us government: what could possibly happen when we remove net neutrality? yall worry too much.
verizon rubbing their greedy hands together: no one will be able to contest our actions
verizon:
Idijit Pie should be tried for treason for forcing this repeal the American people didn’t want while clearly doing it for his old company.
I just want to stress for people: Their bandwidth was throttled to 200-600 kbps. For simplicity’s sake we’ll average it to 400.
400 kbps is roughly 50 times slower than the US national average, and about 100-200 times slower than what the “unlimited” plan the fire department bought promised them.
That isn’t “Kind of inconvenient” throttling, it’s “borderline unusable for modern purposes” throttling, especially in a situation like this where quick, up-to-date responses are essential.
To be fair to Verizon, they have admitted they did wrong, and that they should have waived the cap and not throttled the data. The problem is that their mistake, in a situation like this, can get people killed. An apology and admission of wrongdoing don’t bring people back to life, and the fact a mistake like this can be made raises serious concerns about the competency of these newly-deregulated companies, concerns that would’ve be completely moot prior to the repeal.
This wasn’t a fucking mistake. They specifically claimed that if they were allowed to control what speeds different people got at different times, they would use that to divert more bandwidth toward emergency responders and crisis areas, and then they deliberately did the exact opposite of that because they knew they could get away with it and it would save them a couple bucks at the expense of human lives.
This is not an ‘oh whoops we got caught throttling a video streaming service that we compete with sorry we won’t do it again no really’ apology. This is ‘we cut off the communications of a group of people literally fighting for their lives in a blazing hellscape because lol what are you going to do about it we own your government’.
This is fucked but has nothing to do with the Trump admin doing away with Net Neutrality. The kind of throttling that Santa Clara experienced was not the kind of throttling that became legal after the FCC gutted Net Neutrality rules (which is throttling to favor certain Internet traffic). What happened here is what happens to every American with an unlimited data plan. The more data you use the more your download speeds are slowed down.
Bringing back Net Neutrality wouldn’t not have solved this, I repeat this would have happened with or without Net Neutrality. Verizon supposedly has a policy to not throttle emergency services, which didn’t happen. This is fucked but you have to advocate for regulations that will actually solve this problem.
“Verizon, to its point, was throttling “unlimited”
customers in less extreme circumstances who hit certain data thresholds
well before last year’s net neutrality repeal. The legal brief also says
the filers are not arguing that the throttling would necessarily have
been a violation of the previous net neutrality rules, which were passed
in 2015. Still, the filers of the brief do argue that the problem is
about net neutrality in a different sense.
The throttling may not have been a violation of the
previous rules, but the brief, also filed by attorneys general in 22
states, argues that the FCC failed to take public safety into account
when it passed its repeal. “That was part of the FCC’s original mandate:
it needs to be thinking about public safety in its rulemaking,” says
Santa Clara County counsel James Williams. As the FCC is required to
consider the interests of public safety, the FCC’s repeal is therefore
“arbitrary and capricious,” the brief argues.
The throttling, the filers say, also showed how service
providers will be willing to act in ways that benefit themselves
financially in the absence of regulations. “We should expect nothing
less than an ISP to act in its economic interest — that’s its job,”
Williams says. (Verizon said in its statement that its practice is to
not enforce slowdowns during emergencies and that it has removed similar
restrictions in other emergency situations.)
Others have pointed out that, under the previous rules,
customers had a path to complain to the FCC when they believed
throttling was unfair. In this case, that route was largely re-directed
to the FTC, a structure that’s been criticized as insufficient.
Gigi Sohn, who worked on the net neutrality rules under
the previous FCC chairman, argues that there is some question about
whether Verizon’s actions would have violated the 2015 rules. But,
regardless, she believes the repeal eliminated a route that would have
given them recourse to make an expedited case in front of the agency,
which could have resolved the dispute more quickly. Instead, Verizon and
the fire officials had a frantic, lengthy back-and-forth over email, an
exchange that appeared in the brief.
