The War Against the Internet
contributor:tamra spyvey
Net Neutrality is such a boring pair of words it's hard to get excited about it. But imagine an Internet without it. Right now if you have a good broadband connection you can explore with equal speed Walmart's website or the most obscure band or news site run by some wild eyed visionary on the edge of civilization.
The future of art and politics may depend on the freedom of communication the Internet gives us. Think of all the new friends you've made and all the information you've learned by being on the Internet.
If ATT and the other telcos get their way they will castrate your Internet. Like television or feature movies, only work by the corporate monoliths will be easy to get. Those obscure progressive news sites or band sites or blogs you love will load very slowly if at all and will be hard to find on search engines.
Want to do your own site? Good luck. Today it's theoretically possible that you could create something great and put it up on the web and by word of mouth a million people would find it. If we lose Net Neutrality chances are no one will ever see your site because it will take too long to find it and download it.
Filters will control what you say and what files you can trade. The door to dawn that the Internet is will be slammed shut.
So I have a request to make of you. I don't care if you're republican, democrat, green, christian, satanist, taoist, whatever country you live in please USE the free Internet you have. When you hear stories that matter to you share them with all your friends. Make a point out of sharing what you discover. And create your own work to share.
Use the Internet and pass on the word that we are in a war to keep it free. http://www.savetheinternet.com Tamra Lucidnation
Web Inventor Warns of Dark Internet If Broken into Tiers May 24th, 2006 by tkarr
Sir Tim Berners-Lee The inventor of the World Wide Web has warned that the internet would enter a dark period if large ISPS were allowed to break it up into separate tiers.
Sir Tim told a packed conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday: What is very important from my point of view is that there is one web. Anyone that tries to chop it into two will find that their piece looks very boring. I think it is one and will remain as one.
Berners-Lee said the correct way of running the internet was that people should pay for a connection, but not face any kind of discrimination when they searched for information.
There is an effort by some companies in the US to change this. Theres an attempt to get to a situation where if I want to watch a TV station across the Internet, that TV station must have paid to transmit to me, he added pointing to ISPs near monopoly control of markets in the States.
I hope that the U.S. will come to the right decision (as) there is a very strong groundswell of opinion for net neutrality, Berners-Lee said.
Berners-Lee also suggested a chilling effect on voting and democracy could happen should telecom companies gain the right to enforce a tiered Internet.
Its better and more efficient for us all if we have a separate market where we get our connectivity, and a separate market where we get our content. Information is what I use to make all my decisions. Not just what to buy, but how to vote, Berners-Lee later told a room full of reporters.
The Telcos Are Calling You May 24th, 2006 by tkarr
I just got a phone call by a nice lady that tried to persuade me that net neutrality is bad. Because there is an internet price increase coming really really soon, and Google wants me to pay for it.
The dialog went something like this:
(obligatory awkward call center pause)
Her: Hello, Im calling from a non profit organization called TV 4 US, and we call consumers about an upcoming internet price hike. The big internet companies, like, (small pause) Microsoft want you to pay for that. Do you think that is fair?
Me, confused: Uhm, what are you calling about?
Her: The internet is going to be more expensive, because big companies like Microsoft and Google are wasting all our bandwidth. Do you think consumers should pay for that? Or should the big companies that are wasting the bandwidth pay for that?
At which point I tried to argue that companies use bandwidth because consumers use their services, but of course she was trained to end her call as soon as she would hit a road block.
I managed to get a little bit of information about her non profit before she hung up tho: TV 4 US apparently doesnt have a website. Maybe they want to save some of that precious bandwidth before Google and Microsoft are gonna waste it all. But they can be reached at 888-346-1400. Just in case you want to tell them what you think about dumbing down policy issues.
Indeed, TV 4 US (they do have a Web site) is yet another AT&T-backed front group that is burning through telco cash to spread the lie that Net Neutrality will cost consumers.
Whats really costing consumers isnt Net Neutrality but the phone companies multi-million-dollar campaign to kill it. Companies like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth have spent tens of millions of dollars on canned phone calls, advertisements, DC lobbyists and phony front groups to squash our genuine grassroots effort.
Where do you think they get that money? Thats right. A portion of your phone bill goes towards creating campaigns that are designed to deceive consumers into acting against their best interests.
For more on the telco fictions, check out this newly released report from Free Press, Consumer Union and the Consumer Federation of America.
Email to a Friend
