title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: On 8 May Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, the former German Colonial Secretary, made a statement in Cleveland, Ohio, in which he attempted to justify the sinking of "Lusitania". At the time Dernburg was recognised as the official spokesman of the Imperial German government in the United States. Dernburg said that because "Lusitania" "carried contraband of war" and also because she "was classed as an auxiliary cruiser" Germany had had a right to destroy her regardless of any passengers aboard. Dernburg further said that the warnings given by the German Embassy before her sailing, plus the 18 February note declaring the existence of "war zones" relieved Germany of any responsibility for the deaths of the American citizens aboard. He referred to the ammunition and military goods declared on "Lusitania"s manifest and said that "vessels of that kind" could be seized and destroyed under the Hague rules without any respect to a war zone.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The following day the German government issued an official communication regarding the sinking in which it said that the Cunard liner "Lusitania" "was yesterday torpedoed by a German submarine and sank", that "Lusitania" "was naturally armed with guns, as were recently most of the English mercantile steamers" and that "as is well known here, she had large quantities of war material in her cargo".


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of New York, issued an official denial to the German charges, saying that "Lusitania" had been inspected before her departure and no guns were found, mounted or unmounted. Malone stated that no merchant ship would have been allowed to arm itself in the Port and leave the harbour. Assistant Manager of the Cunard Line, Herman Winter, denied the charge that she carried munitions:She had aboard 4,200 cases of cartridges, but they were cartridges for small arms, packed in separate cases... they certainly do not come under the classification of ammunition. The United States authorities would not permit us to carry ammunition, classified as such by the military authorities, on a passenger liner. For years we have been sending small-arms cartridges abroad on the Lusitania.The fact that "Lusitania" had been carrying shell casings and rifle cartridges was not made known to the British public at the time, as it was felt that, although allowed under the regulations of the time, it would be used in German propaganda.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The sinking was severely criticised by and met with disapproval in Turkey and Austria-Hungary, while in the German press, the sinking was deplored by "Vorwärts", the daily newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and also by Captain Persius, an outspoken naval critic who wrote for the "Berliner Tageblatt".


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: One Catholic Centre Party newspaper, the "", stated: "The sinking of the giant English steamship is a success of moral significance which is still greater than material success. With joyful pride we contemplate this latest deed of our Navy. It will not be the last. The English wish to abandon the German people to death by starvation. We are more humane. We simply sank an English ship with passengers who, at their own risk and responsibility, entered the zone of operations."


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: In the aftermath of the sinking, the German government tried to justify it by claiming in an official statement that she had been armed with guns, and had "large quantities of war material" in her cargo. They also stated that since she was classed as an auxiliary cruiser, Germany had had a right to destroy her regardless of any passengers aboard, and that the warnings issued by the German Embassy before her sailing plus 18 February note declaring the existence of "war zones", relieved Germany of any responsibility for the deaths of American citizens aboard. While it was true that "Lusitania" had been fitted with gun mounts as part of government loan requirements during her construction, to enable rapid conversion into an Armed Merchant Cruiser (AMC) in the event of war, the guns themselves were never fitted. However, she was still listed officially as an AMC. Her cargo had included an estimated 4,200,000 rifle cartridges, 1,250 empty shell cases, and 18 cases of non-explosive fuses, all of which were listed in her manifest, but the cartridges were not officially classed as ammunition by the Cunard Line.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Of the 139 US citizens aboard "Lusitania", 128 lost their lives, and there was massive outrage in Britain and America, "The Nation" calling it "a deed for which a Hun would blush, a Turk be ashamed, and a Barbary pirate apologize" and the British felt that the Americans had to declare war on Germany. However, US President Woodrow Wilson refused to over-react. He said at Philadelphia on 10 May 1915:


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: When Germany began its submarine campaign against Britain, Wilson had warned that the US would hold the German government strictly accountable for any violations of American rights. On 1 May he stated that "no warning that an unlawful and inhumane act will be committed" could be accepted as a legitimate excuse for that act.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: During the weeks after the sinking, the issue was hotly debated within the administration. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan urged compromise and restraint. The US, he believed, should try to persuade the British to abandon their interdiction of foodstuffs and limit their mine-laying operations at the same time as the Germans were persuaded to curtail their submarine campaign. He also suggested that the US government issue an explicit warning against US citizens travelling on any belligerent ships. Despite being sympathetic to Bryan's antiwar feelings, Wilson insisted that the German government must apologise for the sinking, compensate US victims, and promise to avoid any similar occurrence in the future.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Backed by State Department second-in-command Robert Lansing, Wilson made his position clear in three notes to the German government issued on 13 May, 9 June, and 21 July.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The first note affirmed the right of Americans to travel as passengers on merchant ships and called for the Germans to abandon submarine warfare against commercial vessels, whatever flag they sailed under (including 3 other ships: the "Falaba", the "Cushing", and the "Gulflight").


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: In the second note, Wilson rejected the German arguments that the British blockade was illegal, and was a cruel and deadly attack on innocent civilians, and their charge that "Lusitania" had been carrying munitions. William Jennings Bryan considered Wilson's second note too provocative and resigned in protest after failing to moderate it, to be replaced by Robert Lansing who later said in his memoirs that following the tragedy he always had the "conviction that we [the United States] would ultimately become the ally of Britain".


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The third note, of 21 July, issued an ultimatum, to the effect that the US would regard any subsequent sinkings as "deliberately unfriendly".


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: While the American public and leadership were not ready for war, the path to an eventual declaration of war had been set as a result of the sinking of "Lusitania". On 19 August "U-24" sank the White Star liner "Arabic", with the loss of 44 passengers and crew, three of whom were American. The German government, while insisting on the legitimacy of its campaign against Allied shipping, disavowed the sinking of "Arabic"; it offered an indemnity and pledged to order submarine commanders to abandon unannounced attacks on merchant and passenger vessels.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The British public, press, and government in general were upset at Wilson's actions – not realising it reflected general US opinion at the time. They sneered "too proud or too scared?". Shells that did not explode at the front were called "Wilsons".


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Germany, however, continued to sink merchant vessels bound for Britain, particularly after the Battle of Jutland in late May 1916.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg persuaded the Kaiser to forbid action against ships flying neutral flags and the U-boat war was postponed once again on 27 August, as it was realised that British ships could easily fly neutral flags.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: There was disagreement over this move between the navy's admirals (headed by Alfred von Tirpitz) and Bethman-Hollweg. Backed by Army Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, Kaiser Wilhelm II endorsed the Chancellor's solution, and Tirpitz and the Admiralty backed down. The German restriction order of 9 September 1915 stated that attacks were allowed only on ships that were definitely British, while neutral ships were to be treated under the Prize Law rules, and no attacks on passenger liners were to be permitted at all. The war situation demanded that there could be no possibility of orders being misinterpreted, and on 18 September Henning von Holtzendorff, the new head of the German Admiralty, issued a secret order: all U-boats operating in the English Channel and off the west coast of the United Kingdom were recalled, and the U-boat war would continue only in the North sea, where it would be conducted under the Prize Law rules.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: In January 1917 the German Government announced it would now conduct full unrestricted submarine warfare. Once again, Woodrow Wilson was furious and on 6 April 1917 the United States Congress followed Wilson's request to declare war on Germany. US buildup of participation was at first slow, but during the German spring offensive in March 1918, which at first went well for the Germans with the Allies barely holding the lines, was reversed with the arrival by April 1918 of two million American troops.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: It was in the interests of the British to keep US citizens aware of German actions and attitudes. One over-enthusiastic propagandist's fabricated story was circulated that in some regions of Germany, schoolchildren were given a holiday to celebrate the sinking of "Lusitania". This story was based on the popular reception given the Goetz medal (see below) and was so effective that James W. Gerard, the US ambassador to Germany, recounted it being told in his memoir of his time in Germany, "Face to Face with Kaiserism" (1918), though without vouching for its validity.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: In August 1915, the Munich medallist and sculptor (1875–1950), who had produced a series of propagandist and satirical medals as a running commentary on the war, privately struck a small run of medals as a limited-circulation satirical attack (fewer than 500 were struck) on the Cunard Line for trying to continue business as usual during wartime. Goetz blamed both the British government and the Cunard Line for allowing "Lusitania" to sail despite the German embassy's warnings. Popular demand led to many unauthorised copies being made.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: One side of the popular medal showed "Lusitania" sinking laden with guns (incorrectly depicted sinking stern first) with the motto ""KEINE BANNWARE!"" ("NO CONTRABAND!"), while the reverse showed a skeleton selling Cunard tickets with the motto ""Geschäft Über Alles"" ("Business Above All").


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Goetz had put an incorrect date for the sinking on the medal, an error he later blamed on a mistake in a newspaper story about the sinking: instead of 7 May, he had put "5. Mai", two days before the actual sinking. Not realising his error, Goetz made copies of the medal and sold them in Munich and also to some numismatic dealers with whom he conducted business.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The British Foreign Office obtained a copy of the medal, photographed it, and sent copies to the United States where it was published in the "New York Times" on 5 May 1916. Many popular magazines ran photographs of the medal, and it was falsely claimed that it had been awarded to the crew of the U-boat.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Emile Henry Lacombe wrote a letter to the "New York Times" advancing a conspiracy theory about the German sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. His letter was published Monday 22 October 1917 on page 14 titled "A NEW THEORY OF THE LUSITANIA SINKING. The Evidence of the German Medal Dated May 5 and the Report of the Explosive "Cigars" on Board."


