Now that Net Neutrality is finished in the US, the UK is trying to do the same here!

Soldato
Joined
25 Jul 2010
Posts
5,342
Location
A house
While the debate over net neutrality continues to rage in the United States, the British government is planning to block European Union legislation on the matter.

It’s a surprising turn of events. Just last month, the European Parliament voted to place the principles of net neutrality into law. However, before it becomes law throughout Europe, each member country must also pass the legislation. On Thursday, the British government indicated it may veto it instead.

At issue is a new provision that critics argue would restrict the British government’s “ability to block illegal material.” The amendment made it so that only a court order would allow for the banning of content, and not a legislative provision, as originally proposed, according to RT.

“We do not support any proposals that mean we cannot enforce our laws, including blocking child abuse images,” a government spokesperson told BuzzFeed.

In 2010, when the current government came into office, Ed Vaizey, the minister for culture, communications and creative industries, stated he would support “two speed internet,” which sparked intense debate about net neutrality. Remarking after the European legislation passed recently, Vaizey waded into the debate again, claiming the British government “will not agree to any proposals that restrict the ability of parents to protect their children from inappropriate content on line.”

Vaizey went on to state he was “confident that this was not the intention of the European Parliament.” The British is government is reportedly working with other EU member states and others to develop a workable solution for a free and more secure Internet.

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/net-neutrality-uk-eu-veto/

http://rt.com/news/159108-uk-block-net-neutrality/

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jonstone/uk-government-willing-to-block-eu-net-neutrality-deal

I know most of you don't give a damn about the things going on around you, just as long as you can afford your comforts. But i hope this rustles your jimmies.
 
In laymans terms, wtf is going on?

(I think) Net neutrality means that ISPs treat all traffic and data equally, so no matter what site you browse, or what you do, your internet traffic is the treated equally to everyone else's and they don't charge you extra money for the privilege of having faster download speeds on a specific service.

With it being overruled, ISPs can start charging extra for certain packages, and these packages would give the user preferential traffic than other people. For example, BT may introduce a "gamer package", which would mean in online games, the person who has that package would have their traffic in a "fast lane" so to speak, which would result in a lower ping. Or they may have a "Streaming package", so videos on Youtube, Twitch etc load faster.
 
I'm completely against this as from what I understand it will pass on to businesses as well. I don't know exactly how much it will cost but the small developers will have a hard time footing the bill. Could kill some Internet startups before they even get going.

Edit: is there a petition to jump on board yet?
 
The Netflix example is a bit of a red herring since the recent episode of them kicking off about net neutrality was when they were massively violating peering agreements and tried to cheap out by using L3 instead of edge caches. The slowdowns weren't artificially created by the ISPs at the consumption end.

It's quite amusing in a depressing way that the govt. response to any discussion about the internet is "THINK OF THE CHILDREN! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" though.
 
Last edited:
The internet is not theirs to control. If they fail to understand that the content and with it traffic will quickly move outside of immediately controllable boundaries. But if it were (governments to control), I would oppose any notion that requires internet to be controlled for children, rather than children controlled from the internet.
 
It is almost inevitable that Governments will want to retain the right to have control. Imo, it would be naive to imagine otherwise. The only question is whether it would be used overtly.
 
Caged said:
The Netflix example is a bit of a red herring since the recent episode of them kicking off about net neutrality was when they were massively violating peering agreements and tried to cheap out by using L3 instead of edge caches. The slowdowns weren't artificially created by the ISPs at the consumption end.
Other way around. Traffic only goes up to Level 3 when utilisation gets bad on direct peering. Traffic going to Level 3 is significantly more expensive for Netflix than a direct peer. The lack of direct peering is a result of a totally artificial creation of scarcity by bullying US ISPs who want to triple-dip payment on traffic coming from content providers, NSPs and customers.

Level 3 themselves have called the big US ISP's out on their deliberate sabotage of their networks: http://bgr.com/2014/05/06/comcast-internet-service-criticism-twc-cablevision-level-3/

This is nothing but price gouging and is a direct attack on the free and open architecture of the internet.

sigma said:
Interested to see what people's views are about this and staying in the EU.
The EU's handling of the spying scandal and positive stance towards free and liberal governance is the main reason I'm voting pro-EU (Green). Net neutrality is what built the internet, any move away from that is akin to tariffs something the UK is supposed to be ideologically against. Our own government have been shown to be nothing but a bunch of self serving scumbags in both cases.
 
Last edited:
L3 are calling it out because they are a terrible provider and couldn't provide the capacity that Netflix asked them to be able to provide.

A peering agreement is just that. When the traffic all flows one way and there's a ton of it then it's not peering any more.

We need to separate out the censorship argument from the traffic management one, because they are fundamentally different things.
 
Last edited:
It's quite amusing in a depressing way that the govt. response to any discussion about the internet is "THINK OF THE CHILDREN! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" though.


I must admit I wonder if it had any impact whatsoever on the pedofile "scene".

Real bored of the government offering up that line though :(
 
The anti liberty pro corporate stance of the lone British government doesn't surprise me at all they have no shame and know their voters vote on preconceived ideas rather than new info so this lack of concern for the voters will have no impact.
 
Funny how the government are pro-EU and condemning UKIP et al, yet are trying to veto all the decent EU legislation. Hypocrites.
 
Inevitability but reasons like this are why we need to stay involved in the EU to protect us from our own government
 
Back
Top Bottom