PLEASE READ WITH AN OPEN MIND!!!
The upcoming changes to Net Neutrality will affect all of us. Conservatives, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a good thing.
“This week, FCC Chair Ajit Pai announced sweeping changes to Net Neutrality, effectively wiping out the protections for content providers afforded under the Obama Administration. The fact that the Obama administration was in place while these rules came about may make some of your conservative relatives joyous that they are being repealed — without having absolutely any idea what the rule changes means. Rather than get into the weeds about Net Neutrality, I’m writing a shorter diary about how to address the issue of Net Neutrality with your conservative family members over dinner this week.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/21/1717639/-How-to-explain-Net-Neutrality-to-your-conservative-family-members-this-Thanksgiving?detail=emaildkre
© 2026 – SoulSequel
24 responses to “IMPORTANT! How to explain Net Neutrality, effectively”
Satan would like me to advocate that the progress of technology will make all pipelines or informationsuperhighways fast enough for everybody, with all pages with whatever content from video to remote-bluetoothish-dildernating-chat to virtual 3-d shopping virtual stores with self scanning virtual dressing rooms.
Net neutrality is therefore a temporary problem, & perhaps you people who care should spend this time on chronic-problems.
…like legalizing chronic!
Privacy Privacy Privacy
Filtering Out Shitty Cops
Shifting the Economy away from being reliant on War & Religion
Solar & Poo Power
Topless Equality
@luftballooneyegouge I don’t care about all the blue-tooth stuff as much as I care about my ISP controlling what I watch, and when I watch it. I don’t need to talk to my clothes dryer from work.
I got the chronic covered in my part of the world. The whole west coast is legal!
I can care about all these things at once. That’s what being an informed citizen is all about.
@Gina
All ISPs days are numbered.
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/08/29/mesh-networking-could-put-end-broadband-isp-monopolies-265601.html
I’ve found that the liberal tendency to take up every cause possible holds them back more than not.
Interesting article…
How information is controlled and disseminated carries a great deal of power. The power to sway public opinion and the power to silence dissenting political views, (censorship).
The internet is a tool…use it wisely.
@immortal_pirate
But this is the crux of the problem.
The Human organism is not renowned for wise use of its tools! So the call comes to increase regulation.
If we were wiser in the use of our tools, regulation could decrease. But we’re proverbially stuck between a rock and a hard place.
@griz
We always end up goin back to the hardware store to buy the same damn tool we already bought!
Regulation is a sort of tool, like a clamp or duct-tape,… mostly duct-tape.
@luftballooneyegouge
As in, once it’s applied it’s almost impossible to get it off again?
https://www.rd.com/funny-stuff/dumbest-laws-america/
When I see so many of my favorite sites are being censored, and all I am allowed to see are sites with Liberal views, I get off of the internet. They are trying to sway public opinions and get the public corralled in a Liberal group-think. I don’t like such mind control. When NASA doctors up the feeds so that the public cannot see the Nemesis and it’s planets coming from around our sun, I can simply go out and look at the sun with my camera and a red filter on my lens. I don’t need YouTube views to see it for myself. There are other ways to communicate besides the Internet. Stop walking around with your electronics in your hand. The Internet is trying to get people to spend most of their waking moments staring at their screens and keyboarding their communications. That way, the government can listen in and track your every movement. Live more of your life away from the screen.
@ladybarbara
Try using a VPN and bounce your signal through a few foreign nations. “Big Brother” will lose track of where you are.
@griz I’m not all high tech enough to know what a VPN is, but I know there is a GPS on my phone. But I no longer carry my phone with me, unless Immortal Pirate and I go shopping. That way, if he loses me in the isles, he can call me and ask where I am in the store. I often lose my phone in the house. I am not obsessed with it. It annoys friends that I am not answering my phone when they call, and don’t answer texts for several days. I live my life away from the screen. It is not so much any fear of government tracking, but the knowledge that I used to put my phone in the pocket of my pocket t-shirt —- now I have a lump on my left breast that is the size and shape of the phone battery. Keeping my phone next to my body is a health risk.
On YouTube, my favorite video sites are being censored daily. There is where I have a problem. My favorite sites have to alter their content to Liberal views, or they are shut down. Whatever VPN is, I don’t think it can help when my favorite Planet X sites and NASA sites can no longer mention Planet X. If they do, they lose their channel and account.
@ladybarbara
Given your concerns and what you are experiencing with censoring, it might be worth your while researching virtual private networks.
There is often a minimal cost associated with them. This is so they can maintain the infrastructure in foreign countries. You choose which country you want to be a citizen of in making requests on the internet. American servers maybe censoring certain information; but ass trillions Canadians or British can still access them. So pick a virtual Network in one of those countries.
The downside is that your results will be in that country’s language and units of measurement and search parameters! (So pick an English-speaking Nation!)
All I’m saying is that it might be worth your while to look into it.
@griz Well, the sites being censored, it is their problem. Now that Nemesis is out from the sun (and heading this way) I can see it for myself with my phone camera and a red filter on my camera. I no longer depend on those sites to tell me where Nemesis and Nibiru are. They do have side sites that have a fee, but they are not saying anything that I can’t go outside and see for myself. As Nemesis and Nibiru get closer to Earth, more and more people will be able to see it for themselves. I took this picture last week with my phone and red piece of glass as a filter.
@ladybarbara
Omg and lol!
What showed up as “ass trillions” was typed and accepted as “Australians”.
Damn you auto-correct!!
@griz Sometimes auto correct can be our worst enema.
@ladybarbara
Well I just about shit myself when I noticed the “correction”.
I’m sure there aren’t trillions of asses in Australia: no more than a few hundred thousand!
I wish you came to my thanksgiving so that you could splain these things to me. Since I’m so ignorant of the issues.
