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Three days. Three days. THREE DAYS.

On the 26th, the FCC is going to vote on Net Neutrality. While there's a decent shot that this will be a victory for the Internet, we still have to do everything we can. Go to the site above and call your senators right fucking now. Also, maybe consider getting rid of cable.

Maybe we should just have a Jimmy politics/rant thread.

Maybe we should. But this is bigger than me. This is for the entire Internet.

maybe those damn petition people will stop emailing me now,

remember kids, always make sure to uncheck the right box.

This is actually more important than it might seem. Popular internet companies are already price gouging their customers: super-fast internet could become a reality if internet-providers wanted it to, but they seem to prefer to make their customers pay more and more for faster internet which they could easily be providing anyways. Just take at&t for example, which, for me at least, is slow as shit and goes out for long periods of time at least once a week. And yet they're still ome of the most popular providers out there.
If net neutrality gets shot down, it's just gonna make stuff like this a lot worse. So do us all a favor and sign the damn thing; it only takes like two seconds and future petitions like this one (along with nearly everything else online) might take a lot longer if this doesn't get passed.

The FCC has already announced their support for net neutrality, so this vote doesn't mean much anymore.

super-fast internet could become a reality if internet-providers wanted it to, but they seem to prefer to make their customers pay more and more for faster internet which they could easily be providing anyways.

Net neutrality would not prevent this. Net neutrality is the proposal to treat data packets equally, so an ISP like Comcast wouldn't be able to create a separate charge for a website like YouTube or Netflix. An ISP would still be allowed to charge you however much they want to provide internet service as long as you are willing to pay.

The FCC chairman has come out in public support, but not all the voting commissioners do. It is still very important to show your support if you care, up to the last moment. We can't afford to half-ass it at the end.

As far as price gouging goes, you're right, net neutrality would not force companies to suddenly stop charging however much they want for their service. In fact, everything would stay as it is now. That's the point, to stop things from changing for the worse. It's to stop them from gouging you differently for different things; to stop them from charging extra exclusively for this or that website or this or that data type; to stop them from offering priority to sites and services that are willing to pay out the nose for it over their competitors. I assume you know this, Taryn. I'm just reiterating for those who might read your post and be confused.

Basically, Net Neutrality is a good thing we've had for a long time up until a year(?) ago (thanks, Verizon), and now we need to scramble mad to get it back before we are made to suffer for its loss.

Bump. We're under sixteen hours away from the ruling.

Oh, and Facebook Republicans are saying that because of net neutrality, "its only a matter of time before they sensor the whole internet". And of course find a way to shoehorn Obama into that statement.

>mfw that argument

Its happening!

AND IT'S SWEEEEEET, SWEET, SWEET VICTORYYYYY, YEAH

It happened! #WeWonTheInternet

^Actually, I'm pretty sure Sprint didn't care about this whole thing. T-Mobile was outright in support of Net Neutrality.

Earlier today, the FCC voted to protect a free and open internet -- the kind of internet that allows entrepreneurs to thrive and debates over duck-sized horses and horse-sized ducks to persist.
This would not have happened without the activism and engagement of millions of Americans like you. And that was a direct result of communities like reddit.
So to all the redditors who participated in this movement, I have a simple message: Thank you.
--President Barack Obama

/pol/ is angry

The arguments in there are so fucking bad that they could only come from people who are completely sincere.
If the government wanted to heavily regulate the internet and throw dissenters into prison so badly, than why would they have to vote to tell themselves that… they… could?

>implying /pol/ isn't always angry

Holy shit theres this divide on tumblr and probably the rest of the internet that this ruling is a bad thing. That it means the eventual end of the internet via taxes and censorship and regulation. Thoughts?

>mfw the tables have turned

YES! YES! SPLIT IT WIDE OPEN!

Calm down. Those people are paranoid morons. If that DID happen, basically everyone in Congress would be impeached for violation of the first amendment.