Supreme Court Nominee: ISPs have 1st Amendment right to block websites

[Jtalk4456]

8 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

religious battle over which party is the best...

wait what? you don't have a religious battle over politics those are different things. I agree with what you're asking but how you said it makes no sense

[Lady Fitzgerald]

1 hour ago, Stefan Payne said:

Pls read my later comments.

 

My point was: your generation grew up without technology, and learned to do other things.

You have to actively choose technology and most just do not.

With more recent generations, you are pushed towards technology, especially cellphone. 

 

That was my argument.

Not that _ALL_ Older People have no clue about Technology but that _MANY_ Older People don't because of their life choices and that it wasn't a thing at the time for them.

You stlll have no clue what you are talking about. Maybe older people in Germany are technology challenged (although  I used to know a German gentleman online who was over 80 and had forgotten more about computer tech than most people of any age will ever know)  but here in the U.S, the majority of people I know over 50 are tech savvy. 

[Guest]

On 7/11/2018 at 10:01 PM, Stefan Payne said:

What do you expect?!
He's old, 50+.

And with that he doesn't understand technology.

You have to be someone who grow up with the Internet to understand it. Youc can't just learn it.

 

ANd that means born in the 80s because the Internet rose in the late 90s and really came to fruitition in the mid 2000s. Its a brand new phenomena!

 

 

How can you expect a 50+ person to understand something that grew like mushrooms in the last two decades???

50+? Theres actually like 2 years separating Trump from Bernie Sanders.

 

On a side note, Net neutrality isn't a good thing really. It opens up a whole can of worms really. 

[Stefan Payne]

5 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

50+? Theres actually like 2 years separating Trump from Bernie Sanders.

I don't care about both in this regard.

But you see that one regularly uses the Internets (wich is _THE_ Problem for the Media) and the other does not. As does Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Joe Biden...

That kinda proves my point, doesn't it?

 

Quote

On a side note, Net neutrality isn't a good thing really. It opens up a whole can of worms really. 

Well, yeah, it all has its pros and cons.

But the problem is that the ISPs usually oversell their bandwith and have to throttle the Bandwith of some services to make up for the shit they messed up. So without Net Neutrality, they just can use their old, rotten infrastructure a bit longer before they have to invest in upgrading those things...

 

And there is also the argument of the 2 classes Internet and that the ISP could ask for example Google for Money for their Video service while others will be throttled.

[pas008]

Doesn't this block users rights to 1st amendment considering isp is regional?

[Robert Morgan]

Guys, ISPs absolutely can censor on their sites. Why? Because they are their sites. In the USA, the First Amendment protects against the government abridging free speech. However, ISPs aren't the government, and while I oppose restrictions on speech and am in favor of net neutrality since the ISPs aren't the government they can absolutely censor or block certain sites and content. Its like your home, You can censor the guests who visit you by kicking them out of your garden party if you disagree with them. That may make you a jerk, but it is your property and you can censor on your property, absent government involvement. ISPs are the same. Actually reading what the First Amendment says might help: 

 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

"Congress shall make no law," is really the key to it all. Judge Kavanaugh isn't a loon. He's simply stating what the long settled law is. Heck, Fox censors lefties and MSNBC and CNN censor righties. All are private news sources and being private, they can do it since Congress had made no law telling them to. Its their choice to do so, or not at all. Some of the hysteria I'm reading  here and elsewhere really indicates a lot of people with zero grasp of the actual Constitution and its application, especially the Bill of Rights. A number of people on this thread wouldn't have passed the high school US History and Gov't classes that I teach, not even close. C'mon folks, drop the hysteria and fearmongering about Kavanaugh and read the Constitution. 

 

Okay, I'm done. Back to grading summer school papers. Some of them might even pass! 