Net Neutrality is all about making internet a “right” or a “utility”.
The internet is a luxury, and as such should be controlled by a free market, and not by government regulations.
With FCC Net Neutrality, we see throttling across the board with different ISPs and broadband providers. You’re right, they don’t throttle specific things we see, they just throttle EVERYTHING. And then put a price on it that they see fit.
Here’s an article from theatlantic, cause it’s such a beacon of conservatism – https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/11/network-neutrality-cant-fix-the-internet/546620/
@Weenis The internet is a perfect example of a Free-Market. Without Net Neutrality, cable companies, who are monopolies across the country, will stifle competition. I can’t believe you fall on the side of the cable companies. Do you work for Comcast?
@Gina
You seem super smart and knowledgeable about all this really complex stuff.
Can you please point to the language in the bill that prevents the monopolies that you believe exist today?
@Weenis Bottom line: A hand full of giant corporations should not be able to restrict the internet. Net Neutrality protects us from that. I am not doing any research for you. I don’t give a shit if you disagree with me.
@Gina
How do the current FCC rules mitigate what you’re saying is a bad thing? Point to the place in the rules that correct the hand full of giant corporations, and the “protections” that Net Neutrality grants you.
I’m not asking you to do research. I’ve read the rules. And the protections aren’t there. That’s why I’m asking you to prove your assertions. I can’t prove they don’t exist, because it’s illogical to prove a negative. You’re the one saying they exist, put up or shut up.
@Weenis Which ruling did you read? Please post it for me so I can educate myself.
I found this on the internet: B”efore Title II was being discussed, ISPs were panicked about monopoly regulation. In 2013, Verizon sued and, for the most part, won to block an earlier net neutrality policy. The FCC wasn’t using Title II then, but a weaker provision—Title I, Section 706—which does not classify ISPs as common carriers. (And it didn’t apply to wireless carriers.) Still, Verizon was afraid the FCC would try to impose monopoly regulation, the company told me in a recent conversation. Verizon’s lawsuit was essentially a redo of a 2010 Comcast suit before the same D.C. Court of Appeals that had struck down a similar net neutrality policy based on Section 706.
Ironically, both companies now advocate Section 706 regulations almost identical to what they fought against because they are so spooked by the prospect of Title II monopoly regulation—and perhaps because they know they can beat it in a lawsuit.”
It seems to me that this issue is all centered on power. The power to influence and it is very similar to the media barons at the turn of the previous century and beyond. Manage the content; you manage the mob. Manage the mob and you hold the politicians who need the delivery mechanism, in your pocket. Having power over those who want power is real power and a great way for men with small dicks to experience it. Either that or use Russian mob money to fund an empire and brag about your I.Q.
btw, look at where newspapers are now. The internet replaced it. If the internet is shackled, someone, somewhere will set up something else to go to. Think about Napster as a parallel.
Side note, I have a neighbour investigating seriously setting himself as an isp. He has access to technology that will deliver Gb/sec through a company he is heavily invested in. they currently have contracts with the British military that are getting Tb/sec speeds.
Technology is such that someone will always be able to come up with a faster/cheaper/more effective alternative. The internet is no different.
Thom Hartmann said it best last January:
Ajit Pai, former executive to Verizon was made chair the Federal Communications Commission the beginning of the year.
And because Pai is already a member of the FCC, he won’t need Senate approval for his new position.
Pai is a staunch opponent of FCC regulations.
He recently spoke at the Free State Foundation about removing so-called “unnecessary” regulations, declaring that “We need to fire up the weed whacker and remove those rules that are holding back investment, innovation, and job creation.”
But net neutrality doesn’t threaten freedom or hold back investment — net neutrality keeps the Internet the way we’ve always known it: everyone’s online content and services are treated the exact same way as anyone else’s, no matter whether the creator is a tech-savvy high-school drop-out or a giant multinational like Microsoft.
You’re not hearing about this in the mainstream media in large part because MSNBC and CNN are owned by Comcast and Time Warner, two companies that stand to cash in big if net neutrality is destroyed.
A reddit user named Quinky created a graphic several years ago showing how without net neutrality, a fictional service provider named Telco might offer a basic service for $29.95 a month, but that will only get a user access to very, very basic websites.
Want to do a little research under Telco’s plan? That’ll cost you another $5 a month to use any search engines.
Want to read USA Today? That’s another $5 package for US news, and if you want to read the BBC? That’ll be another $5 for foreign news.
How about your favorite sports and cat videos on ESPN and YouTube? Guess what? That’s another $10.
Want to do some online shopping? It’ll cost you $5 to even see what’s in stock on Amazon or Ebay.
If Americans are struggling to stay informed now, wait until people have to budget their hard earned money between reading the news, online shopping or watching YouTube.
We used to live in a world where only the rich could afford to be informed before Benjamin Franklin established the Library Company in Philadelphia, books were only available to the rich and wealthy. But Franklin’s Library allowed anybody, regardless of class, access to information stored in books.
In the 21st century, the information infrastructure of the Internet has largely replaced old brick-and-mortar libraries, so much so that Canada’s telecom agency recently declared that high-speed internet is a basic service “necessary to the quality of life” of all Canadians.
So why are Trump and the Republicans trying to take us back to a time when only aristocrats could afford to be informed?
@Gina
I’m sure Quinky on reddit is a wonderful human, but Quinky’s fictional service provider would have to have a monopoly to push those currently egregious things on a market where no such things exist. A fast-“food”-facility could turn their napkin dispensers into penny vending machines but they don’t because it’d send their potential income straight out the door &/or past the drive-thruuu.
Also, one would just have to wait longer for sites to load at the worst, so how this equates to information being denied to people with less money than aristocrats is a hyperbolic stretch.