The "fast lane" to Internet civil war

You know what communicated the perils of Net Brutality to me? Images like this one:

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2009/10/29/net-neutrality-what-it-cou...

Websites being reduced to cable-like add ons. Just terrible.

Edit: I followed the chain of blog spam attribution all the way back to the original source of the Net Neutrality graphic:

http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/9yj1f/heres_a_new_scen...

Edit2: Another similar example: http://images.appleinsider.com/netneutrality091808.png

Apparently this was a big deal in 2009.

This is worthwhile read that makes some good points.

But it should be noted that net neutrality is only a restriction on data carriers. It is not a restriction on sites or hosting services.

FTA:

> And combined with geographical data, I could do some serious discrimination on the internet. For example, I could compile an IP block list of the most conservative places in the country, and prevent them from accessing my site. I could use demographics to do this in some very exotic ways. I could block districts that have high percentages of minorities, or the highest rates of heterosexual couples, or the youngest population, or the highest percentage of mental health problems.

And he could still do all that even if net neutrality were enforced by law/regulation. Comcast couldn't do it, but he could.

I like the term Net Brutality. Every said in here is possible and likely at some point. Once roadblocks become easy to create and maintain our ability to recognize, comment and affect change is easily stopped.

I think I'm out of the loop a bit on the chain of events. Last I heard, the FCC were the ones holding back the tide by classifying ISPs in a way that prevented them from limiting bandwidth. And then recently a court stripped them of this ability, opening the gates for ISPs to manage their bandwidth how they wanted. Is there a step somewhere after this that I missed where the FCC turned into the enemy? It seems strange to be protesting the FCC like this, when afaik they were the ones who were on our side for so long.

But please, someone correct me if I am wrong. I'm not as knowledgeable as I'd like to be on this.

The only way content providers can emulate the restriction of data carriers net neutrality abuses is to get more content providers on board.

This needs larger scope to have an impact. Get a bunch of content providers to throttle all of DC. Have a banner to display on all websites:

'Accessing from DC? Yea it is slow. This is the world without net neutrality if we were unable to pay data carriers for a fast lane. Save the internet, act now @ ____. '

I think the idea's expressed are correct, but the example we need to be touting is wrong. Politicians are raising an increasing amount of their campaign dollars from their internet sites and threatening them cuts to the heart of the issue.

I think the author has it a bit wrong. If the KKK decides they want to try to prevent African Americans from visiting their website, that doesn't really have anything to do with network neutrality.

The relevant network neutrality issue is: Your ISP oversubscribes its peering link to the wider internet, so people in your ISP's service area who visit the NAACP's website to watch a video of a speech by a civil rights leader won't be able to see it. Meanwhile your ISP's Fox News affiliate comes in loud and clear to inform you of the dangers of welfare queens and anchor babies. (Feel free to substitute videos on the Tea Party website and your ISP's MSNBC affiliate if it better matches your political leanings.)

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Good luck with government regulation of your network.