I'm still trying to grok why ISPs are supposed to treat all customers equally while PayPal, eBay, youtube, GoDaddy, Twitter, etc. are allowed to pick and choose.
I'd be more comfortable with the arguments if people were consistent in them.
I'd be more comfortable with the arguments if people were consistent in them.
That said, with the amount of ubiquity and sway on society that self-proclaimed platforms like Facebook and Google have started to have, I would not be opposed to regulating some of those as utilities too. But that's a more nuanced issue. The ISP issue is so black and white as to be hilarious, if it weren't so disheartening.
The tendency towards monopoly in networks makes all these cases similar I think.
Whereas I could go build an auction site myself if I really wanted to. Scaling a business takes work, but the power of software is that it requires no material resources to get started. Laying fiber is not only immensely expensive in and of itself, but ISP's have also lobbied to stack the deck severely against newcomers: https://www.wired.com/2016/09/utility-poles-important-future...
What will you connect your cat5 cable to?
You can create a eBay site and then you have to work to get people to sign up.
And your argument is the hard part of making an eBay site is signing people up and hand-wave over the build part of both these things? Apples to Spaceships comparison.
There is no competition for Comcast, there is for eBay. It appears your very premise is flawed but I welcome you to demonstrate why this isn't true.
It won't be that great, because he wants to share pictures of his kids and I want to sell my funko pops, but it's definitely easy. Unless your definition of an ISP inherently includes a connection to millions of people, in which case I don't understand why your definition of an eBay doesn't as well?
You also seem to forget that the "I" in ISP stands for Internet. Your connection to your neighbor is just a LAN/WAN and by definition is not an ISP.
How will you access global DNS?
Can I ask your motivations here? You seem very keen on muddying the waters in this discussion.
The argument isn't that it's easy, the argument is that it's possible. There is no guarantee of success but you can try. Why even start Facebook when we already have Myspace?
There are actual physical impediments to building your own ISP and natural monopolies involved. By comparison, just a lot of people using something doesn't make it monopoly.
Startup cost is not equivalent to "getting customers" cost. I can launch eBay 2 tomorrow, I cannot do that for Comcast2.
So yeah, I could launch ebay2 tomorrow but it would just be me on there. I could actually do that with Comcast2 as well, just by turning on a computer in my house but if it's not connected to anything else it's about as useless as the ebay2 running on it.
If I want to make an ISP available to even just a small neighborhood, we're talking tens of thousands of dollars of investment. Scaling it up so an entire city can use my ISP is an investment in the millions of dollars.
If I want to make a new eBay available to the world, it's a couple days of software development for a proof of concept and a few dollars for a VM in AWS/Azure/GCC. Polishing it a bit and scaling it up is only a few more months development and possibly a couple thousand in server costs, which your revenue would be scaling nicely with.
when was twitter twitter
when was facebook facebook
Comcast was an Internet Service Provider when it Provided a Service that allowed access to the Internet.
It will take far longer to route your home server to global DNS, all while bypassing comcast, than it would to register that server's IP on the DNS with your new URL, ebay2.com
But, that's just the same thing I, and many others, have been saying, for about five posts deep now, so I'm curious where this fight of yours is coming from.
I have only ever been able to have Comcast, ever. In the 9 houses in 6 different cities in 3 different states I've lived, always Comcast was the only option.
It's a convenient kind of bullshit to draw a line below layer 4 of the ISO stack and say "everything below this line has to be fully neutral, everything above this line can be fully biased and curated". A company that provides their own content, such as Netflix, is very different than providing a platform for other people's content, i.e. Youtube/Twitter/Facebook.
With that said, I would agree that some other services such as information seekers ought to be regulated somehow. Ie, Google/Facebook can do massive harm these days, and their reign of independence is failing here.
Another point is that, many companies have previously ran into issues of anti-competitive behavior. This in recent years has become very very lax, too lax I feel. Windows should be providing an equal platform for everyone to run on. They shouldn't be blocking competitors applications (a hypothetical). Same goes for ISPs. My ISP shouldn't block Netflix because the ISP prefers their own media site.
To be honest, your objection really confuses me. You seem to argue that ISPs can do whatever they want, because we're inconsistent with other sites/etc. So rather than enforcing other sites, you want to give free reign to ISPs? How does that make sense? I agree consistency is important. Lets fix all abusers, not just ISPs. That should satisfy your argument, no?
I don't have an objection against net neutrality. I have an objection to net neutrality policies that concentrate control with a small number of companies while stripping such autonomy from other companies. It's absurd to say that backbone providers are required to carry any traffic, but microblogging sites, video streaming sites, etc. can curate and have any bias they choose.
If it were me we'd have net neutrality, but the net neutrality policies would be conditional on whether a company wants to claim safe harbor under the DMCA or not. Anyone who wants to hide behind the DMCA has to be neutral on their platform. Anyone who is willing to take responsibility for the content they distribute can have any bias or opinion they want.
