Help Protect Net Nuetrality

[Guest]

need I say more the fact that this is still on the table is frightening and I believe most of us here can agree on that and on what one of my favorite youtubers Al Chestbreach has to say about it, I will post more videos on the subject as they come in, please if you love the freedom the internet has to offer or you don't want to see the government and corporations try to bring an end to that freedom for the sake of big bucks than please do as Al instructed in the video and tell Congress how you feel about this bull crap.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt5YiFXbsaw&t=3s

[LesboIsBesto]

(To moderators, I ask if you have to, at least move this thread to another section of this site instead of outright deleting it if it's in the wrong place or something, this is too important for people to not see)

 

For the past week, people on Reddit & other places had the biggest bitch-fit about Star Wars Battlefront 2's microtransactions & other shitty practices (which was rightly deserved). Now we need to throw an even bigger bitch-fit because this affects ALL gamers whether you think so or not. Whether you're an multiplayer-games guy or single-player, whether you only play PC or game on console too, regardless of your political beliefs, net neutrality benefits us all & is at stake like it was in 2015 thanks to Trump's retard of an FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai.

 

For those who don't know, net neutrality means your ISP's CANNOT do anything to slow your internet access to certain sites, censor competing services over the Internet or make you pay extra for those sites. The FCC under Obama got this loud & clear from us in 2015 & made the rules we have now to keep the Internet open & free (not as in money-wise, as in freedom of expression wise). Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer was placed in charge of the FCC by Trump & has for over a year been trying to gain support for reversing the rules that the Obama admin placed & going back to what we had before. Now he has the motion he wants to try reversing the rules. On December 14th, the FCC will officially vote on whether or not to reverse the Net Neutrality rules placed by the Obama admin. You're probably wondering how this affects you, here's how:

 

By reversing the net neutrality rules, ISPs & those scumbag cable companies you hate dealing with like Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner, etc will be legally allowed to do the following:

 

1. Slow or down your Internet access to sites with differing political beliefs.

2. Straight up censor those sites.

3. Block access to competing services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc.

4. Divide up websites like TV channels into packages that you pay extra to get access too.

5. Throttle download & upload speeds.

6. And the basic corrupt business shit like raise prices in general, make their service purposely worse, etc.

 

How this affects gamers like us is disturbing:

 

https://www.polygon.com/2017/2/9/14548880/time-warner-lawsuit-new-york-league-of-legends-netflix

https://www.pcgamesn.com/league-of-legends/league-of-legends-time-warner-cable-lawsuit

 

The above links show how in New York, Time Warner Cable in all their scumbaggedness, slowed down customers access to League of Legends & Netflix all because the companies affected refused to pay them extra money to "improve" their access to the ISP. They were taken to court by Riot Games & Netflix, but I cannot find the results of said case (perhaps its still ongoing?) In any case, this shows that ISPs are more than willing to slow down gamers access to certain games & other services they like. How long until they do it to Steam, or Overwatch, or whatever game you like too?

 

There is a way to fight back like we did last time however. If you want to to learn more about the topic &/or try to help protect net neutrality, go to this link here: https://www.battleforthenet.com/

 

That site has all the info you could ever need on net neutrality, why its important, & what to do about it. they have plenty of videos with more details on how important this is & tell you how you can help. They suggest calling your congressman to tell them you support net neutrality, staging peaceful but strong protests at Verizon wireless stores wherever you find them, or just spreading the news to your friends & family to get more people aware of what's happening. This is singlehandedly one of the most important moments for the Internet that is about to happen & if we sit idly by, we will face a shittier Internet the likes of which no one should have to deal with.

 

Regardless of whether or not you support President Trump, whether or not your a hardcore gamer, or anything else about your background, there is one thing to understand. Net Neutrality benefits ALL OF US as Internet users. This isn't a left vs right issue, its all of us vs a few corrupt shitstains in the government & companies who lobby them for this shit to happen. We stopped them last time in 2015 & we can do it again. You guys hated Battlefront 2's microtransactions, you hated Bethesda's Creation Club & the paid mods they attempted to do before with Steam, please go out, whether on the Battle for the Net site or in the streets to protest, & show Congress & the ISP's how much we hate their piece of shit plan & how we want Net Neutrality to stay in place. Share this thread with whoever you know uses this site (since this is a lewd site, obviously I wouldn't expect you to share it with the general public) but you can of course just share the article links & Battle for the Net link listed here.

 

Feel free to civilly discuss your opinions on this below, hopefully people will actually see it & comment on it. I'm not a big user here but I made this anyways to get the word out to people as I have on other places so far.

 

For anyone interested, here's a few more article links on Net Neutrality, take from them what you will. And feel free to share any other links you may have on the subject.

