See something great lately? Nominate it for a Daily Deviation feature!
FAQ #18: Who selects Daily Deviations and how are they chosen?
PSA for US readers re: Net Neutrality
First and foremost, because if I put this at the end, no one will see it, anyone watching me who lives in the US needs to take a few minutes out of their day to look at Net Neutrality, and decide where they stand on the issue. Why? Because the FCC is meeting on 14 December 2017, and Ajit Pai intends to abolish this policy. It should concern everyone that such an influential and obviously necessary policy is being decided during the two months of the year when John Q Public is busy with holidays. That alone is enough to question how this policy change would benefit the US in any way - if you have to sneak it in, it ain't a good thing.
Why is "neutrality" so important?
In the interests of providing information on this issue, I'm going to give you some links. Please do your own research as well. Feel free to leave links in the comments - the point here is to gather information and make an informed decision as to a course of action, not to react with hysteria.
But to give you a brief on this, it all comes down to who controls the flow of information. And whoever does that can also control exactly what information is disseminated to the public.
Video News and Editorials:
Written articles:
ACLU on Net Neutrality, updated June 2017. They've got a decent FAQ breakdown of basic questions. 13 Things You Need to Know About Net Neutrality from c|net. This was published back in 2015, when the FCC was finally able to enact regulations providing for Net Neutrality, specifically:No Blocking. Simply put: A broadband provider can't block lawful content, applications, services or nonharmful devices.
No Throttling. The FCC created a separate rule that prohibits broadband providers from slowing down specific applications or services, a practice known as throttling. More to the point, the FCC said providers can't single out Internet traffic based on who sends it, where it's going, what the content happens to be or whether that content competes with the provider's business.
No Paid Prioritization. A broadband provider cannot accept fees for favored treatment. In short, the rules prohibit Internet fast lanes.
Net Neutrality: What You Need to Know Now from Save the InternetWhat would happen if we lost Net Neutrality?The internet without Net Neutrality isn’t really the internet. Unlike the open internet that has paved the way for so much innovation and given a platform to people who have historically been shut out, it would become a closed-down network where cable and phone companies call the shots and decide which websites, content or applications succeed.
This would have an enormous impact. Companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon would be able to decide who is heard and who isn’t. They’d be able to block websites or content they don’t like or applications that compete with their own offerings.
The consequences would be particularly devastating for marginalized communities media outlets have misrepresented or failed to serve. People of color, the LGBTQ community, indigenous peoples and religious minorities in the United States rely on the open internet to organize, access economic and educational opportunities, and fight back against systemic discrimination.
Without Net Neutrality, how would activists be able to fight oppression? What would happen to social movements like the Movement for Black Lives? How would the next disruptive technology, business or company emerge if internet service providers only let incumbents succeed?
Communities Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands from HuffPost. A very brief look into what's happening in Colorado to keep ISPs from determining what is and isn't seen by users. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations on the issue of Wireless Broadband Spectrum Management. Please note that under the reports tab, nothing has been added since March 2014. This is a study for governmental use of the Internet and related frequencies, but it makes for interesting reading, especially the part where the US federal government auctioned off license assignments to generate revenue for the Treasury Department. Trump's FCC to Destroy Net Neutrality from Slate (their wording, not mine) Public Knowledge: Net Neutrality Amateur Sleuth Finds Man Left a Comment Opposing Net Neutrality Seven Months After He Died. It's only one of many cases, and the fact is that Ajit Pai seems to be ignoring the reality that his plan to make you pay your ISP for every individual site you want/need to access is very poorly received. The best line of the article is a quote from the 'detective':If they can fake grassroots, and fake the numbers, they’re effectively taking away our democracy.
What Everyone Gets Wrong in the debate Over Net Neutrality - this article from Wired goes into the technical area explaining why you won't lose access to Google/YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. should net neutrality regulations be abolished. Yet even at the time of this article's creation (June 2014), Netflix had already been blackmailed by Comcast and had to pay a bribe to keep customers who used that ISP. Verizon was caught in July 2014 doing the exact same thing, and they've admitted that they did the same thing this year in July 2017. And then they turned around and did it again in August 2017 - to all streaming sites. Notice that they now have different unlimited plans listed there, and only one of them has HD quality streaming. And take a moment to squint at the fine print: "in times of congestion, your data may be temporarily slower than other traffic". Comcast Tries to Get FCC to Pre-emptively Forbid State Net Neutrality Laws. Noteworthy is that Verizon has also tried to do this, and that some former FCC commissioners are supporting the ISPs in this. Their political affiliation is noteworthy to me only because the faction in question cries "states rights!" at every opportunity and yet is trying to revoke the rights of states to make decisions in this matter by enacting broad federal regulation. Two opposing viewpoints from CNBC: Saheli Roy Choudry (pro-neutrality) in a fact-based article vs. Steve Forbes (anti-neutrality) in an opinion piece. I would suggest looking into the benefits Forbes would obtain as a result of his stance on the issue before wholly lending credence to his arguments.Names to Know
There are some key players whose names you might want to be familiar with in addressing this issue to the FCC, Congress, or the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Ajit Pai, FCC Chairman, former attorney for Verizon Wireless, an internet service provider. Stance: AGAINST Net Neutrality. Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC Commissioner. Stance: NEUTRAL. Supports investigation into the process of ending Net Neutrality, citing the allegation that a multitude of comments in favor of eliminating the regulation came from bots while most of the comments supporting the regulation were considered "organic" - that is to say, from actual human beings. Brian Schatz, US Senator for Hawaii, Democrat. Wrote a letter to the GAO asking for an investigation into FCC claims that the site was a victim of a DDoS attack for which the FCC has produced no evidence. Frank Pallone, US Representative for the 6th Congressional District of New Jersey. Co-wrote the letter sent to the GAO with Senator Schatz. Gene Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, Head of the GAO. Mark Goldstein, Director of Physical Infrastructure at the GAO.If you want to voice your opinion regarding this issue, contact your Congressmen/Congresswomen. Search the House of Representatives by zip code here; find your Senator by state here. Please note: it is still proper to address Senators as "Honorable" before their name should you choose to write to them (e.g.: Honorable Senator Sanders). It tends to get faster responses as well. 