[Robert Morgan]

PS. One last thing. If you don't like what ISPs are doing, then vote with your wallet and give your hard earned cash to other ISPs who behave better, in your view. Its amazing what a little economic action will do. Remember, Adam Smith's invisible hand is as relevant today as it was then, and not patronizing ISPs who censor and block sites will affect their cash flow. Doing so is itself a form of freedom of speech.  Vote with your wallet. 

[GoldenLag]

5 minutes ago, Robert Morgan said:

PS. One last thing. If you don't like what ISPs are doing, then vote with your wallet and give your hard earned cash to other ISPs who behave better, in your view. Its amazing what a little economic action will do. Remember, Adam Smith's invisible hand is as relevant today as it was then, and not patronizing ISPs who censor and block sites will affect their cash flow. Doing so is itself a form of freedom of speech.  Vote with your wallet. 

Dont forget the incredible choice of ISPs many US citizens have avavible to them!

/s

[Tech_Dreamer]

technically they're the service provider, if you treat it as a private organization , it's should be covered well under it. same with site's & blogs censoring/removing comments & links they see fit . in a nutshell 2 can play that game, justice isn't reserved for one special interest to exploit & the other to strictly follow.

[Zodiark1593]

6 minutes ago, Robert Morgan said:

PS. One last thing. If you don't like what ISPs are doing, then vote with your wallet and give your hard earned cash to other ISPs who behave better, in your view. Its amazing what a little economic action will do. Remember, Adam Smith's invisible hand is as relevant today as it was then, and not patronizing ISPs who censor and block sites will affect their cash flow. Doing so is itself a form of freedom of speech.  Vote with your wallet. 

In many rural parts of America at least, many people may not have more than a single ISP to choose from. So the choice becomes either to support what that ISP chooses to censor, or go without internet at all.

[handymanshandle]

I like how some of you are commenting about American law and politics from countries that have less robust protections of the freedom of speech.

Hand in hand with capitalism, if a ISP blocks a certain site because it doesn't agree with it politically. Then you can choose not to do business with that ISP.

I get in some areas selection may be limited, but usually there's never just one ISP in an area.

[Robert Morgan]

Um, no. We have cable, we have satellite, we still have dial up. Once can connect easily with any number of ISPs. Its only those in very strange, isolated locations like rural Alaska or parts of Hawaii who are truly stuck with just one, perhaps two, options. Anyplace with a phone line or a sat dish likely has access to oodles of ISPs.  

Quote

 

So the choice becomes either to support what that ISP chooses to censor, or go without internet at all.

 

Our Founders chose to go without tea, sugar, molasses, salt, and any number of necessary for life commodities in order to secure freedom of speech and other liberties in the days leading up to the Revolution. Read up on the Sugar Act. Sugar was used to helped preserve meat, as well as its usual work as a sweetener and other uses. Sweet alcoholic beverages like rum were also drunk regularly, sometimes for breakfast, since the water couldn't be trusted. By taxing sugar and related items, the British parliament went directly at the lifeblood, the health of the colonists. Guess what happened? The colonists boycotted, choosing to forego that which in many cases was needed for survival, negatively affected the crown in the pocket book and eventually getting the offensive taxes removed. They would say that doing without internet for a time to change the noxious behavior would be but a small price to pay in the name of liberty. I guess we've gotten soft since those days. 

 

 

[handymanshandle]

21 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

Dont forget the incredible choice of ISPs many US citizens have avavible to them!

/s

eh We don't have a ton of major ISPs but there are a lot of regional ISPs here.

[Jtalk4456]

for all those saying "but there ARE choices in most places" You aren't looking at the broader picture. In my area, I have time warner or att (windstream)

TWC (now spectrum) offers up to 300 mbps

windstream in my area gets up to 25 mbps

So saying I have a choice of isp's means nothing to me. If I want FAST internet, I have ONE choice. 

If I don't want a stupid dish on my roof that loses signal in a rain storm, I have ONE choice. having a good product from a bad company or a bad product from a not quite as bad but still bad company, that's not true choice. Either way I go there's bad crap.