 

Portugal & why Net Neutrality is important

http://www.businessinsider.com/net-neutrality-portugal-how-american-internet-could-look-fcc-2017-11

 

FCC Official announcement to reverse Net Neutrality

https://www.rt.com/usa/410552-fcc-net-neutrality-repeal/

 

ISP investment increases under Net Neutrality rules despite FCC claims

http://www.ibtimes.com/net-neutrality-debate-study-finds-isp-investment-has-increased-net-neutrality-rules-2539600

 

Ajit Pai ignores pro-Net Neutrality comments

https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/21/the-fccs-craven-net-neutrality-vote-announcement-makes-no-mention-of-the-22-million-comments-filed/

 

More info on FCC announcement

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/technology/fcc-net-neutrality.html

 

(Just another site on how to help support Net Neutrality)

https://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now

 

[LesboIsBesto]

I posted a very detailed thread to the General Discussion section about this too: https://www.loverslab.com/topic/88300-net-neutrality-how-were-affected-important-for-all-to-read-please/

 

Although after re-reading Ashal's rules there, I''m worried he'll delete it either cuz its in the wrong place or because he doesn't want political stuff on LL, which is understandable but an exception ought to be made in this case considering the fate of net neutrality affects gaming as a whole, including this very site.

[Celedhring]

Ajit Pai and the Republicans are hell bent on reversing net neutrality.  The irony is that Pai condemned the party line vote that upheld Net neutrality. And yet, that's *exactly* what this hypocrite is going to do with his fellow Republicans - reverse net neutrality among party lines as there's 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats voting on this. 

[Veladarius]

Ajit Pai has always been against net neutrality which isn't surprising since he has connections with Verizon and other large broadcasting groups. I am probably one of the few lucky ones here in that I have 2 choices where I get cable/internet/phone from. Initially all we had was Time Warner but Cincinnati Bell started their Fioptics service which was through fiber optic cable which ran all the way to your house. Time Warner had a max speed of 50 mbps but Cincinnati Bell's top speed initially was 200 mbps. When Spectrum took over Time Warner here they magically raised their max speed to 100 mbps with no equipment upgrades but Cincinnati Bell did some equipment updates and took their top speed to 1000 mbps with their primary package speed being 300 mpbs. Costs between the two are about the same with their initial "special" being just under $100 for everything.

[Something]

It genuinely surprises me how often this fear of ISPs throttling websites did not happen prior to 2015, and how quickly everyone seemed to forget that.

[LesboIsBesto]

8 minutes ago, Veladarius said:

Ajit Pai has always been against net neutrality which isn't surprising since he has connections with Verizon and other large broadcasting groups. I am probably one of the few lucky ones here in that I have 2 choices where I get cable/internet/phone from. Initially all we had was Time Warner but Cincinnati Bell started their Fioptics service which was through fiber optic cable which ran all the way to your house. Time Warner had a max speed of 50 mbps but Cincinnati Bell's top speed initially was 200 mbps. When Spectrum took over Time Warner here they magically raised their max speed to 100 mbps with no equipment upgrades but Cincinnati Bell did some equipment updates and took their top speed to 1000 mbps with their primary package speed being 300 mpbs. Costs between the two are about the same with their initial "special" being just under $100 for everything.

Man I envy you. my neighborhood has lots of choices but they're all mostly trash. We have Spectrum now & they straight up lied to us about getting 60mbps, I'm lucky to hit 30 on a good day. Then AT&T came & tried to sell us a plan for 100 & came to our house with equipment that would only get us 25. I really wish someone could force our system to be more like South Korea's & Japan's.

[LesboIsBesto]

1 minute ago, Something said:

It genuinely surprises me how often this fear of ISPs throttling websites did not happen prior to 2015, and how quickly everyone seemed to forget that.

So i'm guessing you ignored the articles I posted above, & there are plenty of articles I didn't post that are out there if you take the time to google them lmao

[Veladarius]

3 minutes ago, Something said:

It genuinely surprises me how often this fear of ISPs throttling websites did not happen prior to 2015, and how quickly everyone seemed to forget that.

Really?

The main reason it wasn't reported is that the amount of traffic wasn't as high then so they didn't have a reason to. My own experience with Time Warner for a number of years before 2014 was that even though I paid for 30 mbps my speed was throttled to 10 mbps from mid November until the end of January like clockwork even to sites like Microsoft or any other major site where their bandwidth would not be an issue.

[Ashal]

While normally we disallow any political posts, this is an issue that will greatly affect the site itself, and thus, one I am fully in favor of allowing to bypass the forum rules. Do however keep in mind, that while net neutrality itself is given a pass to ignore the sites "no politics" rule, certain topics surrounding it are not. This is a thread about net neutrality and NOT any specific political affiliation - keep it that way.

