1. I'm not a shill! I don't even like the government 99% of the time

2. Please watch the whole video before going totally bananas at me in the comments. This subject is a debate for a reason.

3. Please be willing to have an open mind about this subject. If, by the end, you decide that I'm wrong and should be gassed, whatever I guess. Express that if you want to. But please just take
my points into consideration before deciding that my opinion automatically makes me a disgrace for a human being.


Okay, so as some of you know, I do cyber security. That's my life and job and everything else in between. It's fun, it's cool, and it's what I love doing. As such, I have to know about
things like networks, how the internet works on a physical level, and (this is important) how business operate because when doing penetration testing, we're paid to infiltrate companies
at whatever level possible. Also, I got super into politics for a while, so that's good I guess? So, I've thought this problem out from the business to the technological to the political side of it
and I've come up with a conclusion. I've talked with experts in this industry and several others, and believe it or not, the debate ISN'T as one sided as they would have you believe. Instead of naming
the people I talked to, I'm going to talk about the arguments brought forth by both sides. And maybe, maybe, someone will see this and consider both sides of this mountainous argument.

Okay, good? Good.

Net neutrality is the concept that all data must be treated the same, no matter where it's from. In theory, this prevents internet service providers from forcing you to pay extra to access services
such as YouTube or Netflix, or even smaller websites that can't afford to pay ISPs to speed up their connection, thereby inhibiting competition.

Simple enough definition. Of course, it goes pretty deep, but that will suffice for this discussion. Now let's address some of the arguments.





1. "Net neutrality is going to totally take away power from the FCC and give it to ISPs to ruin your life."

Eliminating the influence of Title II does indeed remove the power of the FCC to regulate ISPs, but it means that the responsibility of doing such reverts back to the FTC, an entity significantly
more likely to instigate actual change in the monopoly structure of these service providers. The FCC is incredibly unlikely to make pro-consumer choices, and would have the authority to monitor
United States citizens under the guise of "promoting net neutrality," meaning that there would be another privacy nightmare akin to NSA spying. So not only would you have the tyrannical ISPs,
but you've suddenly added an abusive government entity to the mix, which results in double the anti-consumer measures. People have bought into this deal without reading the surrounding details
because of the FUD surrounding the term "net neutrality." And not only does the revocation of Title II remove the power of the FCC, it also stipulates that the FTC will look for ISPs promoting
anti-consumer measures, specifically referencing the throttling of consumer data as something that will be investigated and ultimately stopped by the FTC, if the need arises.



2. "The FTC isn't going to do anything to stop ISPs from slowing everything down!"

While I could argue that the risk of ISPs slowing or blocking certain activities under the FTC is a better deal than the shenanigans they attempt to pull under the FCC, I don't have to—they
specifically address this concern in the repeal:

"Section 1 of the Sherman Act bars contracts, combinations, or conspiracies in restraint of trade, making anticompetitive arrangements illegal. If ISPs reached agreements to unfairly block,
throttle, or discriminate against Internet conduct or applications, these agreements would be per se illegal under the antitrust laws.518"

If you want to read the two hundred page document, here you go: https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db1122/DOC-347927A1.pdf

This quote prevents ISPs from doing exactly what you're expressing concern over. If they attempt to discriminate against data and block it/slow it down based on the content type,
the FTC will invoke the restrictions outlined in the Sherman Act Antitrust Laws, Section 144, p.85.



3. "AHA! Got you, you corporate shill! That's way too open and has tons of loopholes for ISPs to get through. All they have to do is say their base connection speed is lower and then only speed up
companies that pay them. This would never pass in a contract!"

All net neutrality regulations in place can be argued the same way because it's an inherently non-linear kind of system. Unless the law is specifically written by network engineers with very precise
goals in mind, there will always be a way to slip through the cracks. That's why that provision wasn't written broad enough for the ISPs to slip through; rather, it was written broad enough for the
FTC to actually do their job. Laws aren't contracts—in courts, laws are upheld by the spirit rather than the letter; this is the government actually doing something they can anti-trust companies for
because the subjectivity allows the FTC to stop these things. Also, note that Pai is the chairman of the FCC. He's giving up the influence he has over the internet to another organization he has no control over.

Remember that this argument is about the government sticking its hand into businesses, and I think a lot of us can agree that whenever the government gets involved in economic affairs, it makes things worse.
We need to roll back the governmental regulations to the point that there can be actual competition, and between the FCC and the FTC, only one of those is a trust-buster. Don't believe me? Here's the first page
of Google whenever you search up "FCC trust bust" and here's the first page of Google whenever you search up "FTC trust bust." I think the difference should be pretty clear.



4. "But you mentioned Pai! I don't like Pai!"

Do you know anything about the guy himself? he worked for Verizon, but beyond that, does that really matter since all that's in question is this current policy?
Pai is the chairman of the FCC and will be giving up his influence over the state of the net by eliminating Title II. While the FCC has more expansive power than the FTC,
I personally believe that to be a negative impact, as the more influence the government has over the internet, the worse regulation and privacy issues will become.
While the FTC may have a smaller scope, they have a much better track record of legitimate consumer protection, while the FCC is more likely to collude with the ISPs to
make the situation worse for everyone. If the FTC does its job as outlined by the provisions under this agreement, they will allow "fast lanes" (e.g. a doctor doing a remote
surgery can get a faster data connection than someone browsing Twitter), but will stop the implementation of "slow lanes." While the difference is minute, it does have significant
impact—of course, you do have to trust the FTC to actually bother differentiating between the two, but in either scenario, be it the FTC or the FCC, we're being forced to trust the government to do its job.