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The Goetz medal attracted so much attention that Lord Newton, who was in charge of Propaganda at the Foreign Office in 1916, decided to develop the anti-German feelings aroused by it for propaganda purposes and asked department store entrepreneur Harry Gordon Selfridge to reproduce the medal again. The replica medals were produced in an attractive case and were an exact copy of the German medal, and were sold for a shilling apiece. On the cases it was stated that the medals had been distributed in Germany "to commemorate the sinking of "Lusitania"" and they came with a propaganda leaflet which denounced the Germans and used the medal's incorrect date (5 May) to incorrectly claim that the sinking of "Lusitania" was premeditated, rather than just being incident to Germany's larger plan to sink any ship in a combat zone without warning. The head of the Lusitania Souvenir Medal Committee later estimated that 250,000 were sold, proceeds being given to the Red Cross and St Dunstan's Blinded Soldiers and Sailors Hostel. Unlike the original Goetz medals which were sand-cast from bronze, the British copies were of diecast iron and were of poorer quality. However, a few original medals were also made in iron. Originals usually have "KGoetz" on the edge. Over the years various other copies have been made.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Realising his mistake, Goetz issued a corrected medal with the date of "7. Mai". The Bavarian government, alarmed at the strong worldwide reaction to Goetz's work, suppressed the medal and ordered confiscation in April 1917. The original German medals can easily be distinguished from the English copies because the date is in German, i.e. with a dot behind the numeral; the English version was altered to read 'May' rather than 'Mai'. After the war Goetz expressed his regret that his work had been the cause of increasing anti-German feelings, but it remains a celebrated propaganda act.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Circa 1920 the French medallist René Baudichon created a counterblast to the Goetz medal. The Baudichon medal is in bronze, diameter and weighs . The obverse shows Liberty as depicted on the Statue of Liberty but holding a raised sword and rising from a stormy sea. Behind her the sun is breaking through clouds and six ships are steaming. Signed "R Baudichon". Legend: "Ultrix America Juris, 1917 U.S.A 1918" (America avenger of right). The reverse shows a view of the starboard quarter of the "Lusitania" correctly depicted sinking bow first. In the foreground there is a capsized lifeboat. The upper field shows a child drowning, head, hands and feet above the water; "RB" monogram. Legend: "Lusitania May 7, 1915".


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The last survivor was Audrey Warren Lawson-Johnston (née Pearl), who was born in New York City on 15 February 1915. She was the fourth of six children (the youngest two born after the disaster) born to Major Frederic "Frank" Warren Pearl (1869–1952) and Amy Lea (née Duncan; 1880–1964). She was only three months old when she boarded "Lusitania" in New York with her parents, three siblings, and two nurses – and due to her age had no first hand recollection of the disaster. She and her brother Stuart (age 5) were saved by their British nursemaid Alice Maud Lines, then 18 years old, who jumped off the boat deck and escaped in a lifeboat. Her parents also survived, but her sisters Amy (age 3) and Susan (age 14 months) died. Pearl married Hugh de Beauchamp Lawson-Johnston, second son of George Lawson Johnston, 1st Baron Luke, on 18 July 1946. They had three children and lived in Melchbourne, Bedfordshire. Hugh was Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1961. Johnston gifted an inshore lifeboat, "Amy Lea", to New Quay Lifeboat Station in 2004 in memory of her mother. Audrey Johnston died on 11 January 2011, a month before her 96th birthday.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The last American survivor was Barbara McDermott (born Barbara Winifred Anderson in Connecticut on 15 June 1912, to Roland Anderson and Emily Pybus). She was almost three years old at the time of the sinking. Her father worked as a draftsman for an ammunitions factory in south-western Connecticut. He was unable to accompany his wife and daughter on "Lusitania" as the First World War had created high demands for ammunition manufacturing at the factory where he worked. Barbara recalled being in the ship's dining room eating dessert when the torpedo hit. She remembered holding onto her spoon as she saw fellow passengers running about the badly damaged ship. In the midst of chaos, Barbara was separated from her mother and loaded into Lifeboat No. 15. Barbara later learned that her mother fell into the sea but was rescued and placed into the same lifeboat as her daughter. Neither Barbara nor her mother was seriously injured. After their rescue, Barbara and her mother travelled to Darlington, County Durham, England, to live with Barbara's maternal grandmother. Barbara's mother died on 22 March 1917 at the age of 28. Two years later, Barbara left Britain and travelled back to the United States aboard "Mauretania" and arrived in New York City on 26 December 1919. Barbara died on 12 April 2008 in Wallingford, Connecticut, at the age of 95.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The "Prize rules" or "Cruiser rules", laid down by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, governed the seizure of vessels at sea during wartime, although changes in technology such as radio and the submarine eventually made parts of them irrelevant. Merchant ships were to be warned by warships, and their passengers and crew allowed to abandon ship before they were sunk, unless the ship resisted or tried to escape, or was in a convoy protected by warships. Limited armament on a merchant ship, such as one or two guns, did not necessarily affect the ship's immunity to attack without warning, and neither did a cargo of munitions or materiel.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: In November 1914 the British announced that the entire North Sea was now a War Zone, and issued orders restricting the passage of neutral shipping into and through the North Sea to special channels where supervision would be possible (the other approaches having been mined). It was in response to this, and to the British Admiralty's order of 31 January 1915 that British merchant ships should fly neutral colours as a "ruse de guerre", that Admiral Hugo von Pohl, commander of the German High Seas Fleet, published a warning in the "Deutscher Reichsanzeiger" (Imperial German Gazette) on 4 February 1915:


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: In response, the Admiralty issued orders on 10 February 1915 which directed merchant ships to escape from hostile U-boats when possible, but "if a submarine comes up suddenly close ahead of you with obvious hostile intention, steer straight for her at your utmost speed..." Further instructions ten days later advised armed steamers to open fire on a submarine even if it had not yet fired. Given the extreme vulnerability of a submarine to ramming or even small-calibre shellfire, a U-boat that surfaced and gave warning against a merchantman which had been given such instructions was putting itself in great danger. The Germans knew of these orders, even though they were intended to be secret, copies having been obtained from captured ships and from wireless intercepts; Bailey and Ryan in their "The Lusitania Disaster", put much emphasis on these Admiralty orders to merchantmen, arguing it was unreasonable to expect a submarine to surface and give warning under such circumstances. In their opinion this, rather than the munitions, the nonexistent armament, or any other suggested reason, is the best rationale for the Germans' actions in the sinking.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The cause of the second explosion aboard the "Lusitania" has been the subject of debate since the disaster. At the time, most attributed it to a second torpedo attack from the U-boat. However, evidence from the U-boat itself corroborates that only one torpedo was fired towards the "Lusitania", Schwieger even commenting in his war diary that firing a second torpedo was impossible due to the crowd of frenzied passengers who dived into the ocean in panic.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: A debated theory assigns the blame for the second blast on "Lusitania"'s payload. The cargo included 4,200,000 rounds of Remington .303 rifle/machine-gun cartridges, 1,250 cases of empty fragmentation shell casings and eighteen cases of percussion fuses, all of which were listed on the ship's two-page manifest, filed with US Customs after she departed New York on 1 May. However, these munitions were classed as small arms ammunition, were non-explosive in bulk, and were clearly marked as such. It was perfectly legal under American shipping regulations for the liner to carry these; experts agreed they were not to blame for the second explosion. Allegations the ship was carrying more controversial cargo, such as fine aluminium powder, concealed as cheese on her cargo manifests, or guncotton (pyroxylene) disguised as casks of beef, have never been proven. In the 1960s, American diver John Light dived repeatedly to the site of the shipwreck in efforts to prove the existence of contraband explosives aboard "Lusitania" cargo hold, which had been ignited by the torpedo. Light claimed to have found a large hole on "Lusitania" port side, opposite of where the torpedo had struck, though later expeditions disproved his findings.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: In 1993, Dr. Robert Ballard, the famous explorer who discovered "Titanic" and "Bismarck", conducted an in-depth exploration of the wreck of "Lusitania". Ballard tried to confirm John Light's findings of a large hole on the port side of the wreck, and did not find anything. During his investigation, Ballard noted a large quantity of coal on the sea bed near the wreck, and after consulting an explosives expert advanced the theory of a coal dust explosion. He believed dust in the bunkers would have been thrown into the air by the vibration from the explosion; the resulting cloud would have been ignited by a spark, causing the second explosion. In the years since he first advanced this theory, it has been argued that this is nearly impossible. Critics of the theory say coal dust would have been too damp to have been stirred into the air by the torpedo impact in explosive concentrations; additionally, the coal bunker where the torpedo struck would have been flooded almost immediately by seawater flowing through the damaged hull plates.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: In 2007, marine forensic investigators considered that an explosion in the ship's steam-generating plant could be a plausible explanation for the second explosion. However, accounts from the few survivors who managed to escape from the forward two boiler rooms reported that the ship's boilers did not explode. Leading Fireman Albert Martin later testified he thought the torpedo entered the boiler room and exploded between a group of boilers, which was a physical impossibility. It is also known the forward boiler room filled with steam, and steam pressure feeding the turbines dropped dramatically following the second explosion. These point toward a failure, of one sort or another, in the ship's steam-generating plant. It is possible the failure came, not directly from one of the boilers in boiler room no. 1, but rather in the high-pressure steam lines to the turbines.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The original torpedo damage alone, striking the ship on the starboard coal bunker of boiler room no. 1, would probably have sunk the ship without a second explosion. This first blast was enough to cause, on its own, serious off-centre flooding, although the sinking would possibly have been slower. The deficiencies of the ship's original watertight bulkhead design exacerbated the situation, as did the many portholes which had been left open for ventilation.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The wreck of "Lusitania" lies on her starboard side at an approximately 30-degree angle in of sea water. She is severely collapsed onto her starboard side as a result of the force with which she slammed into the sea floor, and over decades, "Lusitania" has deteriorated significantly faster than "Titanic" because of the corrosion in the winter tides. The keel has an "unusual curvature", in a boomerang shape, which may be related to a lack of strength from the loss of her superstructure. The beam is reduced with the funnels missing, presumably due to deterioration. The bow is the most prominent portion of the wreck with the stern damaged from the removal of three of the four propellers by Oceaneering International in 1982 for display.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Some of the prominent features on "Lusitania" include her still-legible name, some bollards with the ropes still intact, pieces of the ruined promenade deck, some portholes, the prow and the remaining propeller. Recent expeditions to the wreck have revealed that "Lusitania" is in surprisingly poor condition compared to "Titanic", as her hull has already started to collapse.