I'd also extend the DMCA safe harbor provisions to require that the customer be identifiable and within the legal jurisdiction of the United States.
> Lets fix all abusers, not just ISPs. That should satisfy your argument, no?
It would make me feel that we're being consistent and actually taking the internet closer to fairness and equity.
Why? Going back to the common carrier regulations pre-Internet, it's like you're saying that just because mail carriers have to carry anything (as long as it's safe), then magazines delivered by mail carriers would have to allow anyone to write articles.
There's just a fundamental difference between forum and transport.
I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that an entity that wants common carrier protections has to act like a common carrier. If they want to be a publisher with full editorial control of the content they publish content, then they don't get common carrier protections. If Facebook and Youtube/Google want to say "you can't say that here", then they can take responsibility for what they do allow to be distributed on their platform. I feel the exact same way about Comcast or Level 3.
Do you think newspapers shouldn't be allowed to have opinion articles that are prefaced with "not the opinion of the paper"?
I didn't say they should be. I was correcting your analogy, then I reiterated the idea that you can be a publisher with control over what you publish and liability for what you publish, or you can be free from liability and not have editorial control. It's an easy concept and it fits perfectly as a principle to strive for with regards to net neutrality.
> Do you think newspapers shouldn't be allowed to have opinion articles that are prefaced with "not the opinion of the paper"?
What relevance is your question to the topic at hand? It's not like newspapers are absolved from liability for what they publish, even OpEd's and opinion columns. Imagine a newspaper publishing a six hundred page sunday edition, chock full of advertisements, and the full contents of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone under the byline potterfan69 and a header on the page saying "Opinion."
Yes.
Of course, people want to build an internet that suits them personally, so there are a million answers.
The vast majority of media websites that make their money by delivering other peoples' content have an interesting problem. They skirt the line between curating and merely providing a form of storage for everyone. The minute you curate, you fall down an interesting rabbit hole.
That's not even to mention the business model of youtube which is largely based on copyright violation.
In any case, the difference between ISP and major media website is insignificant to the average user. It's one big blob.
If you don't have NN and you get blocked from Twitter, your ISP can also make it so that you can't go to $OTHER_PLATFORM.
Freedom of speech isn't just saying what you want while alone on your back patio.
Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc is the "digital public space".
Hell just take a look at what private companies are doing to the attempts at making alternatives: gab is threatened daily, and BitChute keeps getting bumped by payment processors.
Freedom of speech isn't "You can say what you want on any platform and reach as many people as you want" either. Saying Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube are "digital public space" is akin to saying some sports stadium is a "public space" - yes, big crowds come to them, but they can still escort you off of the field. You can even just try protesting peacefully (in USA) and get a not-so-nice visit from the police.
NN can prevent things like an ISP blocking $SOME_PRESIDENTIAL_CANDIDATE_WEBSITE or $ABORTION_CLINIC_WEBSITE or $GUN_STORE_WEBSITE. Not having NN is more like electricity company blocking you from charging Android phones and requiring that you only charge iPhones, or vice-versa.
You can actually go right outside that sports stadium and still have your message heard. If you're banned from Twitter, FB, and YT; you have effectively no voice on the internet.
The social media companies that have monopolized public discourse on the internet would be more akin to the whole city being owned by the stadium owners, and that specific scenario has been ruled in favor of the first amendment in the past.
It's also not going onto other people's property and doing whatever you want. Having a successful platform doesn't make them the government.
It is when that property is considered the public space.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
The internet should be regulated in the same way with defacto monopolies over "public" communications wrt. Twitter, FB, YT, etc.
"While the Marsh holding at first appears somewhat narrow and inapplicable to the present day due to the disappearance of company towns from the United States, it was raised in the somewhat high-profile 1996 cyberlaw case, Cyber Promotions v. America Online, 948 F. Supp. 436, 442 (E.D. Pa. 1996). Cyber Promotions wished to send out "mass email advertisements" to AOL customers. AOL installed software to block those emails. Cyber Promotions sued on free speech grounds and cited the Marsh case as authority for the proposition that even though AOL's servers were private property, AOL had opened them to the public to a degree sufficient that constitutional free speech protections could be applied.
The federal district court disagreed, thereby paving the way for spam filters at the Internet service provider level."
So are we deliberately conflating spam with political discourse now? Seriously?
The AOL case is more relevant because it involves a private internet company and data crossing it's privately held servers, much like Twitter today.
The Marsh case involves a company acting like a government, then trying to stifle free speech. Twitter never acted like a government.
The big 3 of social media currently do the same thing, however in a digital sphere. Trumps twitter, for example, was ruled as a public resource and therefore he couldn't block users from his feed. So here we have a private property leveraged as a public gathering space.
Would you have the same opinion here if Twitter was banning minorities based on race? Is it still a private company that can do whatever they please?
and acted as a de-facto government by providing fire, police and other services typically provided by governments. Twitter is not similar, as multiple people have already mentioned.
