Net neutrality - a case to be made for both sides

[GURPS]

You know, I'm not convinced it's filtering. It could simply be that Politico and Buzzfeed and whoever else is paying them for advertising, which is why their stories show up first even when the story isn't relevant to your search terms.

Could Be ....



Is Google Working with Liberal Groups to Snuff Out Conservative Websites?

Google revealed in a blog post that it is now using machine learning to document "hate crimes and events" in America. They've partnered with liberal groups like ProPublica, BuzzFeed News, and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to make information about "hate events" easily accessible to journalists. And now, there are troubling signs that this tool could be used to ferret out writers and websites that run afoul of the progressive orthodoxy.

In the announcement, Simon Rogers, data editor of Google News Labs, wrote:

Now, with ProPublica, we are launching a new machine learning tool to help journalists covering hate news leverage this data in their reporting.

The Documenting Hate News Index — built by the Google News Lab, data visualization studio Pitch Interactive and ProPublica — takes a raw feed of Google News articles from the past six months and uses the Google Cloud Natural Language API to create a visual tool to help reporters find news happening across the country. It’s a constantly-updating snapshot of data from this year, one which is valuable as a starting point to reporting on this area of news.

[clip]​

ProPublica poses as a middle-of-the-road non-profit journalistic operation, but in reality, it's funded by a stable of uber-liberal donors, including George Soros's Open Society Foundations and Herb and Marion Sandler, billionaire former mortgage bankers whose Golden West Financial Corp. allegedly targeted subprime borrowers with "pick-a-pay" mortgages that led to toxic assets that were blamed for the collapse of Wachovia. The Southern Poverty Law Center, of course, is infamous for targeting legitimate conservatives groups, branding them as "hate groups" because they refuse to walk in lockstep with the progressive agenda. And it goes with out saying that The New York Times and BuzzFeed News lean left.


and Facebook:

Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News


Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s influential “trending” news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site’s users.

 

[terbear1225]

What if they did like Verizon, with their new "unlimited" plan, where you technically get unlimited data, but the first x-gigs is highspeed, then it throttles down to slower? Or broke it down into plans, with cheaper and slower for people who just use it for routine internet and email, and a more expensive package for people who watch TV and do more streaming?

There's a way to make (most) everyone happy, but I'm positive government isn't going to figure it out and there needs to be incentive for providers to figure it out. Although with net neutrality service providers will pretty much have to figure it out.

yes, there are ways to make most everyone happy, and the current situation isn't succeeding very well (at least not in this area.) I'm not sure what the "right" answer is. It is a complex issue and I"m glad to see that some are looking at both sides it.

 

[MJ]

Whichever side forces me to use BING is the one that I'm against.

 

[vraiblonde]

Is Google Working with Liberal Groups to Snuff Out Conservative Websites?

We've allowed this, though. When saying you think marriage should be between a man and a woman is considered "hate speech"... Man. Welcome to dystopia.

 

[Starman]

I know a lot of people who disagree with that - me included. There was a time when Google.com did a better job than anyone else, now they are an advertisement server and little more. And I get it - we make our money by advertising as well, but we're honest about it. Our advertisers clearly come first and we don't pretend they don't. When Google is taking money from news media corporations to promote their political agenda first, that becomes problematic. Now they are partnered with select news venues and are no longer an objective search engine, as originally billed and as is their public image. They did a bait and switch on the consumer, and that's fraud in my mind.

Now, we get a lot of free stuff from Google - email, calendars to embed in websites, software tools, Google Earth, etc etc etc. It's the dishonesty that bothers me, not the commercialization.

Same with Google - their advertisers come first. They tell this directly to in in the EULA. They tell you that you are not the customer, but instead the product being sold. These data they collect are proprietary business data, and you've signed away any right to it via the EULA.

There's no dishonesty here, it is all part of commercialization.

 

[glhs837]

Could Be ....



The Documenting Hate News Index — built by the Google News Lab, data visualization studio Pitch Interactive and ProPublica — takes a raw feed of Google News articles from the past six months and uses the Google Cloud Natural Language API to create a visual tool to help reporters find news happening across the country. It’s a constantly-updating snapshot of data from this year, one which is valuable as a starting point to reporting on this area of news.

