HELP SAVE DeviantART!

[Morphius]

I got intel from one of my watchers who directed me to another person's journal that DeviantART could go defunct by this year / next year / WHENEVER, but more to the point, without DeviantART in the near future, we can kiss #LegendsofEquestria (DeviantART Group) goodbye! 

http://morphiusx.deviantart.com/journal/DANGER-DANGER-HIGH-VOLTAGE-Progress-484252730]More information continues here! Help Save DeviantART![/URL]

[Midnight Breeze]

All I saw was a bunch of needless panic based on hearsay.

Also, note that congress and the FCC are not the same thing. Just saying...

[Chishio Kunrin]

All I saw was a bunch of needless panic based on hearsay.

Also, note that congress and the FCC are not the same thing. Just saying...

I don't understand why either of those two want to control the internet anyway, even less so why they think they can.
Sure, the internet is host to some pretty messed up, disgusting, horrible, out-of-line things, but it's also an incredibly beautiful place of freedom - freedom to express oneself, freedom to find things that interest oneself, freedom to find others who share the same interests, etc. It's such a vast world full of possibilities that are not limited by you not living in the right place to find it. People are going to fight to protect that, so if someone wants to control the internet and ruin those things and won't back down when people say no, they can expect a war.

And yeah, people use that freedom to express themselves in some pretty mean or bad ways, but other people find the internet to be a safe place to openly express things they feel they can't express elsewhere without holding back. They find others who feel the same way, who may not have spoken up about it in a real world setting. Can you imagine the first bronies without the internet? Bronies wouldn't have spread without it. The first bronies started out in a completely anonymous place where they wouldn't be judged for being guys who like MLP:FiM.

[Midnight Breeze]

I don't understand why either of those two want to control the internet anyway, even less so why they think they can.

Neither of them do?

It's not congress or the FCC that's the problem here. It's private internet service providers that are showing selective favoritism toward domains that grant them concessions.

The FCC's fault in the matter was striking down regulations that designated ISPs as common carriers. They didn't do it to 'try and control the internet'. Quite the opposite. They did it on the flawed grounds that the designation were too overegulating to the private business. What they are wanting is to encourage competition between ISPs in order to allow the free market to govern itself. What they fail to realize is that's not possible in the majority of the country due to the lack of consumer choice in their ISP. In my area there is only one ISP: Suddenlink Communications. Either you have Suddenlink or you don't have internet access, it's that simple. There's no self-regulating free market in this. Suddenlink can do whatever the heck they want without regulation. That's where the FCC's decision. It's not malevolence, it's just ignorance on their part.

So what did congress have to do with it? Nothing. In fact they're currently attempting to challenge the FCC's decision. So I don't know why anyone is vilifying them for it.

......................................

EDIT: Wait...I got that backwards. Strike that reverse it and you're correct. But either way it's not tyranny, just ignorance. The old Hanlon's razor.

[MrEmu]

Wait...I got that backwards. Strike that reverse it and you're correct.

[Rissian]

You need to read something like this carefully before jumping to conclusions. I'm going to be quoting some parts in the link the deviant art poster listed.

First of all here's what he linked to.

Dear Federal Communications Commission:

The D.C. Circuit's decision in the Verizon case dealt a huge blow to the open Internet.

Right now there is no one protecting Internet users from ISPs that block or discriminate against websites, applications or services. Companies like Verizon will now be able to block or slow down any website, application or service they like. And they'll be able to create tiered pricing structures with fast lanes for those who can afford the tolls and slow lanes for everyone else.

It's time for the new FCC leadership to correct the agency's past mistakes and to reassert the agency's clear authority over our nation's communications infrastructure. To preserve the open Internet, the FCC must reclassify broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service.

Use your authority to establish a solid legal footing for the vital policies and protections this court decision threatens.

"Right now there is no one protecting Internet users from ISPs that block or discriminate against websites, applications or services. Companies like Verizon will now be able to block or slow down any website, application or service they like. And they'll be able to create tiered pricing structures with fast lanes for those who can afford the tolls and slow lanes for everyone else"

I'm mainly looking at tiered pricing right now, tiered pricing already exists and it's not based on websites you visit. It's based on the internet speed you're paying for. This was a scare tactic that's been used for awhile and I'm still unsure of where they're going with this and I honestly don't like letting government bodies like the FCC or other institutes have more control over things than they need. I myself have been on multiple ISP's and have never experienced traffic bias based on websites I go to such as netflix or youtube. Now I won't completely bash the FCC they have helped get broadband out to rural areas. But it's still a matter of reading everything they want to do just in case they try to sneak something in.

Now on the whole congress thing they neither have the power nor the technology to control the internet in such a way. The internet isn't just in the US it's nearly everywhere in the world. Now I don't know where congress stands in this whole situation as those links have not provided the adequate information and this is kind of a rushed post. Yes there are some ISP's holding monopoly's in areas but that's slowly becoming less of a problem since the FCC recently started getting companies to provide more services in different areas. Like we used to be ruled by whatever dial up ISP was out here and Hughes Net Both which sucked very badly now they did not have website bias or anything like that, rather their whole service itself sucked for anything you tried to do gaming or otherwise. Then a company like CenturyLink came along and provided DSL to our rural area and are actually increasing coverage to multiple rural areas in Missouri. I don't believe we should be imposing regulations on ISP's Because not all ISP's are doing this. What we need is more push for other ISP's to expand so it'll force the monopoly ISP's to provide better service rather than regulating existing ISP's.

But I do agree that ISP's shouldn't be allowed to be biased towards websites. Though I'm also for people having the freedom to run their business the way they want as long as it isn't inhumane to their employees and if you regulate them it's going to cause more problems than it'll solve with our current damaged economy, and if you make any economy remarks I really hope it's detailed as it's nice to have a debate now and then.

TL/DR
Better ISP's are slowly moving in to monopoly areas and I don't think we should regulate them as the bad ones will eventually be weeded out. It's also impossible for them to affect your pricing based on which websites you visit. Because people would know in their bill they would complain and the ISP would lose customers and money and if they're truly stupid enough to do so let them destroy themselves and be done with it as the people will not go for that.
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On another side note. I heard soon a few ISP's are bringing Gigabit DSL to some areas using new technology for their lines. Sprint is also one of the ISP's that recently got bought by a Japanese company who's trying to redesign their interface to support higher speeds. Though I have no idea if this will amount to much yet. Guess we'll see.

There's other things I'd like to say actually a lot of things but it'd go off topic and is about the general costs of broadband in the US and how these monthly download limits are scams and that we have the technology to do without them but what we need is people to complain rather than setting any laws which affect good and bad ISPs.

edit : Scratch off the 1 gigabit dsl it's actually still pretty worthless in it's current state. Still a few ISP's are increasing their service speed slowly.