title: Vasopressin

text: Human vasopressin, also called antidiuretic hormone (ADH), arginine vasopressin (AVP) or argipressin, is a hormone synthesized from the AVP gene as a peptide prohormone in neurons in the hypothalamus, and is converted to AVP. It then travels down the axon terminating in the posterior pituitary, and is released from vesicles into the circulation in response to extracellular fluid hypertonicity (hyperosmolality). AVP has two primary functions. First, it increases the amount of solute-free water reabsorbed back into the circulation from the filtrate in the kidney tubules of the nephrons. Second, AVP constricts arterioles, which increases peripheral vascular resistance and raises arterial blood pressure.


title: Vasopressin

text: A third function is possible. Some AVP may be released directly into the brain from the hypothalamus, and may play an important role in social behavior, sexual motivation and pair bonding, and maternal responses to stress.


title: Vasopressin

text: Vasopressin induces differentiation of stem cells into cardiomyocytes and promotes heart muscle homeostasis.


title: Vasopressin

text: Vasopressin regulates the tonicity of body fluids. It is released from the posterior pituitary in response to hypertonicity and causes the kidneys to reabsorb solute-free water and return it to the circulation from the tubules of the nephron, thus returning the tonicity of the body fluids toward normal


title: Vasopressin

text: AVP also may have a variety of neurological effects on the brain. It may influence pair-bonding in voles. The high-density distributions of vasopressin receptor AVPr1a in prairie vole ventral forebrain regions have been shown to facilitate and coordinate reward circuits during partner preference formation, critical for pair bond formation.


title: Vasopressin

text: A very similar substance, "lysine vasopressin" (LVP) or lypressin, has the same function in pigs and its synthetic version was used in human AVP deficiency, although it has been largely replaced by desmopressin.


title: Vasopressin

text: Vasopressin is regulated by "AVP" gene expression which is managed by major clock controlled genes. In this circadian circuit known as the transcription-translation feedback loop (TTFL), Per2 protein accumulates and is phosphorylated by CK1E. Per2 subsequently inhibits the transcription factors Clock and BMAL1 in order to reduce Per2 protein levels in the cell. At the same time, Per2 also inhibits the transcription factors for the "AVP" gene in order to regulate its expression, the expression of vasopressin, and other "AVP" gene products.


title: Vasopressin

text: The physiologic stimulus for secretion of vasopressin is increased osmolality of the plasma, monitored by the hypothalamus. A decreased arterial blood volume, (such as can occur in cirrhosis, nephrosis and heart failure), stimulates secretion, even in the face of decreased osmolality of the plasma: it supersedes osmolality, but


title: Vasopressin

text: with a milder effect. In other words, vasopressin is secreted in spite of the presence of hypoosmolality (hyponatremia) when the arterial blood volume is low.


title: Vasopressin

text: The AVP that is measured in peripheral blood is almost all derived from secretion from the posterior pituitary gland (except in cases of AVP-secreting tumours). Vasopressin is produced by magnocellular neurosecretory neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of hypothalamus (PVN) and supraoptic nucleus (SON). It then travels down the axon through the infundibulum within neurosecretory granules that are found within Herring bodies, localized swellings of the axons and nerve terminals. These carry the peptide directly to the posterior pituitary gland, where it is stored until released into the blood.


title: Vasopressin

text: There are other sources of AVP, beyond the hypothalamic magnocellular neurons. For example, AVP is also synthesized by parvocellular neurosecretory neurons of the PVN, transported and released at the median eminence, from which it travels through the hypophyseal portal system to the anterior pituitary, where it stimulates corticotropic cells synergistically with CRH to produce ACTH (by itself it is a weak secretagogue).


title: Vasopressin

text: Vasopressin concentration is used to measure surgical stress for evaluation of surgical techniques. Plasma vasopressin concentration is elevated by noxious stimuli, predominantly during abdominal surgery, especially at gut manipulation and traction of viscera.


title: Vasopressin

text: The vasopressins are peptides consisting of nine amino acids (nonapeptides). The amino acid sequence of arginine vasopressin (argipressin) is Cys-Tyr-Phe-Gln-Asn-Cys-Pro-Arg-Gly-NH, with the cysteine residues forming a disulfide bond and the "C"-terminus of the sequence converted to a primary amide. Lysine vasopressin (lypressin) has a lysine in place of the arginine as the eighth amino acid, and is found in pigs and some related animals, whereas arginine vasopressin is found in humans.


title: Vasopressin

text: The structure of oxytocin is very similar to that of the vasopressins: It is also a nonapeptide with a disulfide bridge and its amino acid sequence differs at only two positions. The two genes are located on the same chromosome separated by a relatively small distance of less than 15,000 bases in most species. The magnocellular neurons that secrete vasopressin are adjacent to magnocellular neurons that secrete oxytocin, and are similar in many respects. The similarity of the two peptides can cause some cross-reactions: oxytocin has a slight antidiuretic function, and high levels of AVP can cause uterine contractions.


title: Vasopressin

text: Vasopressin is used to manage anti-diuretic hormone deficiency. Vasopressin is used to treat diabetes insipidus related to low levels of antidiuretic hormone. It is available as Pressyn.


title: Vasopressin

text: Vasopressin has off-label uses and is used in the treatment of vasodilatory shock, gastrointestinal bleeding, ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation.


title: Vasopressin

text: Vasopressin agonists are used therapeutically in various conditions, and its long-acting synthetic analogue desmopressin is used in conditions featuring low vasopressin secretion, as well as for control of bleeding (in some forms of von Willebrand disease and in mild haemophilia A) and in extreme cases of bedwetting by children. Terlipressin and related analogues are used as vasoconstrictors in certain conditions. Use of vasopressin analogues for esophageal varices commenced in 1970.


title: Vasopressin

text: Vasopressin infusions are also used as second line therapy for septic shock patients not responding to fluid resuscitation or infusions of catecholamines (e.g., dopamine or norepinephrine) to increase the blood pressure while sparing the use of catecholamines. These argipressins have much shorter elimination half-life (around 20 minutes) comparing to synthetic non-arginine vasopresines with much longer elimination half-life of many hours. Further, argipressins act on V1a, V1b, and V2 receptors which consequently lead to higher eGFR and lower vascular resistance in the lungs. A number of injectable arginine vasopressins are currently in clinical use in the United States and in Europe.


title: Vasopressin

text: Vasopressin is administered through an intravenous device, intramuscular injection or a subcutaneous injection. The duration of action depends on the mode of administration and ranges from thirty minutes to two hours. It has a half life of ten to twenty minutes. It is widely distributed throughout the body and remains in the extracellular fluid. It is degraded by the liver and excreted through the kidneys. Arginin vasopressins for use in septic shock are intended for intravenous use only.


title: Vasopressin

text: The most common side effects during treatment with vasopressin are dizziness, angina, chest pain, abdominal cramps, heartburn, nausea, vomiting, trembling, fever, water intoxication, pounding sensation in the head, diarrhoea, sweating, paleness, and flatulence. The most severe adverse reactions are myocardial infarction and hypersensitivity.


title: Vasopressin

text: The use of lysine vasopressin is contraindicated in the presence of hypersensitivity to beef or pork proteins, increased BUN and chronic kidney failure. It is recommended that it be cautiously used in instances of perioperative polyuria, sensitivity to the drug, asthma, seizures, heart failure, a comatose state, migraine headaches, and cardiovascular disease.


title: Vasopressin

text: Decreased AVP release (neurogenic — i.e. due to alcohol intoxication or tumour) or decreased renal sensitivity to AVP (nephrogenic, i.e. by mutation of V2 receptor or AQP) leads to diabetes insipidus, a condition featuring hypernatremia (increased blood sodium concentration), polyuria (excess urine production), and polydipsia (thirst).


