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May 03, 2006
Save the Internet!
A. J. Liebling warned, "Freedom of press is guaranteed only to those who own one." The internet has spawned millions of printing presses, leading to an explosion of democratic discourse perhaps unmatched in human history. Anybody with access to a computer and a web connection can join the fray.
But don't think it can't be taken away.
Right now, there's a debate in congress over "net neutrality." It's hard to get worked up over something that sounds so technical, but the stakes couldn't be higher.
The end of net neutrality would mean the end of the internet as we know it today in America. The giant corporations which provide internet access to most Americans would be free to sell preferential access to the highest bidder - and to squeeze the bandwidth of the websites that don't pay their protection money.
The internet didn't get the way it is today by accident, or simply because of the "free market." The system was coded - by regulators and technologists - in ways that enforce fair, equal treatment to all speakers. But code can be altered, and don't think big media wouldn't love to see all us uppity bloggers put back in our place, and the net turned from a global public square to just another mass medium.
If you think I'm exaggerating here, check out this shockingly spiteful and incoherent rant from Mike McCurry, onetime Clinton hand, now lapdog for the telcos. (To get some context on McCurry's bewhilderingly aggreived tone, check out Joshua Micah Marshall here, and Adam Green here.)
For more on how net neutrality works, check out this video distributed by MoveOn:
To get involved in this struggle over the future of democratic discourse in the United States, go to savetheinternet.com.
UPDATE: From the New Yorker, here's James Surowiecki on net neutrality. Surowiecki's an extraordinary business writer, and he does a great job of laying out the economics of the conflict, but I think he understates the dangers to democracy posed by the loss of net neutrality. Right now, the internet is America's public square. The end of net neutrality could turn it into a mall.
Posted by tedf at May 3, 2006 10:06 AM
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