John Oliver examines net neutrality under Republican leadership

Shawn Knight

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John Oliver, host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, spoke at length on the topic of net neutrality on his show roughly three years ago. The 13-minute-long segment garnered tons of media attention and was even credited with sending enough traffic to the FCC’s website to crash it.

The net neutrality saga was eventually ironed out in the eyes of many thanks to moves by former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his fellow Democratic commissioners. Now, with a Republican administration in power, the government is making plans to roll back net neutrality which prompted another segment on the matter from the British late-night comedian.

In his latest rant, Oliver again breaks down the basics of net neutrality and encourages viewers to voice their displeasure to the FCC.

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NN shouldn't be a partisan issue. Companies were clearly compromising the internet for financial gain, as any company that can would. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that you have to child lock the cookie jar from the kids.
 
An important point was made. In issues like rolling back net neutrality or ANY other law (etc), there should be and often is a significant period of time referred to as "the comment period" when any person can voice their concerns. The web site used to simplify the process, allowing the commenter to quickly discover the issue to which they want to post comments. The new process is unnecessarily complicated and creates a great deal of confusion, thus defeating the citizens right to comment. The FCC's new mission is clear, but it's application has intentionally been complicated to defeat all opinions, either pro or con.
 
The process is even worse than just finding it. There is no privacy on the site. The form asks for your name (filer), email address and filing address. It specifies that all information in the form is public and available. So anyone can research this filing and have your information. Now on the good side... It also accepts bogus info. So a made up name, email address and location are all able to be fake and it accepts it.

Blast the hell out of them. Regardless of the ones in office, we should stand against corporations having a say as to what we have access to and how. They should be forced to upgrade infrastructure for the better of the nation and for a reasonable price. Their greed knows no bounds and by letting them have free reign over our connections will just make them richer and us have to deal with their force fed BS.
 
So what do we do when we trust neither the Government nor the Corporations? The meds don't help...

With the Republicans backing Big Pharma as well. it's unlikely you could afford the meds.

Fear mongering. A tactic used effectively by both sides of the political aisle. Well-played, comrade. Well-played.

The process is even worse than just finding it. There is no privacy on the site. The form asks for your name (filer), email address and filing address. It specifies that all information in the form is public and available. So anyone can research this filing and have your information. Now on the good side... It also accepts bogus info. So a made up name, email address and location are all able to be fake and it accepts it.

Blast the hell out of them. Regardless of the ones in office, we should stand against corporations having a say as to what we have access to and how. They should be forced to upgrade infrastructure for the better of the nation and for a reasonable price. Their greed knows no bounds and by letting them have free reign over our connections will just make them richer and us have to deal with their force fed BS.

You had me until you used the words/phrases "forced", "better of the nation", and "reasonable price" all in the same sentence. I'm having a hard time grasping all of those concepts coexisting together in peace and harmony. Perhaps someone living in an ivory tower in their utopian society can fill me in since I am sadly clueless...
 
Your sarcasm is lost on me, however your point is not. You cannot have freedom and still force someone to do something, but you can by law or regulation take them in a positive direction which is what should actually be done. My choice of wording was harsh and laid on for emotional effect.

There can never, ever, be a utopian society. Human nature prevents it. Although, I do not see a problem with the phrases "better of the nation. or reasonable price." Unless you are pointing out the subjectivity of what I said. That something is better for the nation in the eye of the beholder or that a reasonable price is subjective depending on who is willing or able to pay it.

Would you like me to re-phrase my words into something more comprehensible from my Ivory tower so you are clued in or do you get the gist of what I mean? BTW the view is beautiful from up here.
 
I just get the message "The uploader has not made the video available in your country". Can't see why they would want to shut Australia out!
 
Your sarcasm is lost on me, however your point is not. You cannot have freedom and still force someone to do something, but you can by law or regulation take them in a positive direction which is what should actually be done. My choice of wording was harsh and laid on for emotional effect.

