October 27 at 9:46AM
Jon Stewart on McCain's Anti-Net-Neutrality Bill
Try as I might, I never quite understood the net neutrality debate. All I knew was nerds cared very deeply about it, so I assumed it had something to do with Cheeto taxes or Real Doll tariffs. But on last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart broke it down into simple terms even a touched halfwit like me can understand.
In case you're wondering, yes, this exists. As does this. But not this.
The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11pm / 10c.
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Libertarians calling for government intervention? That's like capitalists calling for communism.
I am a conservative.
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.
I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.
After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.
On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.
After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.
And then I log on to the internet — which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration — and post on Freerepublic.com, indecisionforever.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.
Sarcasm or misinformed? You decide…
Ugh, all this talk about "the government taking over the internet" and "the internet must be free" is just a bunch of "rabble, rabble, rabble!" You want to know the truth? The truth is that TCP/IP, the protocol used to make the internet work, was not designed with making money in mind. Specifically, it wasn't designed to throttle packets based on the application data (movies, files, etc) contained within the packet. In fact, it was designed the complete opposite of that, specifically using encapsulation so that the network wouldn't look at the application data to decide what priority to give it and how to route it. The network was designed to look at the network layer of TCP/IP to decide routing and prioritization. All that it knows is that this packet is supposed to go from point A to point B, it then applies that information to routing algorithms to decide the fastest, most efficient and cost effective route.
Re-engineering the internet to support throttling and monetization based on the application data being transferred will actually cost more money than letting it work the way it currently works! I have Cox and they us Sandvine to throttle P2P packets, do you think that technology is free? No, and that cost gets handed down to you via increased internet prices. Why pay more for this technology? If user A is using P2P and consuming a lot of bandwidth, then throttle them so the connection is not congested. The technology already exists to do this, it's Even with Net Neutrality, ISPs will still be able to throttle individual users who are consuming too much bandwidth, so preventing congestion should not be a concern.
Yet I am surprised to hear the EFF, and to a lesser extent conservatives, are against the Net Neutrality principles the FCC is proposing? The EFF often lobbies to establish such policies to increase freedoms. Take the "Whitespace" issue, the EFF states "the FCC’s job is to regulate this valuable resource in the public interest." I would say, isn't the internet (not the content, but the actual network) a valuable resource and should it not be regulated in the public interest? Also, look who else the EFF is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with in opposition to these policies: The Family Research Council. According to wikipedia, the FRC "campaigns for tighter regulation of pornography, especially internet pornography and pornography on broadcast-TV." What strange bedfellows! Clearly, a policy that promotes treating all application data equally makes censorship of any specific kind of data difficult, which explains the FRC's opposition. If censorship of content by the FCC is a concern, which is found nowhere in the proposed principles, then lobby to add wording to keep the FCC from regulating internet content. As for conservative individuals, I often hear the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and I assume they would apply that saying to both the public and private sector. I would say that the protocol the internet is based on works just fine and does not need to go through an unnecessary and costly re-engineering just to monetize and throttle data transfers based on content. At the same time, I would say regulation of the internet, whether it be by the public or private sector, is broken if the private sector wants to spend more money and increase costs for a solution in search of a problem. Once again, if saturation of the network is a concern, then throttle the entire connection of individual users.
It seems to me that opposition to the principles are a bunch of "what-if" scenarios instead of disapproval with the principles themselves. If the FCC was trying to regulate content, I would be up in arms about this as well, but that's not what these policies are about. The policies simply require all data to be treated equally, all content to be treated equally, the way the protocol of the internet was originally designed to work, meaning if you throttle or censor completely one kind of content/data then you must censor/throttle them all. The censoring/throttling of all data is not going to happen because that would mean all data would be unnecessarily throttled to the same speed or absolutely no data would be exchanged. The Net Neutrality policies also ensure that the private sector doesn't waste money implementing systems like Sandvine, instead of spending that money on something more productive like increasing available internet bandwidth. If you question that these policies are necessary, whether net neutrality will exist without public regulation, then you only need to look at event within the last few years: P2P throttling by multiple ISPs via deep packet inspection (looking at the application data), Comcast's fraudent disconnecting of P2P sessions, Verizon's attempts to get out of the 750MHz wireless spectrum open-access requirements using legalize. All of these private companies say net neutrality public regulation isn't necessary because they already follow and support it, yet they are fighting tooth and nail to be able to break these policies. If you believe them, then I've got some spectrum in the 790 to 400 THz range to sell you.