title: Vasopressin

text: Syndrome of Inappropriate Antidiuretic Hormone secretion (SIADH) in turn can be caused by a number of problems. Some forms of cancer can cause SIADH, particularly small cell lung carcinoma but also a number of other tumors. A variety of diseases affecting the brain or the lung (infections, bleeding) can be the driver behind SIADH. A number of drugs have been associated with SIADH, such as certain antidepressants (serotonin reuptake inhibitors and tricyclic antidepressants), the anticonvulsant carbamazepine, oxytocin (used to induce and stimulate labor), and the chemotherapy drug vincristine. It has also been associated with fluoroquinolones (including ciprofloxacin and moxifloxacin). Finally, it can occur without a clear explanation. Hyponatremia can be treated pharmaceutically through the use of vasopressin receptor antagonists.


title: Vasopressin

text: Evidence for an effect of AVP on monogamy vs polygamy comes from experimental studies in several species, which indicate that the precise distribution of vasopressin and vasopressin receptors in the brain is associated with species-typical patterns of social behavior. In particular, there are consistent differences between monogamous species and polygamous species in the distribution of AVP receptors, and sometimes in the distribution of vasopressin-containing axons, even when closely related species are compared.


title: Vasopressin

text: Vasopressin has shown nootropic effects on pain perception and cognitive function. Vasopressin also plays a role in autism, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.


title: 2023 Turkish general election

text: The 2023 Turkish general election will be held on 18 June 2023. Presidential elections are held to elect the President of Turkey using a two-round system. Simultaneously, parliamentary elections are held to elect 600 Members of Parliament to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.


title: 2023 Turkish general election

text: The previous Turkish general election took place in 2018. The election marked the country's transition from a parliamentary system to a presidential one, as narrowly endorsed by voters in the 2017 constitutional referendum. That election resulted in a victory for incumbent president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who had held the position since 2014. Meanwhile, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) lost its absolute majority in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey for the first time since June 2015, forcing it to rely on its coalition partner, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) of Devlet Bahçeli, to pass legislation. The office of the Prime Minister of Turkey was abolished on 12 July 2018, and its last holder, Binali Yıldırım, took office as the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly.


title: 2023 Turkish general election

text: Although there were speculations about a snap election prior to the regular one in 2023, Bahçeli ruled them out. In a written statement, he said that elections would not be held before 2023. He also confirmed that the current coalition between AK Party and MHP will remain intact and Erdoğan will be their joint nominee for President. On 9 June 2022, Erdoğan declared his candidacy.


title: Electric generator

text: In electricity generation, a generator is a device that converts motive power (mechanical energy) or fuel-based power (chemical energy) into electric power for use in an external circuit. Sources of mechanical energy include steam turbines, gas turbines, water turbines, internal combustion engines, wind turbines and even hand cranks. The first electromagnetic generator, the Faraday disk, was invented in 1831 by British scientist Michael Faraday. Generators provide nearly all of the power for electric power grids.


title: Electric generator

text: In addition to electromechanical designs, photovoltaic and fuel cell powered generators utilize solar power and hydrogen-based fuels, respectively, to generate electrical output.


title: Electric generator

text: The reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is done by an electric motor, and motors and generators have many similarities. Many motors can be mechanically driven to generate electricity; frequently they make acceptable manual generators.


title: Electric generator

text: Mechanically, a generator consists of a rotating part and a stationary part which together form a magnetic circuit:


title: Electric generator

text: One of these parts generates a magnetic field, the other has a wire winding in which the changing field induces an electric current:


title: Electric generator

text: The armature can be on either the rotor or the stator, depending on the design, with the field coil or magnet on the other part.


title: Electric generator

text: Before the connection between magnetism and electricity was discovered, electrostatic generators were invented. They operated on electrostatic principles, by using moving electrically charged belts, plates and disks that carried charge to a high potential electrode. The charge was generated using either of two mechanisms: electrostatic induction or the triboelectric effect. Such generators generated very high voltage and low current. Because of their inefficiency and the difficulty of insulating machines that produced very high voltages, electrostatic generators had low power ratings, and were never used for generation of commercially significant quantities of electric power. Their only practical applications were to power early X-ray tubes, and later in some atomic particle accelerators.


title: Electric generator

text: The operating principle of electromagnetic generators was discovered in the years of 1831–1832 by Michael Faraday. The principle, later called Faraday's law, is that an electromotive force is generated in an electrical conductor which encircles a varying magnetic flux.


title: Electric generator

text: He also built the first electromagnetic generator, called the Faraday disk; a type of homopolar generator, using a copper disc rotating between the poles of a horseshoe magnet. It produced a small DC voltage.


title: Electric generator

text: This design was inefficient, due to self-cancelling counterflows of current in regions of the disk that were not under the influence of the magnetic field. While current was induced directly underneath the magnet, the current would circulate backwards in regions that were outside the influence of the magnetic field. This counterflow limited the power output to the pickup wires and induced waste heating of the copper disc. Later homopolar generators would solve this problem by using an array of magnets arranged around the disc perimeter to maintain a steady field effect in one current-flow direction.


title: Electric generator

text: Another disadvantage was that the output voltage was very low, due to the single current path through the magnetic flux. Experimenters found that using multiple turns of wire in a coil could produce higher, more useful voltages. Since the output voltage is proportional to the number of turns, generators could be easily designed to produce any desired voltage by varying the number of turns. Wire windings became a basic feature of all subsequent generator designs.


title: Electric generator

text: Independently of Faraday, Ányos Jedlik started experimenting in 1827 with the electromagnetic rotating devices which he called electromagnetic self-rotors. In the prototype of the single-pole electric starter (finished between 1852 and 1854) both the stationary and the revolving parts were electromagnetic. It was also the discovery of the principle of dynamo self-excitation, which replaced permanent magnet designs. He also may have formulated the concept of the dynamo in 1861 (before Siemens and Wheatstone) but did not patent it as he thought he was not the first to realize this.


title: Electric generator

text: A coil of wire rotating in a magnetic field produces a current which changes direction with each 180° rotation, an alternating current (AC). However many early uses of electricity required direct current (DC). In the first practical electric generators, called "dynamos", the AC was converted into DC with a "commutator", a set of rotating switch contacts on the armature shaft. The commutator reversed the connection of the armature winding to the circuit every 180° rotation of the shaft, creating a pulsing DC current. One of the first dynamos was built by Hippolyte Pixii in 1832.


title: Electric generator

text: The Woolrich Electrical Generator of 1844, now in Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum, is the earliest electrical generator used in an industrial process. It was used by the firm of Elkingtons for commercial electroplating.


title: Electric generator

text: The modern dynamo, fit for use in industrial applications, was invented independently by Sir Charles Wheatstone, Werner von Siemens and Samuel Alfred Varley. Varley took out a patent on 24 December 1866, while Siemens and Wheatstone both announced their discoveries on 17 January 1867, the latter delivering a paper on his discovery to the Royal Society.


title: Electric generator

text: The "dynamo-electric machine" employed self-powering electromagnetic field coils rather than permanent magnets to create the stator field. Wheatstone's design was similar to Siemens', with the difference that in the Siemens design the stator electromagnets were in series with the rotor, but in Wheatstone's design they were in parallel. The use of electromagnets rather than permanent magnets greatly increased the power output of a dynamo and enabled high power generation for the first time. This invention led directly to the first major industrial uses of electricity. For example, in the 1870s Siemens used electromagnetic dynamos to power electric arc furnaces for the production of metals and other materials.


title: Electric generator

text: The dynamo machine that was developed consisted of a stationary structure, which provides the magnetic field, and a set of rotating windings which turn within that field. On larger machines the constant magnetic field is provided by one or more electromagnets, which are usually called field coils.


title: Electric generator

text: Large power generation dynamos are now rarely seen due to the now nearly universal use of alternating current for power distribution. Before the adoption of AC, very large direct-current dynamos were the only means of power generation and distribution. AC has come to dominate due to the ability of AC to be easily transformed to and from very high voltages to permit low losses over large distances.


title: Electric generator

text: Through a series of discoveries, the dynamo was succeeded by many later inventions, especially the AC alternator, which was capable of generating alternating current. It is commonly known to be the Synchronous Generators (SGs). The synchronous machines are directly connected to the grid and need to be properly synchronized during startup. Moreover, they are excited with special control to enhance the stability of the power system.


title: Electric generator

text: Alternating current generating systems were known in simple forms from Michael Faraday's original discovery of the magnetic induction of electric current. Faraday himself built an early alternator. His machine was a "rotating rectangle", whose operation was "heteropolar" - each active conductor passed successively through regions where the magnetic field was in opposite directions.


title: Electric generator

text: Large two-phase alternating current generators were built by a British electrician, J.E.H. Gordon, in 1882. The first public demonstration of an "alternator system" was given by William Stanley, Jr., an employee of Westinghouse Electric in 1886.


title: Electric generator

text: Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti established "Ferranti, Thompson and Ince" in 1882, to market his "Ferranti-Thompson Alternator", invented with the help of renowned physicist Lord Kelvin. His early alternators produced frequencies between 100 and 300 Hz. Ferranti went on to design the Deptford Power Station for the London Electric Supply Corporation in 1887 using an alternating current system. On its completion in 1891, it was the first truly modern power station, supplying high-voltage AC power that was then "stepped down" for consumer use on each street. This basic system remains in use today around the world.


title: Electric generator

text: After 1891, polyphase alternators were introduced to supply currents of multiple differing phases. Later alternators were designed for varying alternating-current frequencies between sixteen and about one hundred hertz, for use with arc lighting, incandescent lighting and electric motors.