[descendency]

On 7/11/2018 at 6:20 AM, Amazonsucks said:

Most of the hapless techno weenie millennials have zero clue how the internet, programming, hardware, electronics in general WORK. They may know how to use them, but no clue how to design, build or make something that they consume and dispose of into the heap of e-waste they create with their vacuous consumerism.

 

Old people arent the only clueless ones. MOST people are clueless.

I would argue that some old people think that people do not have a right to the internet because they think of how they survived without it. Young people understand (without understanding the mechanisms) that it is a necessary part of life. Jobs are applied for on the internet, for example. 20 years ago, this wasn't true. 

[Robert Morgan]

It isn't a question of a right. And I'm 51 but young at heart! Its an issue of using your market power to force change. The truth is, while we like to say that we "need" the internet, in the vast majority of cases we use it for convenience. We use sites like this one because its faster and more convenient that reading a computer magazine or picking the brains of a Geek Squad kid at the local Best buy.We buy our airline tickets online because its faster and more convenient that spending 15 minutes on the phone with the airline reservation desk.  And yes, jobs can usually still be applied for in person but its admittedly more convenient to do so from the comfort of one's living room. But, do we really "need" the internet or does it simply makes things easier and more expedient? You see, that's the thing and to go down the "some old people" road that is something that older people understand. My  generation still understands that the internet can be deemphasized or even not used in some situations. We can survive without it, and if boycotting it what it takes to make ISPs change their behaviors, then so be it. We can do without. . 

.

[CyanideInsanity]

43 minutes ago, Robert Morgan said:

Guys, ISPs absolutely can censor on their sites. Why? Because they are their sites. In the USA, the First Amendment protects against the government abridging free speech. However, ISPs aren't the government, and while I oppose restrictions on speech and am in favor of net neutrality since the ISPs aren't the government they can absolutely censor or block certain sites and content. Its like your home, You can censor the guests who visit you by kicking them out of your garden party if you disagree with them. That may make you a jerk, but it is your property and you can censor on your property, absent government involvement. ISPs are the same. Actually reading what the First Amendment says might help: 

 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

"Congress shall make no law," is really the key to it all. Judge Kavanaugh isn't a loon. He's simply stating what the long settled law is. Heck, Fox censors lefties and MSNBC and CNN censor righties. All are private news sources and being private, they can do it since Congress had made no law telling them to. Its their choice to do so, or not at all. Some of the hysteria I'm reading  here and elsewhere really indicates a lot of people with zero grasp of the actual Constitution and its application, especially the Bill of Rights. A number of people on this thread wouldn't have passed the high school US History and Gov't classes that I teach, not even close. C'mon folks, drop the hysteria and fearmongering about Kavanaugh and read the Constitution. 

 

Okay, I'm done. Back to grading summer school papers. Some of them might even pass! 

Sure, on paper. But what about their competition? Blocking access to other ISPs' websites, or ads, or services that show whats available in your area, or netflix and youtube, or voip programs? The ISPs that are the issue are not internet service providers. They are ISPs, video service providers(television), and voice service providers(phone).

 

I can understand believing everyone should play fair, but they have shown time and time again that they have no desire to. From taking money offered by the government to expand service and putting that into their pockets, to buying competition and getting in the way of competition on the internet, video, and communication fronts. I have no belief that using a different provider will actually make a difference and that will be nothing more than a slap on the wrist. If enough consumers left, they just do what they always do and still find a way to give us worse service.

[handymanshandle]

9 minutes ago, Robert Morgan said:

It isn't a question of a right. And I'm 51 but young at heart! Its an issue of using your market power to force change. The truth is, while we like to say that we "need" the internet, in the vast majority of cases we use it for convenience. We use sites like this one because its faster and more convenient that reading a computer magazine or picking the brains of a Geek Squad kid at the local Best buy.We buy our airline tickets online because its faster and more convenient that spending 15 minutes on the phone with the airline reservation desk.  And yes, jobs can usually still be applied for in person but its admittedly more convenient to do so from the comfort of one's living room. But, do we really "need" the internet or does it simply makes things easier and more expedient? You see, that's the thing and to go down the "some old people" road that is something that older people understand. My  generation still understands that the internet can be deemphasized or even not used in some situations. We can survive without it, and if boycotting it what it takes to make ISPs change their behaviors, then so be it. We can do without. . 