Until fairly recently, the U.S. Federal Government was already heavily involved in various bureaucratic aspects of Internet through IANA and then ICANN. Since the mid 1990's, net neutrality has largely been the de facto standard due to the simple fact that it's been in the providers/carriers best interest to cooperate. However, with increased media and telecommunications consolidation, it may soon be advantageous for one company to treat traffic from the customers of another company as "second class data".
Though I'll admit that I'm not familiar with the wording of any pending legislation, the principle that "all traffic must be treated equally" has been the cornerstone of Internet's success.
If maintaining this neutrality requires legislation to prevent its subversion, then I'm (begrudgingly) all for it. Without law, I fear a system where you get to pick your 10 favorite out-of-network websites, in exchange for "unlimited" access to the ones hosted by "your" provider…. maybe with unlimited nights and weekends to "Any Site on any Server".
OK, once again folks… while many of you seem to know a bit of the internet's history, and you like your P2P traffic, here's what you are missing: The reason that the internet is relatively free and open resource is because there are MANY providers that must work together and there is no "real" regulation. A internet type diagram ———————————————————————————– Regulation -> bureaucracy -> massive fees and tariffs -> consolidation of companies and resources in conglomerates (like TV and Radio) -> One corporation owns the internet. BANG! Are you really saying that you want the internet to end up like TV and Radio? Are you on glue? Just because you want your bittorrents fast? for FOXsake, switch companies!!! As long as you supply the demand there will be a company out there filling it… Unless, of course, you regulate the little company that would have provided the service out of business. Oops!
All rhetoric aside–
The main enemy of corporate America on the intertubes is the amount of free user-generated content provided by anyone willing to register a domain. Get rid of net neutrality, and you have removed that problem. This creates a world where King Syndicates, Marvel, and Dark Horse could make sure that a site like penny-arcade.com loaded at the speed of smell before it ever had time to get a following, where YouTube could charge for the priviledge of getting that video of your grandmother falling on ice to someone before they had grandchildren themselves.
This is not a what-if scenario. Companies like Comcast and Verizon have already been caught throttling their users' bandwidth unfairly. Giving them license to create 'slow lanes' in their traffic would basically be giving them license to pick and choose what you can access.
This isn't just about making search engines quick or making P2P harder. This is about controlling access and content based on who can throw the most money into the ring. Right now, almost every avenue of speech– printed media, radio, television– is governed by who can drown out someone else with a flood of money. Try as they might, the people with access to drownin' money can't find a way to stuff it into the series of tubes tight enough to silence dissenting voices. Right now, every site you hit is basically the same as any other, and the only difference between a popular site and a remote one is whether or not people like it. Without net neutrality, the difference is who can dig into deeper pockets and pay for preferential treatment. And frankly, we'll all pay dearly for that.
HMQ, you and others boosting the ill-named "net neutrality" concept fail to see the real engine behind this campaign: the ad agency Google.
It needs to have fast Internet connections and enormous latitude for consumers to access free content or make user-generated content because without those zillions of eyeballs, they can't *sell ads*. Net neutrality is merely a very vested interested plea from Google and the technology companies benefiting from it to give this set-up a pass forever, to make sure that it has absolutely free work tools and a free workspace to pitch its ads, without any cost to providers.
The gap between what Google pays for and what the content providers pay for and the "last mile" pose a real dilemma for any country. Who should pay for this public good, the public commons that Google overruns with advertising for its company's benefit, with monopolist practices? And I fail to see why the American people need to make the world safe for Google and its ad agency. Let Google pay for bandwidth usage and stop pretending that its payment for bandwidth merely to house search and create the pipe to access ads is enough, and that the serving of ads and the consumer's access of ads should all be thrown back on the telecoms, when the telecoms do not get any thing whatsoever out of the Google ad agency.
Telecoms are the last bastion of strength against total takeover by Google, and of course those who want power through Obama, and power through his unelected wire, need this highway to be free of cost as much as possible.
Everyone boosting the Google-run Net Neutrality campaign keeps yammering about how "we" need bandwidth. No, Google needs us to have free bandwidth *to see its ads, tacked on to search*. Why is that so hard to see?! It's concealed under the free "public service" of search, but its a public service that comes at a cost — bandwidth. That's a scarce resource and those who directly benefit from it should be paying for more pieces of it than they do.
We could have the Internet run on the meter concept like electricity, making those who play WoW or watch YouTube pay more than those who only use email. But that would rapidly diminish the throngs flooding to free sites to see free content *that help Google make its billions* so they'll find ways of inciting the masses of couch surfers to lobby against that, too. No, the only thing is to have the government regulate it and to charge more for licenses. Internet service for heavier content will wind up costing more.