title: Electric generator

text: As the requirements for larger scale power generation increased, a new limitation rose: the magnetic fields available from permanent magnets. Diverting a small amount of the power generated by the generator to an electromagnetic field coil allowed the generator to produce substantially more power. This concept was dubbed self-excitation.


title: Electric generator

text: The field coils are connected in series or parallel with the armature winding. When the generator first starts to turn, the small amount of remanent magnetism present in the iron core provides a magnetic field to get it started, generating a small current in the armature. This flows through the field coils, creating a larger magnetic field which generates a larger armature current. This "bootstrap" process continues until the magnetic field in the core levels off due to saturation and the generator reaches a steady state power output.


title: Electric generator

text: Very large power station generators often utilize a separate smaller generator to excite the field coils of the larger. In the event of a severe widespread power outage where islanding of power stations has occurred, the stations may need to perform a black start to excite the fields of their largest generators, in order to restore customer power service.


title: Electric generator

text: A dynamo uses commutators to produce direct current. It is self-excited, i.e. its field electromagnets are powered by the machine's own output. Other types of DC generators use a separate source of direct current to energize their field magnets.


title: Electric generator

text: A homopolar generator is a DC electrical generator comprising an electrically conductive disc or cylinder rotating in a plane perpendicular to a uniform static magnetic field. A potential difference is created between the center of the disc and the rim (or ends of the cylinder), the electrical polarity depending on the direction of rotation and the orientation of the field.


title: Electric generator

text: It is also known as a unipolar generator, acyclic generator, disk dynamo, or Faraday disc. The voltage is typically low, on the order of a few volts in the case of small demonstration models, but large research generators can produce hundreds of volts, and some systems have multiple generators in series to produce an even larger voltage. They are unusual in that they can produce tremendous electric current, some more than a million amperes, because the homopolar generator can be made to have very low internal resistance.


title: Electric generator

text: A magnetohydrodynamic generator directly extracts electric power from moving hot gases through a magnetic field, without the use of rotating electromagnetic machinery. MHD generators were originally developed because the output of a plasma MHD generator is a flame, well able to heat the boilers of a steam power plant. The first practical design was the AVCO Mk. 25, developed in 1965. The U.S. government funded substantial development, culminating in a 25 MW demonstration plant in 1987. In the Soviet Union from 1972 until the late 1980s, the MHD plant U 25 was in regular utility operation on the Moscow power system with a rating of 25 MW, the largest MHD plant rating in the world at that time. MHD generators operated as a topping cycle are currently (2007) less efficient than combined cycle gas turbines.


title: Electric generator

text: Induction AC motors may be used as generators, turning mechanical energy into electric current. Induction generators operate by mechanically turning their rotor faster than the synchronous speed, giving negative slip. A regular AC asynchronous motor usually can be used as a generator, without any internal modifications. Induction generators are useful in applications such as minihydro power plants, wind turbines, or in reducing high-pressure gas streams to lower pressure, because they can recover energy with relatively simple controls. They do not require an exciter circuit because the rotating magnetic field is provided by induction from the stator circuit. They also do not require speed governor equipment as they inherently operate at the connected grid frequency.


title: Electric generator

text: To operate, an induction generator must be excited with a leading voltage; this is usually done by connection to an electrical grid, or sometimes they are self-excited by using phase correcting capacitors.


title: Electric generator

text: In the simplest form of linear electric generator, a sliding magnet moves back and forth through a solenoid - a spool of copper wire. An alternating current is induced in the loops of wire by Faraday's law of induction each time the magnet slides through. This type of generator is used in the Faraday flashlight. Larger linear electricity generators are used in wave power schemes.


title: Electric generator

text: Many renewable energy efforts attempt to harvest natural sources of mechanical energy (wind, tides, etc.) to produce electricity. Because these sources fluctuate in power applied, standard generators using permanent magnets and fixed windings would deliver unregulated voltage and frequency. The overhead of regulation (whether before the generator via gear reduction or after generation by electrical means) is high in proportion to the naturally-derived energy available.


title: Electric generator

text: New generator designs such as the asynchronous or induction singly-fed generator, the doubly-fed generator, or the brushless wound-rotor doubly-fed generator are seeing success in variable speed constant frequency applications, such as wind turbines or other renewable energy technologies. These systems thus offer cost, reliability and efficiency benefits in certain use cases.


title: Electric generator

text: A "power station", also referred to as a "power plant" or "powerhouse" and sometimes "generating station" or "generating plant", is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Most power stations contain one or more generators, a rotating machine that converts mechanical power into three-phase electric power. The relative motion between a magnetic field and a conductor creates an electric current. The energy source harnessed to turn the generator varies widely. Most power stations in the world burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas to generate electricity. Cleaner sources include nuclear power, and an increasing use of renewables such as solar, wind, wave and hydroelectric.


title: Electric generator

text: Motor vehicles require electrical energy to power their instrumentation, keep the engine itself operating, and recharge their batteries. Until about the 1960s motor vehicles tended to use DC generators (dynamos) with electromechanical regulators. Following the historical trend above and for many of the same reasons, these have now been replaced by alternators with built-in rectifier circuits.


title: Electric generator

text: Bicycles require energy to power running lights and other equipment. There are two common kinds of generator in use on bicycles: bottle dynamos which engage the bicycle's tire on an as-needed basis, and hub dynamos which are directly attached to the bicycle's drive train. The name is conventional as these they are small permanent-magnet alternators, not self-excited DC machines as are dynamos. Some electric bicycles are capable of regenerative braking, where the drive motor is used as a generator to recover some energy during braking.


title: Electric generator

text: Sailing boats may use a water- or wind-powered generator to trickle-charge the batteries. A small propeller, wind turbine or turbine is connected to a low-power generator to supply currents at typical wind or cruising speeds.


title: Electric generator

text: Electric scooters with regenerative braking have become popular all over the world. Engineers use kinetic energy recovery systems on the scooter to reduce energy consumption and increase its range up to 40-60% by simply recovering energy using the magnetic brake, which generates electric energy for further use. Modern vehicles reach speed up to 25–30 km/h and can run up to 35–40 km.


title: Electric generator

text: An "engine-generator" is the combination of an electrical generator and an engine (prime mover) mounted together to form a single piece of self-contained equipment. The engines used are usually piston engines, but gas turbines can also be used, and there are even hybrid diesel-gas units, called dual-fuel units. Many different versions of engine-generators are available - ranging from very small portable petrol powered sets to large turbine installations. The primary advantage of engine-generators is the ability to independently supply electricity, allowing the units to serve as backup power solutions.


title: Electric generator

text: A generator can also be driven by human muscle power (for instance, in field radio station equipment).


title: Electric generator

text: Human powered electric generators are commercially available, and have been the project of some DIY enthusiasts. Typically operated by means of pedal power, a converted bicycle trainer, or a foot pump, such generators can be practically used to charge batteries, and in some cases are designed with an integral inverter. An average "healthy human" can produce a steady 75 watts (0.1 horsepower) for a full eight hour period, while a "first class athlete" can produce approximately 298 watts (0.4 horsepower) for a similar period. At the end of which an undetermined period of rest and recovery will be required. At 298 watts the average "healthy human" becomes exhausted within 10 minutes. The net electrical power that can be produced will be less, due to the efficiency of the generator. Portable radio receivers with a crank are made to reduce battery purchase requirements, see clockwork radio. During the mid 20th century, pedal powered radios were used throughout the Australian outback, to provide schooling (School of the Air), medical and other needs in remote stations and towns.


title: Electric generator

text: A tachogenerator is an electromechanical device which produces an output voltage proportional to its shaft speed. It may be used for a speed indicator or in a feedback speed control system. Tachogenerators are frequently used to power tachometers to measure the speeds of electric motors, engines, and the equipment they power. Generators generate voltage roughly proportional to shaft speed. With precise construction and design, generators can be built to produce very precise voltages for certain ranges of shaft speeds.


title: Electric generator

text: An equivalent circuit of a generator and load is shown in the adjacent diagram. The generator is represented by an abstract generator consisting of an ideal voltage source and an internal impedance. The generator's formula_1 and formula_2 parameters can be determined by measuring the winding resistance (corrected to operating temperature), and measuring the open-circuit and loaded voltage for a defined current load.


title: Electric generator

text: This is the simplest model of a generator, further elements may need to be added for an accurate representation. In particular, inductance can be added to allow for the machine's windings and magnetic leakage flux, but a full representation can become much more complex than this.


title: Net neutrality

text: Network neutrality, often referred to as net neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering users and online content providers consistent rates irrespective of content, website, platform, application, type of equipment, source address, a destination address, or method of communication.


title: Net neutrality

text: Supporters of net neutrality argue that it prevents cable companies from filtering Internet content without a court order, fosters freedom of speech and democratic participation, promotes competition and innovation, prevents dubious services, maintains the end-to-end principle, and that users would be intolerant of slow-loading websites. Opponents of net neutrality argue that it reduces investment, deters competition, increases taxes, imposes unnecessary regulations, prevents the Internet from being accessible to poor people, prevents Internet traffic from being allocated to the most needed users, that large Internet providers already have a performance advantage over smaller providers, and that there is already significant competition among Internet providers with few competitive issues.


