowing them down or not passing them through just seems so old school now ...
Thought experiment (Score:4, Informative)
I was pro-net neutrality ( still am sorta ), but what horrible things have happened since it's repeal? What good things have happened that can be directly traced to it's absence?
I feel like these are questions that should be asked ( and answered ) before we make more changes.
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I'm in the same boat. What will we gain by having it back? Data caps aren't going to go away.... Speeds won't increase noticeably, probably. Unless Verizon goes and shakes down Netflix again.
The only thing we might see GO AWAY is the "free data" deals from carriers to partnered streaming services like AT&T customers being able to watch as much HBO Max as they want, or Verizon to see unlimited video on Disney+, etc...
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Memo (Score:5, Informative)
I remember some memo or meeting at comcast (xfinity) long ago about how they'd lay off trying their ideas out to avoid any backlash after net-neutrality was killed.
Wise move to sucker millions of people like yourself. Gradual slow change and you'll not even notice.
They have already biased their own services / partners over other services in a passive way where they don't block or harm but favor in other ways.... except for that time they extorted from Netflix resulting in rate hikes.
Meanwhile, they can still do plenty of evil with billing errors, hidden fees, preventing competition, shady marketing, forcing IT support to do marketing, using your electricity to piggyback a wifi service with a box they have you rent, STOPPING local governments finally realizing internet is now infrastructure, SELLING data from their spying on your DNS, continue their 20 year research in identifying who is watching TV and when (I knew people, back then they were using hot mics on cable box prototypes.) Oddly, where they do have competition from the phone monopoly the two are not competing with better service.
When they can do it without massive backlash; they will pull everything they can, history has shown them they need to be subtle and slow in testing the boundaries.
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I don't think the FCC even has jurisdiction in this area. They are primarily tasked with making sure your broadcast transmitter is operating within specs and making sure people don't hear naughty words. Say AT&T started charging Amazon to give their packets priority over those of Netflix, can the FCC issue a fine or injunction?
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I know they can issue fines and revoke operating licenses for sure. Beyond that, I'm don't know what other enforcement mechanisms they have, but I would think those two are enough.
Pro (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pro net neutrality as well, but all of the legislation I've seen passed at the state levels have had one major problem. They all say that all *legal* content should not be throttled or blocked. It sounds minor, but this is a *large* problem, as it gives implicit permission for ISPs to monitor everything you do, to make sure it's "legal." They do not have that authority currently under common carrier regulations. It would be like the phone company having permission to listen to all of your phone calls to make sure you aren't breaking the law.
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What horrible things? Maybe like this:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... [arstechnica.com]
and this:
https://www.seattletimes.com/b... [seattletimes.com]
and this:
https://arstechnica.com/inform... [arstechnica.com]
Basically everything we said would happen and this is just the beginning.
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but what horrible things have happened since it's repeal? What good things have happened that can be directly traced to it's absence?
For the former, I still can't access Gmail over cellular data in my city over AT&T wireless. Azure hosted email that Microsoft paid them for of course works fine.
TWtelecom, which I guess is Xspedius, I mean Level 3, I mean Spectrum, I mean Charter now...
They still throttle Netflix in the evenings, while time warner entertainment (their own cable tv streaming) and youtube (who paid them) can push 4k just fine.
I'm sure you're going to say this doesn't meet your personal random definition of "horrible", e
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No, that absolutely counts as a con, or 'horrible'. I just haven't been aware of these issues, which is why I asked.
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I was pro-net neutrality ( still am sorta ), but what horrible things have happened since it's repeal?
First-hand, I have experienced price increases, slower, unreliable internet access, and more interference from providers that ever.
I am not the only one.
What good things have happened that can be directly traced to it's absence?
More ISP competition which resulted in better pricing.
More investment by ISPs in the infrastructure, at a faster pace, which kept the USA at the forefront of these technologies.
Consider 5G. In the USA, it is barely better than 4G. In China and the EU, 5G is running at full speed, and VASTLY superior to the USA.
There is no incentive for US infrastructure
Define Net Neutrality first (Score:2)
The reason NN has such wide support is that the phrase means so many different things to different parties, and no one locks down a universal definition.
Mozilla wants it "quickly reinstated", but doing that the first time brought about a confusing mess. They you have people wanting "real Net Neutrality (a we define it)" to replace the quickly drafted mess.
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Also add force true bridge mode on force rented (Score:2)
Also add force true bridge mode on force rented hardware. Maybe even an ban of you must rent our gateway or that forced hardware must be in the base rate.
Net Neutrality (Score:3, Insightful)
What it should be:
Everyone is required to pass all traffic at equal priority, no filtering.
What it will be:
Everything that Lefties don't like gets filtered and throttled to oblivion.
The real problem with net neutrality (Score:2)
The real problem with net neutrality is that all the proposals out there that actually stand a snowballs chance in hell of being passed contain loopholes big enough to fly an A380 through.
Most notably they seem to have vague stuff about providers being able to be non-neutral and get away with it if they are doing it to stop piracy (i.e. the kind of crap Comcast did with BitTorrent)