Sen. Al Franken (D.-Minn.) warned a packed house Thursday night in Minneapolis that the corporate takeover of our media, and the government's failure to stop it, is one of the most important issues of our time.
Franken said our media system is at risk everywhere we turn -- from our free speech online to the growing power of companies who own a massive number of media outlets.
Franken was speaking during a hearing featuring Federal Communications Commission Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps.
He spoke about recent efforts by Verizon and Google to push a "policy framework" on Washington that transfers control over Internet content from the people who go online into the hands of a few powerful corporations.
| Franken: "We have a problem" |
He also warned of the looming merger between cable giant Comcast and NBC-Universal, urging Copps and Clyburn to oppose the merger and enforce Net Neutrality rules that would protect free speech online.
With the Internet, "We don't just have a competition problem, we have a First Amendment problem," Franken said. He then quoted Justice Hugo Black, who warned against letting companies have the power to prevent people from publishing.
In a Thursday Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial, both Copps and Clyburn said that the power of the Internet must remain in the hands of consumers, "because corporations will press their advantage if they can."
"History teaches us ... that when technological capability to exercise control combines with a financial incentive to do so, some will try to turn this power to their own advantage," they wrote.
In reference to the Verizon and Google deal, they wrote: "This new framework is not what the American people have been waiting for, not by a long shot."
Companies like AT&T, Verizon and Google would like to resolve this issue by creating policies in closed-door meetings with regulators. But the hundreds of people who packed the hearing in Minneapolis made it clear that this issue demands public participation.
Commissioners Copps and Clyburn and Sen. Franken are strong supporters of policies that would make Net Neutrality the rule of the road. President Obama has called protecting Net Neutrality a top priority. But FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has been reluctant to move forward to create a lasting rule.
You can change that. Watch the video of Franken's speech and take action at SavetheInternet.com.
Follow Timothy Karr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TimKarr
Attila Honey
Not to mention the fact that part of his job is to explain to the people what he's doing...
Attila Honey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBO5dh9qrIQ&feature=player_embedded
Talking of which, I have a very painful personal experience recently, Facebook disabled my account without advance warning and without evidence of my wrong-doing but abstract accusation. If we rent a place or an apartment and if things do not work out, what's going to happen? The landlord would shout out, "You got to go", still you take everything (your properties) with you. With Facebook, as in this case, my "virtual property" are now in Facebook's "private prison", and I can't even arrange a "prison" visit with friends I made over FB... If this is not corporate dictatorship and evil then what else is?
Second, I don't see him coming here and trying to block you posting such drivel... So I guess that means that since Net Neutrality is still (mostly) the realized situation out here, and that there's no censorship from the government, I think you're fine.
Free speech is not imperiled in any way by the fact that government isn't allowed to dictate online traffic policies for owners of the internet infrastructure. Free speech is about preventing the government from limiting, hindering, suppressing, or in any way interfering with the right to speak freely, not what policies private businesses adopt. If Verizon were to prohibit HuffingtonPost from being accessible over its network (about as likely as discovering at this date that the moon really is made of cheese), I'm pretty sure that other providers - cable, for instance, or wireless providers through wifi or wimax, would have been handed the marketing gift of a lifetime, and Verizon's involvement in the business of providing internet service would pretty much come to an end.
Lord, this argument is even more vapid than that of those claiming Net Neutrality is a threat to free speech (it isn't that either). It's about whether internet providers can charge content providers more for better service, i.e. whether 'bandwidth hogs' can pay to ensure more reliable service. For good or bad, that's the issue - not the First Amendment.
And Franken is so hostile the First Amendment (wanting to put people in jail who "lie" in politics, as he defines a lie of course), that I don't think I'd be looking to him to save free speech.
Sean Parnell
President
Center for Competitive Politics
http://www.campaignfreedom.org
http://www.twitter.com/seanparnellccp
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
So while vocal criticism of Dr. Laura, her sponsors leaving, or being taken off the air by her employer have literally NOTHING to do with the first amendment and protection of free speech, Net Neutrality has EVERYTHING to do with the first amendment. For if Congress were to pass laws that dictated corporations control of the flow of internet speech of citizens (in terms of written word, sharing of information, anything having to do with the passing of money), that WOULD be a law that would infringe or potentially "prohibit" free speech.