==Trumps twitter, for example, was ruled as a public resource and therefore he couldn't block users from his feed.==
His personal Twitter feed is a public resource. Trump is the government, blocking people is literally the government limiting free speech. Twitter is not the government.
==Would you have the same opinion here if Twitter was banning minorities based on race? Is it still a private company that can do whatever they please?==
No, because they are very different, as explained by justice.gov [1].
"Federal laws prohibit discrimination based on a person's national origin, race, color, religion, disability, sex, and familial status."
[1] https://www.justice.gov/crt/federal-protections-against-nati...
Then please explain to me individuals like Sarah Jeong being outwardly racist yet a member of the blue check cadre.
There is clearly a double standard here, and you seem to be in the grouping of individuals that appreciate the oppression when it suits your own interests.
Mike Cernovich is outwardly racist and has a blue check, what's your point? Are you applying a double standard?
> By providing its members with access to the Internet through its e-mail system so that its members can exchange information with those members of the public who are also connected to the Internet, AOL is not exercising any of the municipal powers or public services traditionally exercised by the State as did the private company in Marsh. Although AOL has technically opened its e-mail system to the public by connecting with the Internet, AOL has not opened its property to the public by performing any municipal power or essential public service and, therefore, does not stand in the shoes of the State.
I don't want a company picking and choosing which bytes of mine are fast or slow. I'm buying byte containers, their job is to ship them. I dictate how fast, and who it gets shipped to. End of deal. Full stop. Any deviation of that is wrong in my book.
Using 1000w of electricity with a 1950's toaster cost the same as using 1000w of electricity with a 2018 microwave.
And hopefully it would cost the same to use 1000w of electricity to power your home server hosting a website that criticizes the local electricity company.
Yea, I think this is the most important thing.
And we all know that internet providers try to be something else besides moving the byte across the network. They want to be telcos, they want a share of the media and grab whatever they could get their hands on. Net neutrality, from my understanding, attempted to prevent just that.
I would be OK with whatever speed I want to purchase and be stuck with that speed no matter what content I am choosing to consume. And in high demand if they chose to charge higher rates indiscriminately I'd be OK with that.
If their pipes are at full capacity they should charge more but indiscriminately!
In contrast, I can very much choose alternate providers for everything else you've listed--I don't like GoDaddy and don't use them for domain registration or hosting, and I had thousands of options to choose from. Twitter is by no means the only social network in town, and has challengers within its specific microblogging niche.
If a service provider starts to do some silly stuff no one wants, there's no reason not to start a competing business, offer service without that silliness and win over the market. Except if entry barriers are too high.
To top poster: these two things are not the same. They are wholly different classes where at the very base level one cannot exist without the other, literally. One is a utility provisioning and the other an appliance, figuratively.
Mostly, the point is that people choose their battles based on bias or their own needs, not some sort of overall logic.
I can understand the argument over the various sorts of non-neutrality. A need to bring together cable tv and internet pricing and bandwidth needs, the opportunity to break out fixed and variable pricing on bytes moved, etc. The main point is that it simply isn't as simple as waving a sign around and getting out the vote.
Heck, we might as well all get worked up about the fact that the USPS allows you to buy 1 day shipping or that the shipping companies cut special deals with large customers. Another example is toll roads.
The world is a complicated place and doesn't succumb well to slogans.
The whole point of common carrier regulation is to make sure that industries that are essential to the economy, inherently non-competitive, and impossible to implement effectively as a government service can exist and serve their purpose in society. Youtube/google/fb doesn't fit that definition. There is absolutely competition in that space, and there's little switching cost for individual actors.
Tech monopolies are bigger, they have more money, and they've spent more of that money convincing you ISPs are the big bad.
I'm not opposed to regulation, but regulation needs to apply to tech companies as well as ISPs equally. And you'll discover that support for regulation vanishes as soon as that comes into play.
People have forgotten that tech companies now also do infrastructure and ISPs now also do services. So when tech companies are trying to get ISPs regulated, they're trying to lock down their competition. (Unsurprisingly, Google Fiber was known for trying to dodge being classifed as a telecommunications company specifically so it wasn't subject to the same regulations it's competitors weer.)
On the other hand if I don’t like Facebook I can choose not to use it or I can use another social media platform. If I don’t like Google I can easily use an alternative (at least for all of the consumer products I use from them). I can’t easily go to a new ISP that is comparable if I don’t like my ISP.
Most people cannot easily leave tech companies easily, even if they believe they can. You actually can't leave Facebook, for instance, if you want to talk to your friends who are on Facebook. You can't leave Gmail without finding every contact and online account you have and updating your email address. (This is why AOL still has so much email!) Similarly, most people have options for ISPs, both wired and wireless, though it may be a worse service offering.
It's not easy to change banks or brokerage houses. Does it make sense that someone with $1M at Vanguard gets a bunch of special perks and lower fees? Not fair!!!