House Republicans Voted to Defund "Net Neutrality"

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There's a lot of things that aren't in the Constition simply because they did't exist at the time. Show me where the Federal Government can regulate air travel with the FAA. Show me where the Constituion allows an Air Force. It's a moot point entirely.

Corporate monopolies may yet still form over the internet. That's the way of business and profit as history shows. Regulation will still be needed at some point anyway. If not the FCC, then who should administer such regulation?

I keep a healthy spekticsm of government, but I'm not of the camp in thinking everything the government does is evil and nefarious. I share that skeptiscm over the corporate world too.

"Net Neutrality" = "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet.

Not really. Who said the FAA should be government run? I know, of all places, Canada has a privately run FAA. The Air Force was just an offshoot of the Army the same way the Marines and Coast Guard are of the Navy and can pretty obviously be justified under the common defense. If they can disregard the constitution on one thing, then why can't they disregard it on all of the rights we hold dear?

Nope. I don't see how you're still getting the two confused. Are you delusional or just too intellectually lazy to comprehend the difference?

Net Neutrality = to protect consumers from abuses from ISPs

Fairness Doctrine = a concept to force equal presentation of political views

If you believe that I have some property to sell you on the surface of Saturn.



Wrong, the Dems want this reinstated so they can silence people like Rush. Since really when it comes to what people want to listen to, apparently based on ratings no one wants to listen to liberal nuts.

Is it the fact that liberals can't understand facts and logic or you just being dishonest? Also if you take offense as to what I said in this post you started it.

So how, oh so enlightened one, are they the same?

You'll have to do better than just claiming they are liberal conspiracies. Textbook definitions please.

Static versus living constitution. That's a bit of a different debate from the topic at hand. But my opinion has always been that's better for nations and governments to evolve with the changing times than to remain locked in the past. As such some things may change and different powers of government may be needed when new situations arise. The founders left in the amendment process for a good reason.

Anyway, a private regulatory system could certainly be possible, but who would run such? Microsoft, Verizon, Google? Should such companies be allowed to self-regulate without sort of public oversight? (That hasn't always worked out you know)

You're giving a false argument, the Left's real idea of a "living" Constitution is the words are meaningless its however they want to interpret it at that particular moment.



Generally internet service providers will only limit bandwidth based on the type of site, not to silence someone.

A site that is streaming video like hulu.com will need a lot more bandwidth than a message board. Therefore hulu.com will get more bandwidth availability unless you want to have to wait days to watch a 30 minute video.

Why is it people on the right always spins stuff so it sounds like everyone is out to get everyone else? This net neutrality thing is an example of it. Leave it to the far right to back up the mega-corporation no matter what. They could care less about censorship. They are going to back up big business regardless of who is getting censored.
This makes it sound like they are clueless about the issue, if they are claiming net neutrality is censorship when, in fact, that is what it is fighting.
Stop the hypocrisy. This has got nothing to do with censorship.

Well, don't worry. President Obama will just veto, veto, and veto again.

To be more accurate why is it the left always lies and think people are dumb enough to believe them when they say they are for people's rights?

I guess there is no need for a symphony when the audience is deaf

I wouldn't call running one's nails down a chalkboard a symphony.

Sounds like they want to defeat net neutrality by calling their own agenda "net neutrality" thereby confusing everybody. Shame on them if this is true.

Yep semantics has always been the main weapon of agendas.

For a counterexample, my ISP (the mammoth Comcast, a regional monopoly with national clout) has gotten into a couple scandals over net traffic discrimination. They weren't trying to silence specific types of speech or criticism, but because there can be a fine line I worry about them getting closer in the future.

First, they were throttling Bittorrent traffic. Now... Bittorrent is usually used to distribute stuff illegally, but I've downloaded huge legal files really quickly with it when I couldn't access a normal download. I shouldn't go into a defense of it (hate to change the subject), but it can be very useful. An injunction was posted against them ordering them to stop discriminating against this traffic, but they were able to wait until it was revoked.

Another thing they've done is coerce Level 3 (providing access to Netflix) into paying to access their (Comcast's) network of subscribers. Apparently they had an agreement earlier where, because each corporation uses about the same amount of each other's bandwidth, they could access each other's networks for free. This is fairly recent and I don't think they've reached a resolution.

While it's illegal in the US for ISP's to block websites because of content, that sort of thing could go unnoticed or be excused too easily. (ie with accusations that the site hosted malicious software, infringed copyrights, or linked to unacceptable pornography... or maybe it was just a mistake.) Perhaps the ISP could block or slow access to major sites because their content provider wouldn't pay up. Because of the lobbying power of ISP's and the fact that they're monopolies, I actually trust the FCC to control the Internet more than I trust cable ISP's. I don't at all trust the FCC not to attempt to censor content, but I think it is ultimately less powerful than ISP's (and more open to public scrutiny) and therefore less threatening.

If broadband ISP's weren't nearly all monopolies, that would be great! But seeing as opening the market to competition is politically impossible and the cost of starting a broadband ISP only reinforces the monopolies, I might settle for having more government regulation.

@ theQuail

You have a lot more recourse against a company, good luck protesting against the Government. Imagine if we had protests in the US again something the Government was doing and the Government decides to shut down twitter.

It could also be used against the websites of political opponents all in the name of "net neutrality."