“If the net neutrality rules were still in place,” Sohn
says, “[t]rust me, I don’t think there would’ve been a monthlong
conversation about this.”
The amendment appears on a funding bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. If it remains in the final bill, the amendment would cut 15% of federal adoption funding to states and localities that penalize adoption agencies that refuse to place children in families that conflict with the agency’s “sincerely held religious beliefs or convictions.”
it hasn’t happened yet, so there’s still time to reach out to your representatives about it
also, i can guarantee you that no big media outlets are ever not bothering to cover huge stories that a lot of people care about
Were literally losing so much progress in such a short time. By 2020 americas gonna be using fucking stone tools
Muthamma lived with her husband in the forested and hilly tribal areas surrounding Coimbatore. About 20 years ago, she and her husband started working for a yoga ashram in the area as a daily labourer. Subsequently, she had three children – two sons, now 24 and 19 years old, and a daughter who is 20. They have also been working in the ashram since their childhood and continue to do so today, as does her husband. Muthamma says that those that get work sporadically earn between Rs 250 and Rs 300 daily, while those doing regular work earn about Rs 130-150 a day. Muthamma herself stopped working at the ashram when she joined one of 18 self-help groups (SHGs) set up by a local NGO about ten years ago. She remembers that when she left, she was earning Rs 15 a day.
As a member of the SHG, she along with her partners would go into the forests to collect medicinal and edible herbs and fruits like amla, shikakai, vadamanga (small mangoes used in pickle) and also different kinds of grass used to feed animals, thatch roofs and for medicine-production. The SHG collapsed after a few years when its members were told that they would have to ask for tenders to have access to the forest produce and this was beyond their means.
During this period, the ashram started fencing off the area and blocked their path into the forest. They went to the ashram authorities and begged them to leave a three-foot gap in the fence, but their request was curtly turned down, Muthamma said. As a result, they had to take a much longer route into the forest. This route continued to be used after the collapse of the SHGs, but even this came to an end when the authorities started preventing them from doing this ‘illegal’ work. The ashram stepped in and started using Muthamma and others like her to accompany its members into the forest to share their inherited knowledge of medicinal plants. Once this knowledge was transferred, they were abandoned and, since they were ‘illegal trespassers, it was the ashram members, armed with the traditional tribal knowledge that they had accessed in an underhand way, who were given access to the forest and its bounty.
Muthamma then had to resort to daily work on land and orchards in the area. She had a vague memory that during the Bhoodan movement, a big landlord of the area, Muthuswamy Gownder, had donated 44 acres of his land to 13 tribal families who worked for him. They had received ‘pattas’ for this land in 1988 but had never actually been given physical possession. Muthamma’s husband’s grandfather was one of the 13 to receive the patta. Illiteracy and grinding poverty not only prevented the tribals from physically taking possession of the land, it even erased the knowledge of having been given these pattas. The pieces of frayed paper in their possession became feeble reminders of old promises that had failed to translate into tangible realities.
In 2012, a fellow tribal took her to attend the Tamil Nadu State Conference of the Adivasi Rights Organisation in Tiruvanamalai. For Muthamma, the conference was a new and stirring experience. The slogans that were shouted enthusiastically and the stories of struggles that were shared made her feel that perhaps the frayed pieces of paper could be of some use. She asked a sympathetic delegate to write a letter to the presidium in her name in which she mentioned some of her problems and asked for help. The presidium members, in turn, introduced her to AIDWA members in Coimbatore and the district unit of the CPI(M).
Then started her struggle for the land that rightfully belonged to about 200 tribal families like her own. This struggle, however, exacted a heavy toll. Muthamma’s husband and children were still working for the ashram that was claiming this land as its own, that had already taken over hundreds of acres of land in the area. Fear of losing their jobs and fear of a very powerful enemy made them throw her out of her own home. She was forced to take shelter with the headman of her tribe and his family.