You may also feel free to contact Comptroller Dodaro or Director Goldstein.
DeviantArt is just one website that is hosted in the United States whose traffic clearly includes users from around the world. I know for a fact that users here on DA also use tumblr (located in the US), Fanfiction.net (located in the US), Archive Of Our Own, or AO3 (located in the US), YouTube (located in the US), Twitter (located in the US), and a number of other sites whose services many of us find useful. (Wattpad is located in Canada, for anyone wondering. They agree to acknowledge US DMCA proceudres, but they're in Canada.)
So let's say that AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, name-your-ISP decides that they don't like DA. You might not notice it right away, but it won't take long before your computer keeps losing connection to DA's servers, unable to process the information to load the site because of timeouts. You'll probably figure the issue is on DA's end and use e-mail or Twitter, or what-have-you to contact others you know on DA on another site. They tell you they're having the same problem (except maybe one or two) and you shoot off an e-mail to spyed/angelo. You get a response from Ikue, or someone else on the help desk technical assistance team, letting you know that the issue isn't on their end and they can't duplicate your problem. A few days go by and it's still happening, and you decide to reach out to your ISP.
"Oh, we've slowed service to that site," they say. You sputter indignantly in disbelief while the representative rattles on, but you're finally silenced when the whole point is reached: your ISP doesn't like DA, and they want more money to allow you to access it.
Now at this point, there are a couple of outcomes: either DA becomes a paid site - as in everyone has to have a CORE membership - so they can afford to pay the ISPs to let traffic through at a normal flow rate, or your ISP tells you that you can pay them directly to have access to the website. Either way, you are left footing the bill because the ISP can now control what you see, and how quickly you see it.
For those of you who are still young and don't pay your own internet/phone bill, this means that if your mom/dad doesn't use the site, s/he's probably not going to pay for it.
The US Constitution applies only to the government, not to individual businesses. Currently, DA allows a good bit of free speech on its site. But it doesn't have to do so. It's a private entity, and as such can choose to eliminate speech it doesn't agree with.
Your ISP will not hesitate to do this, should Ajit Pai succeed in reclassifying the internet and taking away its Article II protection.
You may also feel free to contact Comptroller Dodaro or Director Goldstein.
How does this affect me if I'm not in the US?
DeviantArt is just one website that is hosted in the United States whose traffic clearly includes users from around the world. I know for a fact that users here on DA also use tumblr (located in the US), Fanfiction.net (located in the US), Archive Of Our Own, or AO3 (located in the US), YouTube (located in the US), Twitter (located in the US), and a number of other sites whose services many of us find useful. (Wattpad is located in Canada, for anyone wondering. They agree to acknowledge US DMCA proceudres, but they're in Canada.)
So let's say that AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, name-your-ISP decides that they don't like DA. You might not notice it right away, but it won't take long before your computer keeps losing connection to DA's servers, unable to process the information to load the site because of timeouts. You'll probably figure the issue is on DA's end and use e-mail or Twitter, or what-have-you to contact others you know on DA on another site. They tell you they're having the same problem (except maybe one or two) and you shoot off an e-mail to spyed/angelo. You get a response from Ikue, or someone else on the help desk technical assistance team, letting you know that the issue isn't on their end and they can't duplicate your problem. A few days go by and it's still happening, and you decide to reach out to your ISP.
"Oh, we've slowed service to that site," they say. You sputter indignantly in disbelief while the representative rattles on, but you're finally silenced when the whole point is reached: your ISP doesn't like DA, and they want more money to allow you to access it.
Now at this point, there are a couple of outcomes: either DA becomes a paid site - as in everyone has to have a CORE membership - so they can afford to pay the ISPs to let traffic through at a normal flow rate, or your ISP tells you that you can pay them directly to have access to the website. Either way, you are left footing the bill because the ISP can now control what you see, and how quickly you see it.