title: Net neutrality

text: The term was coined by Columbia University media law professor Tim Wu in 2003, as an extension of the longstanding concept of a common carrier, which was used to describe the role of telephone systems.


title: Net neutrality

text: Net neutrality regulations may be referred to as "uncommon carrier" regulations. Net neutrality does not block all abilities that Internet service providers have to impact their customers' services. Opt-in/opt-out services exist on the end user side, and filtering can be done locally, as in the filtering of sensitive material for minors.


title: Net neutrality

text: Research suggests that a combination of policy instruments will help realize the range of valued political and economic objectives central to the network neutrality debate. Combined with public opinion, this has led some governments to regulate broadband Internet services as a public utility, similar to the way electricity, gas, and the water supply are regulated, along with limiting providers and regulating the options those providers can offer.


title: Net neutrality

text: Proponents of net neutrality, which include computer science experts, consumer advocates, human rights organizations, and Internet content providers, assert that net neutrality helps to provide freedom of information exchange, promotes competition and innovation for Internet services, and upholds standardization of Internet data transmission which was essential for its growth. Opponents of net neutrality, which include ISPs, computer hardware manufacturers, economists, technologists and telecommunications equipment manufacturers, argue that net neutrality requirements would reduce their incentive to build out the Internet, reduces competition in the marketplace, and may raise their operating costs which they would have to pass along to their users.


title: Net neutrality

text: Net neutrality is administered on a national or regional basis, though much of the world's focus has been on the conflict over net neutrality in the United States. Net neutrality in the US has been a topic since the early 1990s, as they were one of the world leaders in online service providing. In 2019, the Save the Internet Act to "guarantee broadband internet users equal access to online content" was passed by the United States House of Representatives but not by the US Senate. However, they face the same problems as the rest of the world. Finding an appropriate solution by creating more regulations for Internet service providers has been a major work in progress. Net neutrality rules were repealed in the US in 2017 during the Trump administration and subsequent appeals have upheld the ruling.


title: Net neutrality

text: Network neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. Internet traffic includes all of the different messages, files and data sent over the Internet, including, for example, emails, digital audio files, digital video files, torrents etc. According to Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu, a public information network will be most useful if all content, websites, and platforms (e.g., mobile devices, video game consoles, etc.) are treated equally, which is the principle of network neutrality.


title: Net neutrality

text: Net neutrality is the principle that an internet service provider (ISP) has to provide access to all sites, content and applications at the same speed, under the same conditions without blocking or giving preference to any content. Under net neutrality, whether a user connects to Netflix, Internet Archive, or a blog, his ISP has to treat them all the same. Without net neutrality, an ISP can decide what information users are exposed to. Proponents argue that this could cause an increase in monetary charges for companies such as Netflix in order to stream their content.


title: Net neutrality

text: Under an "open Internet" system, the full resources of the Internet and means to operate on it should be easily accessible to all individuals, companies, and organizations.


title: Net neutrality

text: Applicable concepts include: net neutrality, open standards, transparency, lack of Internet censorship, and low barriers to entry. The concept of the open Internet is sometimes expressed as an expectation of decentralized technological power, and is seen by some observers as closely related to open-source software, a type of software program whose maker allows users access to the code that runs the program, so that users can improve the software or fix bugs.


title: Net neutrality

text: Proponents of net neutrality see this as an important component of an "open Internet", wherein policies such as equal treatment of data and open web standards allow those using the Internet to easily communicate, and conduct business and activities without interference from a third party.


title: Net neutrality

text: In contrast, a "closed Internet" refers to the opposite situation, wherein established persons, corporations, or governments favor certain uses, restrict access to necessary web standards, artificially degrade some services, or explicitly filter out content. Some countries such as Thailand block certain websites or types of sites, and monitor and/or censor Internet use using Internet police, a specialized type of law enforcement, or secret police. Other countries such as Russia, China, and North Korea also use similar tactics to Thailand in order to control the variety of internet media within their respective countries. In comparison to the United States or Canada for example, these countries have far more restrictive internet service providers. This approach is reminiscent of a Closed Platform system, as both ideas are highly similar. These systems all serve to hinder access to a wide variety of internet service, which is a stark contrast to the idea of an open Internet system.


title: Net neutrality

text: The term "dumb pipe" was coined in the early 1990s and refers to water pipes used in a city water supply system. In theory, these pipes provide a steady and reliable source of water to every household without discrimination. In other words, it connects the user with the source without any intelligence or decrement. Similarly, a dumb network is a network with little or no control or management of its use patterns.


title: Net neutrality

text: In a dumb network, the endpoints are thought to be where the intelligence lies, and as such, proponents argue that the network should leave the management and operation of communications and data transfer to the end users, not a government bureau or Internet company. In 2013, the software company MetroTech Net, Inc. (MTN) coined the term "dumb wave", which is the 2010s-era application of the "dumb pipe" concept to the ubiquitous wireless network.


title: Net neutrality

text: Experts in the high-technology field will often compare the dumb pipe concept with intelligent networks –also known as smart pipes—and debate which one is best applied to a certain portion of Internet policy. These conversations usually refer to these two concepts as being analogous to the concepts of open and closed Internet respectively. As such, certain models have been made that aim to outline four layers of the Internet with the understanding of the dumb pipe theory:


title: Net neutrality

text: The end-to-end principle of network design was first laid out in the 1981 paper "End-to-end arguments in system design" by Jerome H. Saltzer, David P. Reed, and David D. Clark. The principle states that, whenever possible, communications protocol operations should be defined to occur at the end-points of a communications system, or as close as possible to the resources being controlled. According to the end-to-end principle, protocol features are only justified in the lower layers of a system if they are a performance optimization; hence, TCP retransmission for reliability is still justified, but efforts to improve TCP reliability should stop after peak performance has been reached.


title: Net neutrality

text: They argued that reliable systems tend to require end-to-end processing to operate correctly, in addition to any processing in the intermediate system. They pointed out that most features in the lowest level of a communications system have costs for all higher-layer clients, even if those clients do not need the features, and are redundant if the clients have to re-implement the features on an end-to-end basis. This leads to the model of a minimal dumb network with smart terminals, a completely different model from the previous paradigm of the smart network with dumb terminals. Because the end-to-end principle is one of the central design principles of the Internet, and because the practical means for implementing data discrimination violate the end-to-end principle, the principle often enters discussions about net neutrality. The end-to-end principle is closely related and sometimes seen as a direct precursor to the principle of net neutrality.


title: Net neutrality

text: Traffic shaping is the control of computer network traffic to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency (i.e., decrease Internet response times), and/or increase usable bandwidth by delaying packets that meet certain criteria. In practice, traffic shaping is often accomplished by throttling certain types of data, such as streaming video or P2P file sharing. More specifically, traffic shaping is any action on a set of packets (often called a stream or a flow) that imposes additional delay on those packets such that they conform to some predetermined constraint (a contract or traffic profile). Traffic shaping provides a means to control the volume of traffic being sent into a network in a specified period (bandwidth throttling), or the maximum rate at which the traffic is sent (rate limiting), or more complex criteria such as generic cell rate algorithm.


title: Net neutrality

text: If the core of a network has more bandwidth than is permitted to enter at the edges, then good quality of service (QoS) can be obtained without policing or throttling. For example, telephone networks employ admission control to limit user demand on the network core by refusing to create a circuit for the requested connection. During a natural disaster, for example, most users will get a circuit busy signal if they try to make a call, as the phone company prioritizes emergency calls. Over-provisioning is a form of statistical multiplexing that makes liberal estimates of peak user demand. Over-provisioning is used in private networks such as WebEx and the Internet 2 Abilene Network, an American university network. David Isenberg believes that continued over-provisioning will always provide more capacity for less expense than QoS and deep packet inspection technologies.


title: Net neutrality

text: Device neutrality is the principle that in order to ensure freedom of choice and freedom of communication for users of network-connected devices, it is not sufficient that network operators do not interfere with their choices and activities; users must be free to use applications of their choice and hence remove the applications they do not want.


title: Net neutrality

text: Network neutrality: Neutrality principles are codified "ex-ante", and a judicial route is available for redress. Connectivity providers can implement traffic management, but the rules must be the same for everyone. The antitrust alternative takes more time and offers few precedents.


title: Net neutrality

text: Device neutrality: Similarly, neutrality principles are codified "ex-ante" and avail judicial remedies. Device vendors can establish policies for managing applications, but they, too, must be applied neutrally.


title: Net neutrality

text: An unsuccessful bill to enforce network and device neutrality was introduced in Italy in 2015 by Hon. Stefano Quintarelli. The law gained formal support at the European Commission by BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Hermes Center for Transparency and digital human rights. A similar law was enacted in South Korea. Similar principles were proposed in China. The French telecoms regulator ARCEP has called for the introduction of Device Neutrality in Europe.


title: Net neutrality

text: ISPs have the possibility to choose a balance between a base subscription tariff (monthly bundle) and a pay-per-use (pay by MB metering). The ISP sets an upper monthly threshold on data usage, just to be able to provide an equal share amongst customers, and a fair use guarantee. This is generally not considered to be an intrusion, but rather allows for a commercial positioning amongst ISPs.


title: Net neutrality

text: Some networks like public Wi-Fi, or Google Loon can take traffic away from conventional fixed or mobile network providers. This can significantly change the end-to-end behaviour (performance, tariffs).