5. "The internet got better when Net Neutrality went into effect!"

This decision rolls back internet regulations to 2015. Did you notice all that many super positive changes in 2016 onward? Not all that much was different. Besides, have you seen the ISP conglomeration
bonanza the past several years Title II has been in effect? AT&T is attempting to merge with Time Warner, of all companies, and the FCC doesn't care. All they care about is spying on American citizens
and with them in charge, they won't attack ISPs. You only end up burning the candle on both ends because this deal allows the government to enter and throw in their own special spice of regulation. The
ISP monopoly problem was created by the government, and you don't fix a problem caused by governmental influence with more governmental influence. The FTC is more limited when it comes to hurting consumers
through government means and they have a much better track record for actually stopping big business from going out of control.

PLUS, companies didn't even have to actually abide by Net Neutrality back then, as long as they tell you somewhere in their terms of service. To quote the judge who upheld the order,
“The Order…specifies that an ISP remains ‘free to offer ‘edited’ services’ without becoming subject to the rule’s requirements.” So in reality, we're taking government control away before it could get serious.
And I'm going to reiterate one thing that I find the most important:
ONCE GOVERNMENT TAKES CONTROL OF AN INDUSTRY OR MARKET, IT NEVER LETS IT GO.
This is the ultimate opportunity to roll back the big hand of government from the internet and keep it free for the foreseeable future. And to be honest, I'd 100% much rather ISPs abuse their power for a little
while only to get broken up or reeled back than I would the government step in to make things nice and pleasant now with full ability to ruin the internet for everyone at any point in time. Because we all know
they will. It's government.


6. "Then what do we need to do? It sounds like it's a lose-lose."

It's not a lose-lose, not by far. The FTC now has the power to go after this ISP oligarchy and start breaking up the trusts like they did to the Bell System back in 1982. We start to get a lot of smaller companies,
introduce competition, reduce prices, and increase internet speeds. The regulations that allowed these mega-corporations to be born in the first place need to be rolled back so that any service provider can
hop on and provide consumers access to internet. We really don't need the government involved when the free market will handle it. And before you say it, correct, the market is not currently free. It's monopolized.
Many people have one provider that can charge through the roof. But we have the unique opportunity to be a part of the resistance to this and finally start to push back on these ISP giants until we can finally get
a market with competition, providers, and cheap internet for everyone.


In conclusion,
People need to actually read the proposal. There's so much fear, uncertainty, and doubt around now, nobody is bothering to discern truth from fiction—the repeal of Title II not only prevents the FCC from taking over,
but it even has a provision that states that the FTC will take measures against ISP throttling if the situation occurs. But there's some sort of disinformation campaign going around, intentional or not,
that presents the issue as if it were the government deciding to take away the internet from its citizens, when that's not anywhere close to the case. Not only that, but there are big names supporting this campaign
(cough I'm looking at you Google Facebook Amazon Twitter Yahoo Microsoft Reddit Etcetera cough). Do you really think that these mega-corporations, bigger than the ISPs themselves, have your best interests in mind as
a consumer? No! They're worse than the ISPs! And not only that, but you have huge "tech" YouTubers doing nothing but bombarding YouTube with pro-net neutrality videos all the time without ever addressing the arguments
for and against it. You have some who people look up to as kings of tech and instead of addressing the issue as an actual technological change, they present it as a Sarah McLachlan abused animals video and shout to the
heavens with requests that you go and "save the net!" it's ridiculous—they've turned something actually technological into an emotional argument because they've bought into the dish these mega-corporations are serving.
I'm not saying you can't have an informed opinion and be for net neutrality. That's fine! But don't mindlessly support or reject it without giving it some thought. The problem is that some of these YouTubers that are
heralded as "the kings of tech" are stating their opinion as if it were the end of the world, which trickles down into those who know a little less but trust their opinion, which trickles down to those who don't know much
about technology but are terrified of losing their Netflix, and the FUD starts spreading like no other. Now this isn't me saying that some of these tech YouTubers aren't smart. They definitely are, but this is outside of
their field, and it doesn't appear that they desire to construct an informed opinion regarding both sides of the argument. Or if they do, they don't want to show that to their viewers, which is tragic. Try asking a network
engineer, a penetration tester, somebody, anybody who deals with the barebones of the net and you'll find that opinions are no so one-sided. You'll find a wide range of thoughts and opinions among everyone involved.

So to sum it up, giving power over the internet to the FCC will only end with consumers being destroyed from both ends—the government doing its part to regulate, monitor, and invade privacy all for the sake of
"protecting consumers," while the ISPs roam free without consequence. I personally believe this decision to be a good thing, though you're certainly free to disagree. Just take what I've said into consideration and
remember that there's more than one side to any debate. And even if you do think net neutrality is something we definitely should have, the way the laws are written from a political worldview, not much is going to change all
that quickly, and we'll have to wait and see for the long run. So why not focus on something more constructive, something that we can have a positive impact on? How about the Adpocolype, YouTube's algorithms, or one of the
other problems in the plethora of issues plaguing YouTube? I think it'll do more good in the long run that way. But no matter your stance, I hope you learned something, maybe considered a new point of view, and overall,
I hope you make an informed decision to discuss with others with kindness, dignity, and respect. Thanks for watching, and happy internetting to you all.