Net Neutrality Emergency!!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!

I understand that this is not related to Flightsim.com in any way, but this is something which needs as much support as it can get. Because in three weeks time, Flightsim.com, and many other flight simulation communities may very well cease to exist. In addition, freeware repositories, like AVSIM or Flightsim.com, may simply vanish for good as now everyone will be censored from what their ISP (Internet Service Provider) providers deem acceptable. So for example, if you don't make enough money to satisfy your ISP, then you will be permanently censored form that content without a say in the decision.

You can make a difference also, we cannot let ISP’s choose what is free to see online, and what not.

Trainx3

Link to the main petition on Change.org:

http://www.change.org/p/save-net-neutrality-netneutrality?source_location=discover_feed

Link to the Battle for the Net website:

http://www.battleforthenet.com/

Please, do not let them take our internet freedom away from not only the US, but eventually the entire world as we know it.

A call to action,

Trainx3

for the Flightsim.com developers if they would like to use in the fight for freedom on the internet:

https://github.com/fightforthefuture/battleforthenet-widget

Petitions are a nice effort but hardly effective. Raise hell with your senators and congressmen instead. Write AND call their offices.

The upcoming network neutrality rules change will be challenged in the courts, that's a given. But whether it will make any difference, well ...

Gee, I wonder if my ISP will demand a new fee when they monitor my flightsim downloading activity? :mad: After all, "monetizing" the Internet in new ways and making ISPs/telecoms attractive to investors, boost those profits and shareholder value, that's what it's all about, right?

From The Washington Post, 11-22-2017:

For instance, if companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon decide to block a particular app, throttle data speeds for a rival service or offer faster speeds to companies who pay for it, they merely need to disclose their policies for doing so.

The FCC also says it will pre-empt state rules on privacy and net neutrality that contradict its approach.

Ad Age summed it up very well, too:

... If you're a normal person and you want access to the internet, get ready for all kinds of airline industry-style charges. You'll either accept a slower connection or pay extra for going over a threshold on your unlimited data plan. In practice, you're likely to get amazing speed and service for video content you don't care about and terrible service while trying to use the things you really want. The solution … pay more.

The worst thing about dropping Net Neutrality is that every ISP will have the right to block any website they wish (this occurs in many countries where internet access is at the whim of the government). Wherever you live, think of who are the "powers that be" in your community, the people who always get their way; now think if they get to decide what websites you may and may not visit.

This is "book burning" coming to the internet.

Far worse than the "powers that be" in your community are the big, often multinational corporations that will be tempted to enforce "corporate culture" values via ISP policies, throttling, blocking.

Proponents of the change claim that Verizon, AT&T, etc., won't dare impose blocks and throttled-down bandwidth, but history shows that's not true. AT&T blocked Skype and other Internet calling apps until 2009. Verizon was fingered for slowing YouTube and Netflix in the past. And the idea that they'll be on good behavior to not anger customers is daft. Since when did Comcast or AT&T management ever give a flip about how much they are already hated by their customers?

It's significant, too, that during recent testimony the new head of the FCC failed to mention even once that over 20 million negative comments were received during the public commentary period.

You can see it coming. Proponents will rant about changing the Internet into a "free market" when it really means that the ISPs and telecoms just want to be free to do anything to customers, because nobody will be able to do anything about it ... not for the short term, anyway. Communities that have only one Internet service provider will have it the worst, and that's very common in the USA.

From freepress.net:

In the absence of any rules, violations of the open internet will become more and more common.

"Far worse than the "powers that be" in your community are the big, often multinational corporations that will be tempted to enforce "corporate culture" values via ISP policies, throttling, blocking."

That was my reference. Every special interest group in the country will be lobbying to block something.

At the very least I foresee reverting to AOL style billing - $15/month for 25 hours, $3/hr over that, this group of sites is $10/month extra, that group is $4.95/hr extra. Or cell phone style billing - $25/month, $1/hr extra during these hours, $2/hr extra during those hours.

There is one quick, guaranteed, way to stop this, but it would never happen because we have a society of sheep - if Net Neutrality is dropped, tens of millions of people nationwide drop their internet service in protest. Money talks.

Lol...nothing will change.

That's the spirit! Let's all hope you are right ...

Well, apparently only five people get to vote on this issue regarding the FCC and net neutrality. I just saw over on Twitter that two out of the five are supposeldy voting to keep net neutrality. Which in turn means that if one more of them changes their mind and supports the other two, then at least for now, net neutrality will be ok. However, considering all the shenanigans that have gone on this year on Twitter, I wouldn't take this tweet seriously.

Link to the tweet:

Trainx3

If we we all want to help prevent this:

There your going to need this:

Backup link in case the first one doesn't work:

For those who flightsim sometimes in the A-10 Thunderbolt II/Warthog, the picture and the link above is comparable to the 30mm gun attached to the Warthog. It may do some damage, if you know what I mean. The more you shoot at the object with it, the less there is left of it once the battle is over. Share the links and pictures above like gasoline on fire.

(Now 100% sure that these email addresses are working as people are now seemingly machine gunning these exact email addresses in their tweets.)