.

So, what's in the API? Will it constantly search out old articles and delete or annotate ones later found false (college students on the bus, hijab girl, the Air Force Academy case, the black guy who spray painted his own church)? I suspect not.

 

[GURPS]

What is Net Neutrality?

Traditionally, if Google wanted access to the global internet to deliver its content to you (an end user) it would go to an ISP, and become its customer. The ISP would in turn provide transit to Google.

As the diagram shows below, Google (as well any smaller enterprises, including start-ups) pays ISP B for service. ISP B then routes traffic to the Internet Exchange Point (IXP) in New York, where it peers with the access-ISP C. Customers of ISP-C (this would be you, sitting at your computer at home) now have access to YouTube, Gmail, and all the other services Google offers.

What proponents of net-neutrality argue, is two things. (1) The ISP cannot offer Google a premium service (faster speeds, better reliability, etc.) over any arbitrary smaller company that can’t afford to pay the same prices. All customers must be treated equally. And (2) all traffic through the ISP must be treated the exact same way. This means that if the ISP is transmitting packets for a file transfer for an online storage requirement, it must treat the data packets in that transfer the exact same way that it treats packets from a live video stream. Never mind the fact that video is far more dependent on reliable transmission. The ISP is not allowed to make this distinction and must treat them the same.

The fact is, however, that today Google does not do this. Here is what Google actually does. Google (and other large enterprises that deliver content to end users – think Netflix, Facebook) maintains its own global network infrastructure, and peers directly with ISPs at internet exchange points. Google explains this in more detail on their own website.

This means that Google is not a customer of an ISP. Google simply connects to these internet exchange points, and here it peers with service providers.

This way, Google has far more control over how its content is delivered to users. If Google wants to treat YouTube video packets differently than the packets transferred for uploading Google Docs files, it can.

Net Neutrality laws will not affect Google because Google does not pay transit providers to deliver content to users. It peers with them.




Everything You Need To Know About Why Net Neutrality Is A Terrible Idea

 

[GURPS]

Consumer activists and some state attorneys general are planning to go to court to invalidate what New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman called the FCC’s “illegal rollback” of the “net neutrality” rules.

- don't you just LOVE the hyperbole, somehow changing the Rules is 'illegal', because progressives don't like it

[clip]

The left would have us believe that the battle over “net neutrality” is between greedy, monopolistic, multibillion dollar Internet service companies and John Q. Public. This is the left’s typical class warfare rhetoric, helped along ironically by multibillion dollar content providers such as Netflix, Google and Facebook that hide behind slogans such as “net neutrality” and “open and free Internet” to obscure their own economic self-interest. Companies the size of Netflix, Google, Facebook, and the new Disney company that may emerge if its purchase of content assets from 21st Century Fox is approved by antitrust officials do not need FCC utility-style regulatory protection from Internet service providers. The FCC should not have placed itself in the position of picking industry sector winners and losers or coming down on the side of content providers, some of whom such as Facebook and Google have substantial market power of their own that allows them to censor content they believe is too controversial.

Moreover, “net neutrality” may be a nice slogan, but it does not reflect the reality of Internet usage. To understand why this is so requires a brief technology discussion.

Different types of usage place different levels of demand on available Internet bandwidth, which Digital Unite defines as “the rate at which data can be transferred to your computer from a website or internet service within a specific time.” The higher an Internet connection’s amount of bandwidth capacity, usually measured in bits per second, the more data can move through the connection in a given amount of time. Groups of bits strung together that computers use to represent a character such as a letter, number or an image are called bytes.

The bandwidth capacity is not infinite and often shared by multiple users with different volumes of traffic to be transported that may vary by time of day. As Scientific American explained, “the demand for bandwidth is fast outstripping providers' best efforts to supply it.”


FCC Restores Market Freedom To the Internet

 

[BOP]

These wide-eyed idealistic college kids do tend to become hard core capitalists once they have the opportunity. Which is fine, just a part of growing up, but when they become information fascists we all should be concerned.

However, I don't trust the government with information delivery, either.

I trust the government even less so with protecting information.