For those of you who are still young and don't pay your own internet/phone bill, this means that if your mom/dad doesn't use the site, s/he's probably not going to pay for it.
But wait a minute! There's the First Amendment!
The US Constitution applies only to the government, not to individual businesses. Currently, DA allows a good bit of free speech on its site. But it doesn't have to do so. It's a private entity, and as such can choose to eliminate speech it doesn't agree with.
Your ISP will not hesitate to do this, should Ajit Pai succeed in reclassifying the internet and taking away its Article II protection.
---------------
Well, to be blunt, this is what the world could look like if net neutrality goes away. Whitewashed, unappealing, drab. And those few bits of color in the background straining to get through will only catch your attention until they're slowly erased away.
FYI: Since I began researching this topic and typing this up, my ISP has slowed my connection down to a crawl. The timing is highly suspect.
---------------
Ugh! Rogue, what is up with this drab background?!?
Well, to be blunt, this is what the world could look like if net neutrality goes away. Whitewashed, unappealing, drab. And those few bits of color in the background straining to get through will only catch your attention until they're slowly erased away.
FYI: Since I began researching this topic and typing this up, my ISP has slowed my connection down to a crawl. The timing is highly suspect.
For considerationGiven the timeline of events and the fact that Ajit Pai was an attorney for the ISP Verizon, is truly does appear that this is sour grapes over losing the suit filed against the FCC in DC Circuit Court June 14, 2016. Further evidence of this lies in the fact that the court refused petitions to reconsider their decision submitted by ISPs on May 1, 2017 and sixteen days later, Ajit Pai announces that he intends to remove the Article II protection.
- Ajit Pai said US citizens should trust in the rule of law. Yet he is proposing to abolish the law providing the rule. Why?
- Pai made the comment that the Internet was allowed to "grow organically" in the 1990s. If Internet regulations had been in place then,
And perhaps just as importantly,
- would Google have been able to squeeze Yahoo out of the Search Engine business (they use Bing to provide their results) or eliminate Lycos as a competitor entirely?
- would Google have been able to open an e-mail server that essentially cornered the market, squeezing out smaller companies like Netscape?
- would Facebook have been able to trounce MySpace - and even UseNet - to the point that there is now virtually no competition?
It's important to remember that net neutrality fosters competition by keeping ISPs from directing user traffic to one site over another.
- would we have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon's TV service, etc.? Or just one streaming go-to company to serve us all?
- would we have match.com, tinder, ok cupid, and the dozens of other dating sites? Or would this too have been pared down to virtually nominal competition between two or three sites?
- would we still only have Amazon as a premier shopping service, or would we still have the ability to buy products from multiple stores online and shop around for the best price before making a purchase?
- Perhaps the most disarming comment that Pai made is that "a renowned economist" had done a study that supports his perspective on removing the regulation. Yet he failed to name this individual (and the anchor failed to ask him to do so). He also stated that the only evidence of instances of ISPs engaging in the practice of blocking or selectively restricting access was individual anecdotes. This is untrue; a complaint was filed to the FCC on November 1, 2007 which enumerated Comcast's practices against BitTorrent. Regardless of your position on Torrents, the FCC found the complaint was VALID and told Comcast to stop discriminating August 1, 2008. Another instance of an ISP blocking a site "because they could" occurred in 2012: on September 18, AT&T was called to account by numerous organizations for their decision to block the FaceTime app unless customers paid extra for the privilege of using it. The fee was to be paid to the ISP, not the app's development team. AT&T ended the block on FaceTime January 16, 2013.
If these events didn't occur, then why would the ISPs admit fault?
---------------
Background image created using Pixlr Express Online. Stocks used:
Abstract Bubble on Bubble Stock Photo 3010 square by annamae22
Glass by DiZa-74
Fabric texture by DiZa-74
Abstract Bubble on Bubble Stock Photo 3010 square by annamae22
Glass by DiZa-74
Fabric texture by DiZa-74
, or 
! 
All places will also receive llamas art, features, comments, literature, and critiques! 
we offer you 
Dark
Simply add your art to the folder Dark Competiton here https://photographyunlimited.deviantart.com/gallery/64353227/Water-Competition and thats it!
![[Commission] On the lake by Margo-sama](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/ebc954bc-c11c-41eb-9169-e70b840c7545/dba283o-4f8e54e4-40c5-4375-a698-ba8075bed529.png/v1/fill/w_1063,h_752,q_70,strp/_commission__on_the_lake_by_margo_sama_dba283o-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9OTE5IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvZWJjOTU0YmMtYzExYy00MWViLTkxNjktZTcwYjg0MGM3NTQ1XC9kYmEyODNvLTRmOGU1NGU0LTQwYzUtNDM3NS1hNjk4LWJhODA3NWJlZDUyOS5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTMwMCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.-aRjOyLv5QdLaMMPh8t-sIcSxOkRpK7OtJE6Xs5oTdE "[Commission] On the lake by Margo-sama")