All this babbling about people throwing money into the ring is a froth compared to the reality underpinning this entire debate: Google, and the tiny handful of companies or bloggers at the apex of a vast pyramid who actually make money from Internet ads.
Um, Matt?
Why are you willing to let the government regulate your electricity, your roads, your work safety, your mails, but not the Internet?
Why do you view that as some secret personal place like the home that the government shouldn't touch?
The Internet is just a highway and electricity combined, that's all. It needs regulation; somebody has to pay for it; the public has to pay for some of it.
A lot of this discussion is driven by the utopian and magical beliefs that seem still to cling to new technology. It's just a pipe. Somebody makes it and lays it and you pay for its use. Google needs to pay for more than it does as it benefits the most. The public shouldn't be funding Google's ad agency which doesn't benefit the public except through free search, but that is not sufficient benefit to justify taxationt to fund bandwidth. Maybe Google should be asked to take down the ads on search and be ad-free like Wikipedia? Ok, then, pay up more, Google, because we shouldn't have to.
I am a conservative.
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.
-and thanks to their foolishness I pay easily twice as much for it because domestic companies have to drill for these resources in other countries.
I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.
-and everyone with a well must be using nasty water cuz only the public works can pump clean water
After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
-are these the same agencies that bring us the global warming hoax? (yea that’ll git ya riled. I must be a flat earther now since I read the data and not the enlightenment between the lines)
I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
-that’s an open invitation to pot jokes but I’ll leave the name calling to libs, they do it so well.
At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.
-oh so much here but let’s stick to the facts: roads are mostly and cars are entirely built by PRIVATE contractors and companies because DOT couldn’t do it for twice the price and the FED isn’t even a government entity. Certainly worth criticism since it’s one of the few jobs Congress is supposed to do.
On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.
-this one’s easy… the same postal service that needs a $4BILLION BAILOUT? Oh by the way, they contract UPS for a lot of their deliveries because they do it better. And what part of our school system would you call successful? aren't we always lamenting how bad it is?
After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.
-police, fire safety, traffic laws, building codes are all valid domains of Government. Don’t confuse conservatives with the anarchists. We are far bigger supporters of the police than any lib. Even the President is quick to call police stupid without the facts based purely on prejudice AGAINST them!
And then I log on to the internet — which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration — and post on Freerepublic.com, indecisionforever.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.
-Which part of $12 TRILLION in debt would you call right (it’s over $100T if you count the misadventures of the FED)?? How does any of this diatribe validate socialism? How does wanting a financially sound nation, with the freedoms it was founded on, for my children warrant blatant uneducated nonsense like this comment?? For the sake of anything you hold dear, look at what socialism has done to people throughout history. Ours was the only nation on earth to break out of the Lords and Ladies class structure and we did it by limiting government. The United States was unique for saying freedom is a birthright, not a gift from the government. Socialism is a pathway back to fixed classes in society with power and serfdom being decided by birthright.
Sarcasm or misinformed? You decide…
I have decided and your comment, though well crafted, is misinformed; nothing but rhetoric without substance. I like to laugh and can laugh at the silliness of comedy skits poking fun at conservatives. What makes me weep is foolish people who believe this is accurate news without looking at the facts themselves. John Stewart is funny but couldn't hold up in a real debate with an educated conservative when issues are the topic. That’s why any debate with a lib is the same as elementary school playground name calling. There can be no real debate on a 4th grade level where the premises are who has the better put-down.
Mostly, I don't trust progressives with any power. I can't find one working for anything more than their own personal agendas. Democrats are dupes for thinking any of this is good for them.
Prokofy Neva
I love it when libs are so kneejerk that they can’t get past the word conservative. You obviously didn’t really read the comment. The whole thing is satire meant to agree with you.
You are so intent on disagreeing with conservatives you jumped down Mat’s throat and made yourself look stupid.
Net-neutrality isn’t my biggest concern with healthcare and cap-and-tax on the horizon. My concern with it is giving power to people I simply don’t trust. Let EVERYONE read this before it goes to vote. I don’t much trust legislation pushed through without ANYONE reading it. If it did nothing more than maintain competitive access to the internet I’m ok with that. If it gives the government the ability to regulate what is there I’m not. i haven’t read it and doubt anyone here has either. Stop trusting Washington so much is my only suggestion. And not only when Republicans are in office.