 

Repealing net neutrality is not in anybody's best interests other than greedy ISP providers, and should be fought for.

 

DO NOT assume that enough others are doing their part to prevent this. Spend just a few minutes to help the cause. 

[Something]

2 minutes ago, Veladarius said:

Really?

Quote

Much like Netflix’s ongoing standoff with Verizon FiOS, the drop in speeds wasn’t an issue of the ISP throttling or blocking service to Netflix. Rather, the ISPs were allowing for Netflix traffic to bottleneck at what’s known as “peering ports,” the connection between Netflix’s bandwidth provider and the ISPs.

Your issue was your speed was slowed down entirely, rather than to any one site. Net Neutrality would not have fixed your problem.

 

The way I see it, if you want Comcast and Time Warner to throttle the internet, give them an incentive to engage in regulatory capture of the FCC so that they can write their own regulations.

[Veladarius]

4 minutes ago, Something said:

Your issue was your speed was slowed down entirely, rather than to any one site. Net Neutrality would not have fixed your problem.

 

The way I see it, if you want Comcast and Time Warner to throttle the internet, give them an incentive to engage in regulatory capture of the FCC so that they can write their own regulations.

Still, there was no reason to slow my speed.

[Something]

5 minutes ago, Veladarius said:

Still, there was no reason to slow my speed.

You are right, but if I may go out on a limb, I don't think they did it on purpose. It's possible your bandwidth was being taken by multiple devices. A smartphone is still receiving wifi even when turned off. Or you had some device that was disrupting your service. I'm assuming you were using wifi at the time, I know microwaves or stereo systems can cause disruptions. Maybe they were experiencing technical difficulties and outages on their end?

[Reepa7]

Signed.

 

But these things never work do they? they get acknowledged but at the end of the day the FCC will do whatever they want.

[Darkening Demise]

He was a lawyer for Verizon....gee if no one saw this coming you'd deserve a smack to the back of the head.

[Veladarius]

1 hour ago, Something said:

You are right, but if I may go out on a limb, I don't think they did it on purpose. It's possible your bandwidth was being taken by multiple devices. A smartphone is still receiving wifi even when turned off. Or you had some device that was disrupting your service. I'm assuming you were using wifi at the time, I know microwaves or stereo systems can cause disruptions. Maybe they were experiencing technical difficulties and outages on their end?

No, this is on my pc which is connected directly to my router then to their modem. Generally it started a week or two before Thanksgiving and ended in late January and happened every year I had their service (quite a few). Generally it was to the point that I couldn't even stream 720p video from anywhere, 420p was about the best I could do with minimal interruptions and this was 24/7. The rest of the year I could do 1080p with no issues.

[LesboIsBesto]

1 hour ago, Ashal said:

While normally we disallow any political posts, this is an issue that will greatly affect the site itself, and thus, one I am fully in favor of allowing to bypass the forum rules. Do however keep in mind, that while net neutrality itself is given a pass to ignore the sites "no politics" rule, certain topics surrounding it are not. This is a thread about net neutrality and NOT any specific political affiliation - keep it that way.

 

Repealing net neutrality is not in anybody's best interests other than greedy ISP providers, and should be fought for.

 

DO NOT assume that enough others are doing their part to prevent this. Spend just a few minutes to help the cause. 

God bless you for this decision, friend. Glad to see you care about this like me & others do. Hopefully we can win this fight by getting more people involved. Even Markiplier just uploaded a video in support of Net Neutrality so we're about to get much more help!

[LesboIsBesto]

30 minutes ago, Reepa7 said:

Signed.

 

But these things never work do they? they get acknowledged but at the end of the day the FCC will do whatever they want.

Don't think like that, people were worried for the same reason back in 2015 & look what happened. We got the rules passed, we need to keep hitting them hard on their emails, phones, & on the streets. We keep the fire going & they won't be able to ignore us. There are already plenty of congressmen who are willing to stand with us if we show them we're in favor of Net Neutrality. Its not over until its over

[Something]

24 minutes ago, Veladarius said:

No, this is on my pc which is connected directly to my router then to their modem. Generally it started a week or two before Thanksgiving and ended in late January and happened every year I had their service (quite a few). Generally it was to the point that I couldn't even stream 720p video from anywhere, 420p was about the best I could do with minimal interruptions and this was 24/7. The rest of the year I could do 1080p with no issues.

Yeah, I can't begin to diagnose that. Have you tried calling customer support? Maybe they could help.