There can never, ever, be a utopian society. Human nature prevents it. Although, I do not see a problem with the phrases "better of the nation. or reasonable price." Unless you are pointing out the subjectivity of what I said. That something is better for the nation in the eye of the beholder or that a reasonable price is subjective depending on who is willing or able to pay it.

Would you like me to re-phrase my words into something more comprehensible from my Ivory tower so you are clued in or do you get the gist of what I mean? BTW the view is beautiful from up here.
While I may sympathise in principle on great infrastructure and reasonable price, those "greedy corporations" could stop providing the service. Turning a project like that over to the government also has major drawbacks - too many to discuss here. In the US, the best the federal government could do is require the local governments to open up the services to more competition and insure there is no collusion taking place. In US cities, the cable companies have exclusive contracts with the local government that minimise competition, e.g., you won't find Comcast and TWC (Spectrum) competing (not that it probably would not make any difference). Their competition would be ATT or Verizon - and even they don't compete with landline-phone or internet service. Until recently, their internet offering fell short of what was offered by the cable companies. Once Google started to offer fiber for internet, VOIP and TV, did the companies sit up and take action. Plus the fact that many subscribers are dropping cable/DSL (except for internet) and switching to streaming services for their TV. However, even the streaming services leave much to be desired (and are cumbersome) and when they offer TV packages, tend to be somewhat limited and have prices that start to approach the cable and telco companies.
 
Not sure how streaming got factored into this.

Also not sure what large municipalities you've examined, but the ones I've seen have no deals one way or another with any telecoms - aside from buying their own services for their facilities and activities (internet for town hall, cell planes for city workers like gardeners, inspectors, etc). Generally, its the telecoms saying to one another that they won't compete in the same neighborhoods with the same services. You'll find Comcast and Verizon on the same block. But Comcast offers Cable internet and TV, while Verizon offers DSL and stripped down TV. Then, three blocks over, its the opposite.

What you are beginning to see are medium-large municipalities forming their ISPs. They just go straight to the backbone providers to lease their bandwidth, and then build out their own cable or fiber optic networks that are publically owned and maintained, with low usage fees, fast speeds and high bandwidth. Its still a new trend, but an accelerating one.
 
While I may sympathise in principle on great infrastructure and reasonable price, those "greedy corporations" could stop providing the service. Turning a project like that over to the government also has major drawbacks - too many to discuss here.
Not that all government projects are created equal, but perhaps you had not seen the article a few weeks back - Residents in rural Chattanooga almost had 10 Gbps internet until the State stepped Please have a look at that article and, other than the obvious that a private corporation would not be the ISP for those in question, tell me how having a government run ISP would have been bad for the general public in this situation. As I see it, the public would have benefited from an agency that was run by a government agency as they would have been able to make use of Fiber that had been laid with public money - I.e., taxes paid by the population of Chattanooga and/or Tennessee. Now, the public will have no access to the publicly paid for fiber, and will be forced to pay significantly higher prices for significantly worse service offered by private corporations. As I see it, this is a lose-lose situation, unless you happen to be one of those private corporations that is now able to shoot the fish in the barrel with no oversight.
 
I have sent a filing. I had to do it the original way as established by the FCC as the link gofccyourself.com is not allowed by the fcc site to submit filings.

I gave a brief history telling how the internet was researched (ARPANET, ARPANET and MILNET, then what we call the internet) and developed by the federal government, the internet within the United States was paid for by the federal government through tax credits for building infrastructure, and said that Net Neutrality should be by law/regulation or the various communications companies should have to repay the tax payers all the money they received in tax credits + interest + adjustment for inflation. If the companies want to claim ownership and the right to control the part of the internet they are over, they should have to BUY it. If they do not have the funds, it is a corporate debt. That means all officers must contribute until they have nothing left even if that makes them homeless or the debt is cleared.
 
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