title: Net neutrality

text: Discrimination by protocol is the favouring or blocking of information based on aspects of the communications protocol that the computers are using to communicate. In the US, a complaint was filed with the Federal Communications Commission against the cable provider Comcast alleging they had illegally inhibited users of its high-speed Internet service from using the popular file-sharing software BitTorrent. Comcast admitted no wrongdoing in its proposed settlement of up to 16 dollars per share in December 2009. However, a U.S. appeals court ruled in April 2010 that the FCC exceeded its authority when it sanctioned Comcast in 2008 for deliberately preventing some subscribers from using peer-to-peer file-sharing services to download large files. However, the FCC spokeswoman Jen Howard responded, "the court in no way disagreed with the importance of preserving a free and open Internet, nor did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end". Despite the ruling in favour of Comcast, a study by "Measurement Lab" in October 2011 verified that Comcast had virtually stopped its BitTorrent throttling practices.


title: Net neutrality

text: During the 1990s, creating a non-neutral Internet was technically infeasible. Originally developed to filter harmful malware, the Internet security company NetScreen Technologies released network firewalls in 2003 with so-called deep packet inspection capabilities. Deep packet inspection helped make real-time discrimination between different kinds of data possible, and is often used for Internet censorship. In a practice called zero-rating, companies will not invoice data use related to certain IP addresses, favoring use of those services. Examples include Facebook Zero, Wikipedia Zero, and Google Free Zone. These zero-rating practices are especially common in the developing world.


title: Net neutrality

text: Sometimes Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will charge some companies, but not others, for the traffic they cause on the ISP's network. French telecom operator Orange, complaining that traffic from YouTube and other Google sites consist of roughly 50% of total traffic on the Orange network, made a deal with Google, in which they charge Google for the traffic incurred on the Orange network. Some also thought that Orange's rival ISP Free throttled YouTube traffic. However, an investigation done by the French telecommunications regulatory body revealed that the network was simply congested during peak hours.


title: Net neutrality

text: Aside from the zero-rating method, ISPs will also use certain strategies to reduce the costs of pricing plans such as the use of sponsored data. In a scenario where a sponsored data plan is used, a third party will step in and pay for all the content that it (or the carrier or consumer) does not want around. This is generally used as a way for ISPs to remove out-of-pocket costs from subscribers.


title: Net neutrality

text: One of the criticisms regarding discrimination is that the system set up by ISPs for this purpose is capable of not only discriminating but also scrutinizing full-packet content of communications. For instance, deep packet inspection technology installs intelligence within the lower layers in the work to discover and identify the source, type, and destination of packets, revealing information about packets traveling in the physical infrastructure so it can dictate the quality of transport such packets will receive. This is seen as an architecture of surveillance, one that can be shared with intelligence agencies, copyrighted content owners, and civil litigants, exposing the users' secrets in the process.


title: Net neutrality

text: Proponents of net neutrality argue that without new regulations, Internet service providers would be able to profit from and favor their own private protocols over others. The argument for net neutrality is that ISPs would be able to pick and choose who they offer a greater bandwidth to. If one website or company is able to afford more, they will go with them. This especially stifles private up-and-coming businesses. ISPs are able to encourage the use of specific services by using private networks to discriminate what data is counted against bandwidth caps. For example, Comcast struck a deal with Microsoft that allowed users to stream television through the Xfinity app on their Xbox 360s without it affecting their bandwidth limit. However, utilizing other television streaming apps, such as Netflix, HBO Go, and Hulu, counted towards the limit. Comcast denied that this infringed on net neutrality principles since "it runs its Xfinity for Xbox service on its own, private Internet protocol network". In 2009, when AT&T was bundling iPhone 3G with its 3G network service, the company placed restrictions on which iPhone applications could run on its network. According to proponents of net neutrality, this capitalization on which content producers ISPs can favor would ultimately lead to fragmentation, where some ISPs would have certain content that is not necessarily present in the networks offered by other ISPs. The danger behind fragmentation, as viewed by proponents of net neutrality, is the concept that there could be "multiple 'Internets,'" where some ISPs offer exclusive internet applications or services or make it more difficult to gain access to internet content that may be more easily viewable through other internet service providers. An example of a fragmented service would be television, where some cable providers offer exclusive media from certain content providers. However, in theory, allowing ISPs to favor certain content and private networks would overall improve internet services since they would be able to recognize packets of information that are more time-sensitive and prioritize that over packets that are not as sensitive to latency. The issue, as explained by Robin S. Lee and Tim Wu, is that there are literally too many ISPs and internet content providers around the world to reach an agreement on how to standardize that prioritization. A proposed solution would be to allow all online content to be accessed and transferred freely, while simultaneously offering a "fast lane" for a preferred service that does not discriminate on the content provider.


title: Net neutrality

text: There is disagreement about whether peering is a net neutrality issue. In the first quarter of 2014, streaming website Netflix reached an arrangement with ISP Comcast to improve the quality of its service to Netflix clients. This arrangement was made in response to increasingly slow connection speeds through Comcast over the course of 2013, where average speeds dropped by over 25% of their values a year before to an all-time low. After the deal was struck in January 2014, the Netflix speed index recorded a 66% increase in connection. Netflix agreed to a similar deal with Verizon in 2014, after Verizon DSL customers' connection speed dropped to less than 1 Mbit/s early in the year. Netflix spoke out against this deal with a controversial statement delivered to all Verizon customers experiencing low connection speeds, using the Netflix client. This sparked an internal debate between the two companies that led to Verizon's obtaining a cease and desist order on 5 June 2014 that forced Netflix to stop displaying this message.


title: Net neutrality

text: Pro-net neutrality arguments have also noted that regulations are necessary due to research showing low tolerance to slow-loading content providers. In a 2009 research study conducted by Forrester Research, online shoppers expected the web pages they visited to download content instantly. When a page fails to load at the expected speed, many of them simply click out. A study found that even a one-second delay could lead to "11% fewer page views, a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction, and 7% loss in conversions". This delay can cause a severe problem to small innovators who have created new technology. If a website is slow by default, the general public will lose interest and favor a website that runs faster. This helps large corporate companies maintain power because they have the means to fund faster Internet speeds. On the other hand, smaller competitors have less financial capabilities making it harder for them to succeed in the online world.


title: Net neutrality

text: Legal enforcement of net neutrality principles takes a variety of forms, from provisions that outlaw anti-competitive blocking and "throttling" of Internet services, all the way to legal enforcement that prevents companies from subsidizing Internet use on particular sites. Contrary to popular rhetoric and statements by various individuals involved in the ongoing academic debate, research suggests that a single policy instrument (such as a no-blocking policy or a quality of service tiering policy) cannot achieve the range of valued political and economic objectives central to the debate. As Bauer and Obar suggest, "safeguarding multiple goals requires a combination of instruments that will likely involve government and nongovernment measures. Furthermore, promoting goals such as the freedom of speech, political participation, investment, and innovation calls for complementary policies."


title: Net neutrality

text: Net neutrality in the United States has been a point of conflict between network users and service providers since the 1990s. Much of the conflict over net neutrality arises from how Internet services are classified by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under the authority of the Communications Act of 1934. The FCC would have significant ability to regulate ISPs should Internet services be treated as a Title II "common carrier service", or otherwise the ISPs would be mostly unrestricted by the FCC if Internet services fell under Title I "information services". In 2009, the United States Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009, which granted a stimulus of $2.88 billion for extending broadband services into certain areas of the United States. It was intended to make the internet more accessible for under-served areas, and aspects of net neutrality and open access were written into the grant. However, the bill never set any significant precedents for net neutrality or influenced future legislation relating to net neutrality. Through 2017, the FCC has generally been favorable towards net neutrality, treating ISPs under Title II common carrier. With the onset of the Presidency of Donald Trump in 2017, and the appointment of Ajit Pai, an opponent of net neutrality, to the chairman of the FCC, the FCC has reversed many previous net neutrality rulings and reclassified Internet services as Title I information services. The FCC's decisions have been a matter of several ongoing legal challenges by both states supporting net neutrality, and ISPs challenging it. The United States Congress has attempted to pass legislation supporting net neutrality but has failed to gain sufficient support. In 2018, a bill cleared the U.S. Senate, with Republicans Lisa Murkowski, John Kennedy, and Susan Collins joining all 49 Democrats but the House majority denied the bill a hearing. Individual states have been trying to pass legislation to make net neutrality a requirement within their state, overriding the FCC's decision. California has successfully passed its own net neutrality act, which the United States Department of Justice challenged on a legal basis. On February 8, 2021, the U.S. Justice Department withdrew its challenge to California's data protection law. Federal Communications Commission Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel voiced support for an open internet and restoring net neutrality.


title: Net neutrality

text: Net neutrality in Canada is a debated issue in that nation, but not to the degree of partisanship in other nations such as the United States in part because of its federal regulatory structure and pre-existing supportive laws that were enacted decades before the debate arose. In Canada, Internet service providers (ISPs) generally provide Internet service in a neutral manner. Some notable incidents otherwise have included Bell Canada's throttling of certain protocols and Telus's censorship of a specific website supporting striking union members. In the case with Bell Canada, the debate for net neutrality became a more popular topic when it was revealed that they were throttling traffic by limiting people's accessibility to view "Canada's Next Great Prime Minister", which eventually led to the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) demanding the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to take action on preventing the throttling of third-party traffic. On October 22, 2009, the CRTC issued a ruling about internet traffic management, which favored adopting guidelines that were suggested by interest groups such as OpenMedia.ca and the Open Internet Coalition. However, the guidelines set in place require citizens to file formal complaints proving that their internet traffic is being throttled, and as a result, some ISPs still continue to throttle the internet traffic of their users.