 

[BOP]

The case for net neutrality has been blasted all over the place; I searched for some opposition opinions, and here's what I found:

I don’t like how much power the telecoms have. But the reason they’re big and powerful isn’t because there is a lack of government regulation, but because of it. Government regulations are written by large corporate interests which collude with officials in government. The image of government being full of people on a mission to protect the little guy from predatory corporate behemoths is an illusion fostered by politicians and corporate interests alike.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshst...y-techie-against-net-neutrality/#301c2bb570d5

It gives the government more power over the Internet
http://mashable.com/2014/05/16/5-arguments-against-net-neutrality/#ssFKeeFkbmqV

Let me admit right off the bat that I don't really understand this debate and am unsure how it would affect me and my business. I mean, I think I do, but probably am only seeing one side of it because of the tech news I consume. Because I am in favor of search engine neutrality, I am probably in favor of net neutrality, but those opposed make a decent enough case.

Here is a very good article giving both sides, explained in simple terms:
https://www.digitalcare.org/net-neutrality-explained/

I do think internet service should be treated as a public utility. I think Google has made itself big enough and indispensable enough that it should be treated like a public utility as well. If they broke up Microsoft, they should absolutely break up Google. But I'm not sure that's the answer. I remember being outraged at the Microsoft decision, but that was also back in the day when we didn't live our lives online, so my perspective was different.

Basically, it comes down to: who do you trust, government or business? But what if the answer is "neither"? Typically I trust business over government, but then there's the Google problem. Oh, and the Facebook problem. Monopolies are bad, m'kay? No corporation should corner the market on information. Free enterprise means the company with the most money will always win, but is that in the best interests of the consumer? Do we care?

You'd think at some point these people would be happy with the billion$ they already make, but that doesn't seem to stop them from wanting more, and I have seen first hand with Google how they will push a political or social agenda. It's similar to if you flipped on your lightswitch and a pop up made you watch an advertiser's commercial before the power company let you have light. Or if you turned the spigot and, before water was allowed to come out, you had to see paid advertising.

So I can definitely understand the case for net neutrality, but I can also see the case against it as well.

Agree on all points. I'm against net neutrality not so much on general principle, though there's that, but mostly because of regulation. Regulators never get tired of regulating things; it's their reason for existence. Once California regulators cleaned up the air pollution from cars and trucks, they set their sights on restaurants and home fireplaces. You're not allowed to build a new home in California that has a wood-burning fireplace. They've also set their sights on cow farts, but I haven't heard whether or not that's gone anywhere. And if, perchance they run out of things to regulate, funny how their mission morphs into something else.

 

[Misfit]

All the information I’ve read on Net Neutrality I’ve read online and I’m not sure I can trust the source.

 

[awpitt]

To use an analogy, if there was a "Net Neutrality" in the electric company world and it was repealed, power companies would be able to decide which appliances we're allowed to use at home. If the power company doesn't like Whirlpool (Netflix), I guess you better get Maytag (xfinity). Very bad decision yesterday. Very bad for the consumer.

 

[awpitt]

Could Be ....



Is Google Working with Liberal Groups to Snuff Out Conservative Websites?

Google revealed in a blog post that it is now using machine learning to document "hate crimes and events" in America. They've partnered with liberal groups like ProPublica, BuzzFeed News, and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to make information about "hate events" easily accessible to journalists. And now, there are troubling signs that this tool could be used to ferret out writers and websites that run afoul of the progressive orthodoxy.

In the announcement, Simon Rogers, data editor of Google News Labs, wrote:

Now, with ProPublica, we are launching a new machine learning tool to help journalists covering hate news leverage this data in their reporting.

The Documenting Hate News Index — built by the Google News Lab, data visualization studio Pitch Interactive and ProPublica — takes a raw feed of Google News articles from the past six months and uses the Google Cloud Natural Language API to create a visual tool to help reporters find news happening across the country. It’s a constantly-updating snapshot of data from this year, one which is valuable as a starting point to reporting on this area of news.

