Who's trying to break the internet today?

[Pocket]

It would be interesting to know how, exactly, things would be improved with the new rules in place. Not to say net neutrality isn't something worth enshrining into law, but I remember just how panicked everyone was the last time this came up, saying that the internet was going to become like cable where you have to pay more to get access to all of it, and the cheapest tiers will only let you onto the most popular sites.

And then of course that didn't happen. Probably because people would notice their favorite websites suddenly getting blocked and immediately start rioting in the streets and hurling bricks. In fact, the only thing I've seen change that would have been illegal under the old net neutrality rules is that a lot of ISPs offer free or below-retail-price access to certain streaming services.

 

[Ungnome]

Eh the whole pay for access to certain sites was always a worst case scenario. Granted ISPs would LOVE to be able to do that, but the PR nightmare that would result keeps them from doing it. The reality is they abuse the lack of net neutrality in a more subtle way. Comcast likes to throttle certain sites, while allowing others full bandwidth. Say you get full bandwidth on Peacock, allowing you to watch 4k HDR content while Netflix is throttled to the point that you can effectively only watch content in 1080p. Comcast could, in theory , leverage that to either get more people on their network to sign up for Peacock or charge Netflix to eliminate the throttleing.

 

[Pocket]

In theory, they could; in practice, that would probably already be illegal under antitrust laws. And while, yes, our government has a history of not bothering to enforce those, I don't know why they'd be any more inclined to enforce net neutrality if they brought it back.

I feel like this is kind of like the issue of lootboxes in video games; in the time it took a handful of governments to start thinking about regulating or banning them, the industry mostly moved on to finding new ways to fleece customers that are harder to regulate. They're inventing new ways to be evil faster than we can stop them, even if 90% of our government weren't being bribed to look the other way.

 

[Cybersnark]

The Internet Is About to Get a Lot Worse

We've all watched in horror as red states have banned books in schools and libraries. We've seen teachers fired merely for reading a book about gender...

buttondown.email

A new bill called the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, is sailing towards passage in the Senate with bipartisan support. Among other things, this bill would give the attorney general of every state, including red states, the right to sue Internet platforms if they allow any content that is deemed harmful to minors. This clause is so vaguely defined that attorneys general can absolutely claim that queer content violates it — and they don't even need to win these lawsuits in order to prevail. They might not even need to file a lawsuit, in fact. The mere threat of an expensive, grueling legal battle will be enough to make almost every Internet platform begin to scrub anything related to queer people.

[. . .]

In other words, the attorney general of Texas, Florida, Alabama or Tennessee has basically free reign to sue, or threaten a lawsuit, any time they can claim something on the internet is bad for kids. And there's no evidence required — the AGs simply need to have "reason to believe" something is harmful.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Okay, so my first and immediate thought was "This is very, very bad". Like, welcome to the age of the great firewall of china in the US, BAD!

Then I took a deep breath, had a little realization, and now I'm not worried about it.

Because it's so vaguely written, a WHOLE LOT of porn is going to get caught up in this. And every time the individual states have tried to hug with the porn industry in the last half century: the porn won.

 

[Rhinox]

Yeah. They'll start with porn because it's the easy, low hanging fruit.
There's money there and more than enough to keep every AG drowning in billable hours. They won't have time to get to what they really want.

 

[Plutoniumboss]

Not just porn, but the news media. There are lots of news articles about subjects "unsafe for minors". Between those two industries, the amount of money against this is immense.

 

[wonko the sane?]

The more I think about it: the more I think this is nothing but a distraction and doomed to failure because the scale of this and the sheer volume of money is will cost to the mega rich is ludicrous. It's just the republican book bans on stupid amounts of steroids, and will affect a lot of peoples ability to make money... like rupert murdoch.

 

[Dekafox]

Well the UK is the first "major" Western nation to pass one of the "scan everything" and "age verificaiton on every service" bills into law.

The UK’s Controversial Online Safety Act Is Now Law

The UK government says its Online Safety Act will protect people, particularly children, on the internet. Critics say it’s ineffective against dangerous misinformation and may be a threat to privacy.

www.wired.co.uk

Currently they're giving leeway for companies to explain how they balance "safety" vs privacy in regards to their encryption but letter of the law, combined with a investigation-based law basically gives their intelligence apparatus access to -everything- if they want to start enforcing it that way. The age verification thing is going to be interesting too, because if it's any more stringent than the existing "click here to say you're over 18", it's going to lead to a lot more identity theft since the APTs can just look for the website that has the weakest security and collects that info. Wikipedia, the 8th most visited UK site, has already said they won't be able to comply, apparently, per the article.

 

[wonko the sane?]

The problem with regional politics in an international world: you can move the digital infrastructure to where-ever is most convinient for the owner. Sites hosted outside the UK are not bound so thoroughly to UK law.

Sure, the UK could say "abide or be blocked" but then the government becomes the bad guy, and most western governments aren't far enough along the fascist footpath yet to openly make that statement.

 

[NovaSaber]

I think someone found it; the exact point at which the internet started going downhill.

 

[Dekafox]

There's also a difference between Real Name and Legal Name. If everyone you have regular contact with uses your online handle outside of legal venues(and you could potentially include work here because professional conduct) what's to say it's not your Real Name?

Just don't go telling it to fae or you might find out the hard way.

And if we want to talk about previous internet breakage, there's also this video I saw recently which puts forward some thoughts on why forums are awesome compared to the modern alternatives:

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I want to go back to the old internet. With all the dumb popups we're putting up with nowadays we have nothing to lose anymore.

 

[Ungnome]

Bring back Geocities....The web was more interesting when it wasn't dominated by a handful of social media sites.

 

[Anonymous X]

The internet was best when it was mostly the domain of hobbyists and academics. Or really, when it was a balance of the amateurs and the nerds with the more business/corporate side – there was a nice sweet spot when the internet was “useful enough” (online retail existed, and you could get your news online, but it wasn’t the only option you had because the internet hadn’t killed off regular retail and print media), but didn’t constantly creep over inescapably into your offline life.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

Bring back Geocities....The web was more interesting when it wasn't dominated by a handful of social media sites.

Hell, more than a few of my cohort are nostalgic for the days when one could craft and display one's thoughts (if one so chose, curated for access) into a multi-paragraph journal, rather than the "blipverts" to which Xitter, Tiktok or a good chunk of The Book Of Faces have become hosts....

 

[Anonymous X]

I’m sure that won’t be completely unenforceable!!!

 

[Steevy Maximus]

In response to legislation in several states, Pornhub is blocking access to their site in protest. The protest stems from unreasonable and problematic requirements states are trying to enforce on adult sites, including accessing personal ID information. Currently, five states are cut off from the site, but, as Aylo (the parent company) stated, these legislative efforts are largely ineffective in combating the issue as users can use things like a VPN or one the many (MANY) other sites which opt to ignore laws, with likely less moderation of content.

Pornhub Block Expands to Alabama: How to Watch Anyway

To protest age-verification laws, Pornhub blocks access in Alabama, following North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and more. VPNs can help you get around that.

www.pcmag.com

 

[Dekafox]

It's not just Pornhub, either. I saw an article for North Carolina's law listing 3 or 4 other services, and a certain MSG-named furry site also blocked NC until they could sit down with legal and work out if they even can comply without violating EU rules(or if it's even possible for them tech-wise to comply, I assume).

 

[NovaSaber]

Nothing good can come of this:

Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids under 16

A Florida bill that would prohibit kids under 16 from signing up for most social media platforms has passed the state House of Representatives.

abcnews.go.com