Along with the nearly 200 tribal families, Muthamma and their newly-found allies put in an RTI application and gained copies of the documents connected with the 44 acres of land. They then approached the district administration to allot the land to them for house sites, which they needed desperately.
Earlier this year, Muthamma along with other tribals and activists of AIDWA, Dalit organisations, CPI(M) and also environmentalists, staged a protest on the 44 acres of land. They carried flags of different colours in their hands and planted them on the land in a symbolic assertion of their rights. Meanwhile, the ashram administration had also started fencing this plot of land. The district administration then put a board in front of the land proclaiming that it was government land and that trespassers should keep away. The ashram in turn went to court and obtained a stay which prevents anyone from occupying the land.
The tribals are not alone in the struggle against the activities of the ashram. The Vellingiri Hill Tribal Protection Society filed a PIL in the Madras high court in March against the unauthorised structures that have been constructed on the wetlands at Ikkarai Poluvampatti by the ashram.
But the ashram has powerful friends. It is owned by the Isha Foundation headed by Jaggi Vasudev, who is now as much in the news as any of his fellow celebrity ‘holy men’. Just a few days before the March PIL was filed, the prime minister himself unveiled a 112-foot-high bust of the ‘Adi Yogi’ Shiva at the ashram – despite being requested by environmental activists not to be present at an occasion when a new violation of building norms was added to a long list of earlier violations. These include a violation of norms governing man-animal conflict areas. The Isha Foundation has been accused in an application pending before the southern bench of the National Green Tribunal of having disturbed the elephant corridor in the area. This has not only affected the elephants but has threatened the lives and property of poor villagers whose villages are now used as pathways by the elephants. The foundation has also received notices in the past from the administration about various structures that it has built without requisite permissions.
I sometimes fear that people might think that fascism arrives in fancy dress worn by grotesques and monsters as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis. Fascism arrives as your friend. It will restore your honour, make you feel proud, protect your house, give you a job, clean up the neighbourhood, remind you of how great you once were, clear out the venal and the corrupt, remove anything you feel is unlike you…It doesn’t walk in saying, ‘Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.’
This fucking site: hey net neutrality is about to die :((( please help us :(((( boost and rb everything you see even if you’re not American :((((((((( we’ll have no wifi :(((((( we need you!!!! :((((
Non-Americans: okay
Non-Americans: hey greece is basically on fire, 150 people are wounded, 53 are killed and our nature is being destroyed. we’re suspecting arson. can you please reblog some posts and help spread awareness?
This fucking site:
Allow me to elaborate on how bad things are here. 7 places are burning at the same time while in Μάτι and Κίνετα the fire not only burned trees but because off the strong winds(80 kilometes per hour) it burned houses, it burned people. Firefighters and volunteers do whatever they can with the little gear they have as always because why on earth would the goverment give money to firefighting vechiles, canadairs and literally anything else that could be useful in this country when we know that every summer someone wants to burn forests so they can build whatever they want. Anyways, people started running away once some firefighters managed to warn them to evacute ( something that others should have done because these people have to keep working so they can prevent the fore from doing anymore damage ). People started running to get to the beach which was their only hope, unfortunately some people with their families were trapped once the fire circurled the area around them leaving them with the only thing to do, wait for their end. Charred bodies were found locked in embrace the next day. Now the people who reached the beach had to wait there so they could be transferred from there to the port of Ραφήνα. Here’s a photo :
The deaths are officially at 79 by the most recent official announcement. Places like Mati, Kineta, Chania, Neos Boutsas and more are being burned to the core.
Minimum help is being given by neighboring countries. Officially 2 aircrafts from Italy and 2 from Cuprus whipe some are expected from Romania, Hungary, Spain.
There are abouy 31 people registred as missing in a web site while that doesnt mean those are all the people missing.
If you know people you know or suspect are missing call 199, the fire department.
If you are looking for someone missing don’t call hospitals, call 199, the fire department.
People got burned alive in their cars, in their homes.