[clip]​

ProPublica poses as a middle-of-the-road non-profit journalistic operation, but in reality, it's funded by a stable of uber-liberal donors, including George Soros's Open Society Foundations and Herb and Marion Sandler, billionaire former mortgage bankers whose Golden West Financial Corp. allegedly targeted subprime borrowers with "pick-a-pay" mortgages that led to toxic assets that were blamed for the collapse of Wachovia. The Southern Poverty Law Center, of course, is infamous for targeting legitimate conservatives groups, branding them as "hate groups" because they refuse to walk in lockstep with the progressive agenda. And it goes with out saying that The New York Times and BuzzFeed News lean left.


and Facebook:

Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News


Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s influential “trending” news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site’s users.

You're talking about content providers here. Not bandwidth providers. If you don't like Google (content), go use Bing (content). If you don't like Metrocast (bandwidth), well, there's not much one can do.

 

[vraiblonde]

The lefty politicians are insisting repealing net neutrality will destroy the internet, but all it really does is roll things back to the way they were 2 years ago before the net neutrality bill was passed. It was fine then, it will be fine now, and you should be suspicious when your "news" people and politicians insist we're all gonna die because of it.

 

[awpitt]

What is Net Neutrality?

Traditionally, if Google wanted access to the global internet to deliver its content to you (an end user) it would go to an ISP, and become its customer. The ISP would in turn provide transit to Google.

As the diagram shows below, Google (as well any smaller enterprises, including start-ups) pays ISP B for service. ISP B then routes traffic to the Internet Exchange Point (IXP) in New York, where it peers with the access-ISP C. Customers of ISP-C (this would be you, sitting at your computer at home) now have access to YouTube, Gmail, and all the other services Google offers.

What proponents of net-neutrality argue, is two things. (1) The ISP cannot offer Google a premium service (faster speeds, better reliability, etc.) over any arbitrary smaller company that can’t afford to pay the same prices. All customers must be treated equally. And (2) all traffic through the ISP must be treated the exact same way. This means that if the ISP is transmitting packets for a file transfer for an online storage requirement, it must treat the data packets in that transfer the exact same way that it treats packets from a live video stream. Never mind the fact that video is far more dependent on reliable transmission. The ISP is not allowed to make this distinction and must treat them the same.

The fact is, however, that today Google does not do this. Here is what Google actually does. Google (and other large enterprises that deliver content to end users – think Netflix, Facebook) maintains its own global network infrastructure, and peers directly with ISPs at internet exchange points. Google explains this in more detail on their own website.

This means that Google is not a customer of an ISP. Google simply connects to these internet exchange points, and here it peers with service providers.

This way, Google has far more control over how its content is delivered to users. If Google wants to treat YouTube video packets differently than the packets transferred for uploading Google Docs files, it can.

Net Neutrality laws will not affect Google because Google does not pay transit providers to deliver content to users. It peers with them.




Everything You Need To Know About Why Net Neutrality Is A Terrible Idea

What this whole post misses is how Internet content is delivered to the consumer. Via Metrocast or Comcast, or whoever. This isn't about the sending end. It's about the receiving end, the consumer.

 

[GURPS]

The lefty politicians are insisting repealing net neutrality will destroy the internet, but all it really does is roll things back to the way they were 2 years ago before the net neutrality bill was passed. It was fine then, it will be fine now, and you should be suspicious when your "news" people and politicians insist we're all gonna die because of it.

IIRC the Obama Era rules never got implemented

 

[Rommey]

Imagine if the government had decided in the late 90's to regulate the internet. I'd think the level/quality/type of content available would be nowhere near what one has available today. The internet experience would probably be closer to "CompuServ" than "YouTube".

 

[awpitt]

The lefty politicians are insisting repealing net neutrality will destroy the internet, but all it really does is roll things back to the way they were 2 years ago before the net neutrality bill was passed. It was fine then, it will be fine now, and you should be suspicious when your "news" people and politicians insist we're all gonna die because of it.

Net Neutrality was never a bill and that's probably part of the problem.

 

[GURPS]

ISP's are not Common Carriers .....

 

[vraiblonde]

Net Neutrality was never a bill and that's probably part of the problem.

You're right - I keep saying bill for some reason. Stuck on stupid.

It was an FCC classification, not a bill or law.