Interesting that those Tea Partiers and conservatives who allegedly "value" the Constitution and "free speec" are all for handing over the power to control or prohibit free speech to big business. I can't think of anything more obviously in violation of the Constitution.
However, you did not say how you would propose ensuring Net Neutrality over the Internet? I hope you are not suggesting that the government actually manage the Internet instead of the network managers we have today? If so, I can try to show you why that would be a mistake.
I think the Google/Verizon proposal is a great start. I think there are some things that need to be improved, for example the fines for violating Net Neutrality need to be more than $2M, but in general it is a good proposal.
What do you think?
Congress isn't passing laws that "dictate corporations control the flow of internet speech of citizens." Where is the bill that does this? What section of code does this?
Internet providers have an interest in managing traffic that flows over their network - they don't care about the content, but they sure do care about the number of bits flowing this way and that. Too many bits at one time (too many people viewing HD clips of their favorite sports team at the same time, etc.) degrades the signal quality. The companies want to be able to charge content providers to ensure their traffic, i.e. their bits, receives priority on the network and their signal isn't degraded.
In practical terms, this means ESPN pays Comcast to ensure their video clips download and play quickly with high quality, while Huffington Post doesn't pay and it takes you and me an extra 3 seconds to download whatever page we're reading.
Sean Parnell
President
Center for Competitive Politics
http://www.campaignfreedom.org
http://www.twitter.com/seanparnellccp
Anything you say after this statement has no credibility. It is quite clear you have no idea what you are talking about "Mr. President".
When you try to take back social security is when the American People will have had enough! Social security is the last refuge the over 40 crowd has left after that last rape and pillage, If you don't want to become a homeless old bum you better start intimidating those in power to do what is right! They won’t do it on their own and you know it since submissiveness and apathy is the first step toward your own persecution and subsequent demise.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. - JFK
Even if Franken is a knight in shining armor set on watchdogging internet neutrality, you cannot count on there being a majority of other Congresspeople who will be looking out for your interests.
The internet will be sold off to the corporations in the form of favorable 'regulations' that create the monopoly you fear. Government will facilitate that ... and you don't know if it will be 'righties' or
'lefties' choosing what content you have access to.
Wishing it were otherwise doesn't make it so.
Government can be for the people, but you need to remove the ability for corporations to choose who they want to support, provide the money for the campaign, get them elected and then expect favours.
Luckily the Government cannot sell off the whole internet as it exists in many countries.
Wow, something I actually agree with Franken on! Imagine that....
This is wrecking their plans for a Marxist overthrow of the US government.
Ergo the whining and complaining.
My guess is that if we could hear your voice it would sound like HAL 9000.
"I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I am afraid."
What we have to watch out for is the drive from the likes of Franken et al to push for government controlled, er subsidized, media. A couple of weeks ago, Lee Bolinger (President of Columbia University) articulated the need for government to "save" media. Mark my words, the government media push is here.
A few Big Media companies effectively own the airwaves (both radio and TV) and publishing. While you're right that all three of these markets are shrinking, that should be a *warning* to us that we guard against those same companies effectively owning the internet. It should *not* be a reason to hide our heads in the sand.
If Net Neutrality is truly enshrined in law, then examples like HuffPo will be the rules and not the exception. OTOH, if Preferential Access becomes the law of the land, then smaller sites won't have the money to pay for big enough pipes to truly succeed against cnn.com, foxnews.com and all of the astroturf sites that they set up (or acquire).
It ain't the beginning of the "government media push". It's the beginning of the "online media consolidation".
And your evidence for this is nothing but - well, nothing.
Of course.
OH - he's a COMEDIAN!
If he'd been a western film star instead, then he'd be your guy, right?
Big Gov can (and going by history will) unequally regulate Big Media ... spoils to the highest bidder to those on the Hill.
When are we going to learn this?
Big Bus loves Big Gov bueaucracy because they can buy it off in ways we can't even imagine and the voting public cannot be nimble enough to combat it. We can't even control all the graft and fraud that is going on with the level of bureacracy we have now!
In contrast, boycott movements can turn big business practices around on a dime if the public gets niggled with them. No waiting around for 2, 4 or 6 years to vote out politicians who gave 'special favors' to one business or another ... essentially creating monopolies by government fiat.
Neither choice is ideal, but the Big Gov route is the worst option we could possibly choose.