[Shadowhawk827]

3 hours ago, Veladarius said:

No, this is on my pc which is connected directly to my router then to their modem. Generally it started a week or two before Thanksgiving and ended in late January and happened every year I had their service (quite a few). Generally it was to the point that I couldn't even stream 720p video from anywhere, 420p was about the best I could do with minimal interruptions and this was 24/7. The rest of the year I could do 1080p with no issues.

Sounds to me like you've got what we refer here as Xfinity Syndrome.  Your area is probably close to over-sold and in need of more cable being installed to handle the traffic.  Peak shopping season sees a large increase in traffic, and you're bottle necked.

 

It's a huge problem here where I live.  The downtown area in particular is so over-sold by Comcast/Xfinity that you couldn't even get online at the office where I last worked.  If you could, you were limited to near dial-up speed.  In the edge of the city where I live, the connects are better but still nowhere near advertised speed.  The internet frequently went down also.

 

We ended up ditching them and going with a fiber optic provider.  Everything is faster now.  Their cable and DVR suck though.  *sigh*

[Shadowhawk827]

As for Net Neutrality, the reason some people aren't getting involved is the propaganda put out by the ISPs.  They talk about how stopping it is really about making companies that use large portions of the internet pay for what they use instead of passing the associated costs along to everybody.  It's a fairly effective smoke screen.  It doesn't help that a good part of what is out there for Net Neutrality is emotion based articles too.

 

It took me a good bit of research to dig out the truth and see that the Pro Net Neutrality side was the honest side, even if they're not the best at presenting the hows.

 

 

Also, for those of you who are up odd hours or not into calling but want to contact your government officials, congress.gov will let you get their email information.  Congress.org is a site that can also help you look up your elected officials and you can sign up there for emails that will tell you how your representatives have voted on major issues.

 

[Bazinga]

I'll just leave this here.

 

Can't say that I care though, I don't live in the US so this whole drama has not much to do with me anyway.

[Zor2k13]

This sort of thing will make a way to everyone it won't just be in america. Everything is connected and it is a small world as the old saying goes so what makes some greedy bastards money will excite other greedy bastards somewhere else to do the same. I don't think it will last long though in america simply because people here could not live without their facebook. Slowing down or gatekeeping facebook would be about half as bad as turning off ALL cell phones in america at the same time and putting a bunch of pay extra messages on their screens to continue. No way people will not "really riot" if they start screwing around with social media. America is not like eeeeuuuuuurrrroPe people here are super attached to social media and themselves it would be like yanking a mirror away from them lol.

 

Once a significant outcry happens I don't think trump will ignore it he might change his mind as he has done before on other things and tell that guy to stuff it so we will have to see but keep this one thing in mind when thinking about how something like this would never come to your country... politicians don't write anything they are catered to by big corps and those corps write what they want passed and grease it into the hands of these catered politicians who then pass it around ad verbatim to their peers and eventually it just becomes law. This happens all around the world no matter what party or side of the isle anyone sits on. The people are the only thing that can motivate change but only when a majority of people move at the same time. Looking at how people actually react vs what social media usually says is a big difference most people just ignore bad things but like I said they are messing with the wrong things in the hunt for more money it won't fly here no way. The interesting thing will be watching which media outlets ignore the real outrage and which ones just show it all the time.

 

I have noticed some kind of fiber optic cable installs in my area over the last few years and just recently they managed to connect it to the cable boxes behind my neighborhood and the only company that can use those boxes is comcast or xfinity whatever so they must be trying to find a cure for that xfinity syndrome of overselling nodes in an area.

[Bazinga]

2 hours ago, Zor2k13 said:

Everything is connected and it is a small world as the old saying goes so what makes some greedy bastards money will excite other greedy bastards somewhere else to do the same.

Isn't it weird how the internet worked just fine for more than 20 years without net neutrality?

Where were those "greedy corporate moneygrabbers" that are behind the anti net neutrality campaign then?

Oh right, they were building the network infrastructure (which they are now not allowed to control even though they own it) and tried to find a reasonable balance for different data types (internet bandwith is still very limited even today) so that their customers don't complain too much and don't leave for a different service provider.

 

Now I read that deprioritizing BitTorrent packages so that other users could use that bandwith for something more useful than sharing stolen movies, music and games was supposed to be an outrage for some reason. Interesting.

[Benmc20]

Just saying for non US citizen: you are full concerned by that. So, you can freak out too.

 

Why ? Some explanations:

- ICANN (US based)

- root DNS (more than half of them are in the US)

- FBI can seize any domain, on any country

- and so on...

 

In my own country, there are some ISP who are capable to censor Internet just for profit. Like Orange, Altice (SFR) or Bouygues. Not sure about Free or alternative like FDN tho...