title: Net neutrality

text: In the year 2018, the Indian Government unanimously approved new regulations supporting net neutrality. The regulations are considered to be the "world's strongest" net neutrality rules, guaranteeing free and open Internet for nearly half a billion people, and are expected to help the culture of startups and innovation. The only exceptions to the rules are new and emerging services like autonomous driving and tele-medicine, which may require prioritized internet lanes and faster than normal speeds.


title: Net neutrality

text: Net Neutrality in China is not enforced, and ISPs in China play important roles in regulating the content that is available domestically on the internet. There are several ISPs filtering and blocking content at the national level, preventing domestic internet users from accessing certain sites or services or foreign internet users from gaining access to domestic web content. This filtering technology is referred to as the Great Firewall, or GFW.


title: Net neutrality

text: In an article published by the Cambridge University Press, they observed the political environment with net neutrality in China. Chinese ISPs have become a way for the country to control and restrict information rather than providing neutral internet content for those who use the internet. Unlike countries such as the United States of America, values such as free speech and equality are not even in question when it comes to China's standards of net neutrality.


title: Net neutrality

text: Telecommunications providers do not follow net neutrality in the Philippines, the country which spends the most time on the Internet and Social Media per day. Telcos offer data package promos that have turned the Philippines into a "balkanized" commercial splinternet by giving certain "free" zero-rated data allocations of branded corporate platform services like social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok), video (YouTube, Netflix, HBO Go), gaming (Mobile Legends, Clash of Clans, PUBG, Call of Duty), shopping (Lazada, Zalora, Shopee), and communications (Zoom, Viber, WhatsApp) - thus steering subscribers towards using the telcos' preferred partnered services.


title: Net neutrality

text: In the mid-2010s, Philippine telcos came under fire from the Department of Justice for throttling the bandwidth of subscribers of unlimited data plans if the subscribers exceeded arbitrary data caps imposed by the Telcos under a supposed "Fair Use Policy" on their "unlimited" plans. Certain adult sites like Pornhub, Redtube, and XTube have also been blocked by some Philippine ISPs at the request of the Philippine National Police to the National Telecommunications Commission, even without the necessary court orders required by the Supreme Court of the Philippines.


title: Net neutrality

text: Proponents of net neutrality regulations include consumer advocates, human rights organizations such as Article 19, online companies and some technology companies. Many major Internet application companies are advocates of neutrality. Yahoo!, Vonage, eBay, Amazon, IAC/InterActiveCorp, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, Tumblr, Etsy, Daily Kos, Greenpeace, along with many other companies and organizations, have also taken a stance in support of net neutrality. Cogent Communications, an international Internet service provider, has made an announcement in favor of certain net neutrality policies. In September 2014, there was an online Internet Slowdown protest for the equal treatment of internet traffic in which large companies such as Netflix and Reddit have participated in.


title: Net neutrality

text: In 2008, Google published a statement speaking out against letting broadband providers abuse their market power to affect access to competing applications or content. They further equated the situation to that of the telephony market, where telephone companies are not allowed to control who their customers call or what those customers are allowed to say. However, Google's support of net neutrality was called into question in 2014. Several civil rights groups, such as the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, SaveTheInternet, and Fight for the Future support net neutrality.


title: Net neutrality

text: Individuals who support net neutrality include World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, Vinton Cerf, Lawrence Lessig, Robert W. McChesney, Steve Wozniak, Susan P. Crawford, Marvin Ammori, Ben Scott, David Reed, and former U.S. President Barack Obama. On 10 November 2014, Obama recommended that the FCC reclassify broadband Internet service as a telecommunications service in order to preserve net neutrality. On 12 November 2014, AT&T stopped build-out of their fiber network until it has "solid net neutrality rules to follow". On 31 January 2015, AP News reported that the FCC will present the notion of applying ("with some caveats") Title II (common carrier) of the Communications Act of 1934 and section 706 of the Telecommunications act of 1996 to the Internet in a vote expected on 26 February 2015.


title: Net neutrality

text: Supporters of net neutrality in the United States want to designate cable companies as common carriers, which would require them to allow Internet service providers (ISPs) free access to cable lines, the same model used for dial-up Internet. They want to ensure that cable companies cannot screen, interrupt or filter Internet content without a court order. Common carrier status would give the FCC the power to enforce net neutrality rules. SaveTheInternet.com accuses cable and telecommunications companies of wanting the role of gatekeepers, being able to control which websites load quickly, load slowly, or do not load at all. According to SaveTheInternet.com, these companies want to charge content providers who require guaranteed speedy data deliveryto create advantages for their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video servicesand slowing access or blocking access to those of competitors. Vinton Cerf, a co-inventor of the Internet Protocol and current vice president of Google, argues that the Internet was designed without any authorities controlling access to new content or new services. He concludes that the principles responsible for making the Internet such a success would be fundamentally undermined were broadband carriers given the ability to affect what people see and do online. Cerf has also written about the importance of looking at problems like Net Neutrality through a combination of the Internet's layered system and the multistakeholder model that governs it. He shows how challenges can arise that can implicate Net Neutrality in certain infrastructure-based cases, such as when ISPs enter into exclusive arrangements with large building owners, leaving the residents unable to exercise any choice in broadband provider.


title: Net neutrality

text: Proponents of net neutrality argue that a neutral net will foster free speech and lead to further democratic participation on the Internet. Former Senator Al Franken from Minnesota fears that without new regulations, the major Internet Service Providers will use their position of power to stifle people's rights. He calls net neutrality the "First Amendment issue of our time". The past two decades has been an ongoing battle of ensuring that all people and websites have equal access to an unrestricted platform, regardless of their ability to pay, proponents of net neutrality wish to prevent the need to pay for speech and the further centralization of media power. Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney argue that net neutrality ensures that the Internet remains a free and open technology, fostering democratic communication. Lessig and McChesney go on to argue that the monopolization of the Internet would stifle the diversity of independent news sources and the generation of innovative and novel web content.


title: Net neutrality

text: Proponents of net neutrality invoke the human psychological process of adaptation where when people get used to something better, they would not ever want to go back to something worse. In the context of the Internet, the proponents argue that a user who gets used to the "fast lane" on the Internet would find the "slow lane" intolerable in comparison, greatly disadvantaging any provider who is unable to pay for the "fast lane". Video providers Netflix and Vimeo in their comments to FCC in favor of net neutrality use the research of S.S. Krishnan and Ramesh Sitaraman that provides the first quantitative evidence of adaptation to speed among online video users. Their research studied the patience level of millions of Internet video users who waited for a slow-loading video to start playing. Users who had faster Internet connectivity, such as fiber-to-the-home, demonstrated less patience and abandoned their videos sooner than similar users with slower Internet connectivity. The results demonstrate how users can get used to faster Internet connectivity, leading to higher expectations of Internet speed, and lower tolerance for any delay that occurs. Author Nicholas Carr and other social commentators have written about the habituation phenomenon by stating that a faster flow of information on the Internet can make people less patient.


title: Net neutrality

text: Net neutrality advocates argue that allowing cable companies the right to demand a toll to guarantee quality or premium delivery would create an exploitative business model based on the ISPs position as gatekeepers. Advocates warn that by charging websites for access, network owners may be able to block competitor Web sites and services, as well as refuse access to those unable to pay. According to Tim Wu, cable companies plan to reserve bandwidth for their own television services, and charge companies a toll for priority service. Proponents of net neutrality argue that allowing for preferential treatment of Internet traffic, or tiered service, would put newer online companies at a disadvantage and slow innovation in online services. Tim Wu argues that, without network neutrality, the Internet will undergo a transformation from a market ruled by innovation to one ruled by deal-making. SaveTheInternet.com argues that net neutrality puts everyone on equal terms, which helps drive innovation. They claim it is a preservation of the way the Internet has always operated, where the quality of websites and services determined whether they succeeded or failed, rather than deals with ISPs. Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney argue that eliminating net neutrality would lead to the Internet resembling the world of cable TV, so that access to and distribution of content would be managed by a handful of massive, near monopolistic companies, though there are multiple service providers in each region. These companies would then control what is seen as well as how much it costs to see it. Speedy and secure Internet use for such industries as healthcare, finance, retailing, and gambling could be subject to large fees charged by these companies. They further explain that a majority of the great innovators in the history of the Internet started with little capital in their garages, inspired by great ideas. This was possible because the protections of net neutrality ensured limited control by owners of the networks, maximal competition in this space, and permitted innovators from outside access to the network. Internet content was guaranteed a free and highly competitive space by the existence of net neutrality. For example, back in 2005 YouTube was just a small startup company. Due to the absence of Internet fast lanes, YouTube had the ability to grow larger than Google Video. Tom Wheeler and Senators Ronald Lee Wyden (D-Ore.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.) said, "Internet service providers treated YouTube's videos the same as they did Google's, and Google couldn't pay the ISPs [Internet service providers] to gain an unfair advantage, like a fast lane into consumers' homes," they wrote. "Well, it turned out that people liked YouTube a lot more than Google Video, so YouTube thrived."