.

Even as a kid born in early 2000, exactly.
Yeah I grew up in an age where internet was way more common than it was a few years before I was born. But still even then it was still different than has been in the last 10 years or so.

It's importance and utility has grown since the early/mid 2000s but regardless the fact hasn't changed.

 

BUT it's not required for survival. Too many people my age think they need it to survive. But honestly I see myself getting to a point where I wouldn't need the internet as much as I do now.

 

You need gas and electricity, but you don't need DSL or Cable internet.

[Robert Morgan]

Quote

Sure, on paper.

No, in reality. What I quoted was basic constitutional law 101. Regardless of your definition of what an ISP is, the remedy is the same.  

[jefire411]

On 7/11/2018 at 6:01 AM, Stefan Payne said:

What do you expect?!
He's old, 50+.

And with that he doesn't understand technology.

You have to be someone who grow up with the Internet to understand it. Youc can't just learn it.

 

ANd that means born in the 80s because the Internet rose in the late 90s and really came to fruitition in the mid 2000s. Its a brand new phenomena!

 

 

How can you expect a 50+ person to understand something that grew like mushrooms in the last two decades???

Looks like he's just looking what to screw up so it looks like he's doing his job....

[jefire411]

1 hour ago, GoldenLag said:

Dont forget the incredible choice of ISPs many US citizens have avavible to them!

/s

Satellite internet here I come!

[Unhelpful]

1 hour ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

I like how some of you are commenting about American law and politics from countries that have less robust protections of the freedom of speech.

Hand in hand with capitalism, if a ISP blocks a certain site because it doesn't agree with it politically. Then you can choose not to do business with that ISP.

I get in some areas selection may be limited, but usually there's never just one ISP in an area.

1. Not being in the country does not and SHOULD NOT prevent people from commenting. Many people here have valid points. That's just silly gatekeeping.

2. You're forgetting that you're just straight fucked if all available ISPs in your area do this. Which isn't hard since most areas have 2 ISPs.

3. I'm from and in the U.S., so don't misconstrue 1. 

[Robert Morgan]

That actually happened to a teacher at my school, believe it or not. The semester after 9/11, her students wondered how an atomic bomb went boom (they were learning about Hiroshima) so they googled it. Nothing fancy, no hacking just google. They immediately were presented with a government warning page that their activities were being monitored. A week later, the nice gub'mnt men showed up in the principal's office asking to interview the teacher. Talk about weird and bizarre. Big  brother is watching.  

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, jefire411 said:

Satellite internet here I come!

Aargh, go away. That's just awful.

I had it at one time. ISDN up and Sttelite Down IIRC and the Latency was awful, even for sufring the Internets. It took about half a second or a whole to load the page...

 

And to make matters worse, its a shared service. So you have to share the bandwith of the channel with all people using this service. And because most people have 9-5 Jobs, you can guess how its working at prime time...

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, JoeyDM said:

2. You're forgetting that you're just straight fucked if all available ISPs in your area do this. Which isn't hard since most areas have 2 ISPs.

I don't even have that. I have one and not a choice to go for a different one. And I don't live in the US.

 

You have to look at the past to see why that is the case. And that is because in the past there were monopolys in the telecom market, it was heavily regulated. Louis Rossmann mentioned something about telecomnunication laws from the 1930s that were the cause of this shit.

 

Here were I live the big one is an ex gouvernment agency that got privatized. Of course that's a monopoly when you have like 95 years headstart in Telecomunication...