Diesel Civil Trust

…a much greater danger to the republic than the anointing of corporations as persons with the right to flood our airwaves with propaganda is any attack on Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is the principle that my blog is inexpensive to publish and to access, so that I and my readers have the same advantages in this regard as a corporation would. If the Right Wing ever manages to scale the internet and make me pay $70,000 a year to put up this blog and have it easily available to my readers, it will kill it and would signal a return to push media like the networks. And a push-media world where corporations own the Web and can push at us what they please, including their weird ideas about political reality, really would be Orwellian and dangerous.

Juan Cole (via azspot)

Secretary of State Peter Mandelson is planning to introduce changes to the Digital Economy Bill now under debate in Parliament. These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson — or his successor in the next government) the power to make “secondary legislation” (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are considering whether the government should take greater control of the Internet and ask consumers to pay higher phone charges in order to provide all Americans with cheaper access to broadband Internet service.

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are considering whether the government should take greater control of the Internet and ask consumers to pay higher phone charges in order to provide all Americans with cheaper access to broadband Internet service.

azspot:

Who do you want to decide which websites you can visit or what Internet content you can access — you or a big telecom company?

That’s what the fight about network neutrality is all about. Net neutrality is the principle that Internet users, not Internet service providers, should be in control.

The carrier has written a letter to the Federal Communications Commission claiming that Google has violated the agency’s Net neutrality principles, which Google has long supported. Google defended its position in a blog post written by Richard Whitt, Google’s main lobbyist and telecommunications lawyer in Washington, that basically said AT&T is comparing apples and oranges.

Individuals accustomed to an ethical system based on the book regard any infringement on their authorial rights or any use of a published text, without appropriate permission, as a moral and legal wrong … In contrast, individuals who have become accustomed to hypertextual exchange tend to regard any impediment to free exchange as a serious wrong. The free development and dissemination of knowledge is more important than always giving precise credit where credit is due.

Silvio Gaggi, quoted by Lethe in The Blog of Innocence: Where do we stand on Internet Copyright Law? (via quotingthecrisis)

morningstar:

grahamgrafx:

I remember being appalled by this commercial while living in Buffalo. I had to explain net neutrality to me roommates. I haven’t seen it in about 3 years, but then again I don’t watch TV. I’m guessing that’s why it aired on television and wasn’t as ad online. Have seen any anti Net Neutrality ads online?

Im appaled at seeing it now. Unfortunately, propaganda works well on the weak minded, and on that note, the most weak-minded of individuals are consistently glued to their televisions (explaining why you havent seen this ad online, but on TV). Facism creeps into free societies by appealing to emotions and other securities, without the use of factual backing or encouraging it’s audience to inquire further.

Many alleged ‘freenations around the world are moving rapidly towards internet censorship. Limiting access to information is a sure sign of totalitarianism. Businesses in the ‘free market’ are already tossing their principles aside to allow such censorship to take place.  If we believe it is condemnable to destroy the information in books, to prevent individuals from obtaining education, and to mask the public’s knowledge of the activities of their government, why would we suggest such despotic ideas as internet censorship?

azspot:

Julius Genachowski, a strong proponent of Net Neutrality, was confirmed late Thursday to be the influential chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Genachowski is well regarded in the technology community, both as the former chief counsel to Reed Hundt, an FCC chairman under President Bill Clinton, and as a private-sector entrepreneur and venture capitalist.

He’s also a former law school classmate of Barack Obama and principal architect of the president’s technology and innovation plan, which features Net Neutrality as its centerpiece.

In light of ongoing warrantless wiretapping, we’ll see. I hope so, for the sake of innovation, small business and entrepreneurship everywhere. Emphasis mine.

Three-quarters of British households will be online by the end of the year, according to research from the regulator Ofcom last week, with consumers brought into the fold by cheap broadband deals from the likes of TalkTalk and Sky, which has gone from nowhere to two million customers in three years. The UK sits in 11th place in the global broadband league, with 28.5 broadband subscribers per hundred inhabitants, according to statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The OECD’s list was topped by Denmark at 37.2 subscribers per hundred inhabitants, with the Netherlands at 35.8 and Norway at 34.5.

Now read closely everyone, this is really just another story about big telecoms trying to stick it to consumers over bandwidth. Emphasis mine.

…Cuban was the day’s finale and as outspoken as usual, insisting that the future of innovation is technology and applications delivered via cable, rather than broadband. He criticized some of the powerful people packing the room, saying he’s disappointed by the lack of innovation in Internet video over the past decade.

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