Cars are literally melted by the fires.
The victims include children, thankfully the ones that survived are shocked, of course, but safe and in the hospital. The number of kids in the hospital ‘Παίδον’ (Pedon) in Athens is 11; 12 exited yesterday, and the kids left are expected to leave today.
The suspicion of the fires falls on arson. It something that Greece has suffered from a lot throughout the years. Yet we are never prepared for most of our problems whether it has to do with natural causes or not.
The situation is horrible. If you can’t help anyway else, reblog to spread awareness on the matter!
Honestly this is so much more helpful than my vent post (which I didn’t expect to blow up the way it did). If y’all are gonna boost something, boost this instead.
rebblogging AGAIN, because Greece, South Europe in general, needs help.
HEY YOU PEOPLE LOOK AT THIS AND SPREAD IT
Check the news. This is real. 83 are reported dead from one affected town – they were essentially trapped with no escape route. Arson, possibly by illegal construction companies, is suspected.
I know a lot of you guys don’t want to reblog those posts about the wildfires in Greece because they’re too long, so I figured I would make a shorter post for y’all.
Here is a link on how to help and what the current situations are, and here is a direct link to the fundraiser.
As someone who has personally been affected by fire, I would really appreciate if y’all could sb this??
If you’re like me, and you’d prefer to donate directly to the organization itself, and not go through some random, third party GoFundMe (?) here’s that link: https://www.desmos.org/donate/
Not only will the Trump Tax Cut end up being the most egregious transfer of wealth in history, it is far worse cost wise than the lowball numbers R’s came up with.
Plans to fly a giant inflatable figure depicting Donald Trump as a baby over London during the US president’s visit have been approved.
Mr Trump is due to meet Theresa May at 10 Downing Street next Friday.
Campaigners raised almost £18,000 for the helium-filled six-metre high figure, which they said reflects Mr Trump’s character as an “angry baby with a fragile ego and tiny hands”.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan gave permission for the balloon to fly.
The White House has been approached for comment.
On Twitter former UKIP leader Nigel Farage said the plan was “the biggest insult to a sitting US President ever”.
Leo Murray, who is behind the crowdfunded idea, said: “[Mr Trump] really seems to hate it when people make fun of him.
“So when he visits the UK on Friday, we want to make sure he knows that all of Britain is looking down on him and laughing at him.
“That’s why a group of us have chipped in and raised enough money to have a six-metre high blimp made by a professional inflatables company, to be flown in the skies over Parliament Square during Trump’s visit.”
A statement on behalf of the London mayor said he “supports the right to peaceful protest and understands that this can take many different forms”.
After meeting with the organisers of the Trump Baby, Mr Khan’s city operations team gave them permission to “use Parliament Square Garden as a grounding point for the blimp”.
Mr Khan and Mr Trump have repeatedly clashed on Twitter, including in the aftermath of the London Bridge attack.
Before the figure can take off, campaigners will also need permission from the National Air Traffic Service (NATS) as the project constitutes a “non-standard flight in controlled airspace”, a spokesperson said.
Because Parliament Square sits within restricted airspace, additional approvals are also needed from the Metropolitan Police.
Max Wakefield, who is one of the people working on the project, said the group is “confident it will obtain all necessary permits”.
He said the initial crowdfunding target was just £1,000, but this was reached within 24 hours.
The extra cash will now be used to send the balloon on a “world tour” and “haunt” Mr Trump wherever he goes, he added.
The Met has been approached for a comment.
Well, Himself is the biggest insult to the Presidency in living memory, so stuff it, Nigel Farage.
“The extra cash will now be used to send the balloon on a “world tour” and “haunt” Mr Trump wherever he goes, he added.”
THIS IS UTTERLY AMAZING
Gods bless the people who did this 😀
Chaotic Good
Anything that lets Trump know just how much every worthwhile person in the entire UK utterly DESPISES him and every disgusting thing he represents is a good thing indeed 😀
Cheloneuniverse 