Your Internet: Open or Closed?

During a Friday briefing in the chambers of the House Commerce Committee Tim Wu, Ben Scott, Marvin Ammori, Jef Pearlman and Markham Erickson laid out the central struggle in our campaign to save a free-flowing Internet.

At stake is whether the Internet will be open, neutral and accessible to all or a closed network -- controlled by a handful of gatekeepers with monopoly tendencies.

Neutrality v. Monopoly

The speakers laid out this conflict in clear, concise and often chilling terms. Their comments are drawn into relief against a backdrop of abuses by network giants Comcast, AT&T and Verizon.

The stage was also set by Reps. Ed Markey and Chip Pickering, who earlier in the week introduced the "Internet Freedom and Preservation Act" a forward-thinking piece of legislation that would write baseline Net Neutrality protections into the Communications Act, and give the FCC the teeth to stop incidents of discriminatory blocking and censorship over the Internet.

(And let's not forget efforts by many of these same actors to gain immunity from prosecution for unwarranted spying on Americans.)

Why Now?

The Clash of Civilizations

Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, often calls this conflict a "clash of civilizations."

It's a time in our immediate history when traditional media powers are facing off against a new form of communications -- that is more grassroots and decentralized -- and attempting to re-assert their control as they did in the past when the "disruptive technologies" of the broadcast era were being adopted by mass audiences.

"Behind every great and abusive monopoly almost always lies a network ... a network that has been co-opted, which has been turned into a discriminatory network, and which has been then used to carry out and further the power of the monopoly." Said Wu.

Monopoly, Investment and the Public Interest

"So when we are talking about these complicated issues of Comcast blocking and what's going on with NARAL what we are really talking about is whether we will allow these networks to become the seeds of a new generation of dangerous and abusive monopolies."

A Moment in History

Scott asked why we are engaged in this fight over an open verses closed Internet right now.

Through a combination of forces -- including remarkable innovations in technology, surging consumer demand, industry consolidation and policy mistakes -- the U.S. Internet has arrived at a volatile moment.

Comcast's Control Fantasy

Decisions we make about our right to communicate right now will have an impact on our economic and civic life and social health for generations to come.

In the videos embedded here, Wu, Scott, Ammori, Pearlman and Erickson help set the stage for this struggle.

With their legislation this week, Markey and Pickering give us hope that we can send a strong and clear message that heavy-handed telco and cable control will no longer be tolerated.

Comments

[scepticalobserver]

Thanks for the informative post.
One of my biggest regrets is that the internet came along so late in my life and anything that places limits on the free flow of information scares me.

Grass-roots organizing is finally becoming a reality.

[freespeach]

Great post, thanks Timothy.

Huffpo, please keep this issue front and center, and get us some info on where our Presidential contenders stand on internet freedom?

[mcthorogood]

Thanks Timothy for a very informative post. Let me state that I am a fan of Ron Paul and his position is that any type of government regulation is wrong.

There is a technical reason for FCC regulation of the frequency spectrum, due to interference between stations, and government regulation is required. However in the case of packet communications, bandwidth consumption becomes the limiting factor. Additionally, radio and television are simplex communication, while the internet is duplex communication.

At the beginning of the 1900's, magnates purchased national newspapers in order to gain control of the media. Today the MSM is controlled a few influential people, who have effectively blacked out viable presidential candidates and instead foisted their own choices upon the electorate. So what has the FCC or the government done to insure equal time (free speech) for candidates in the mass media?

So I think there are two issues, one being freedom of speech over the internet, and two development of business on the internet. Bandwidth is a lesser factor for freedom of speech, but is more important for business. The formation of significant Ron Paul grassroot networks attest to the power of public duplex packet communications.

Let me adjust my tinfoil hat. Ahh there it is. So what we need is more government regulation, What better way than to legislate the solution? We can call it the Patriot Act. So who has enough money to control congress and the lawyers? The internet is just fine for me the way it is, let the market work it out. Not enough bandwidth, build bigger pipes. If the government censures my free speech then I will use encryption, if they monitor my traffic then I will use an onion router.

[tompoe]

I live in a small rural community in north-central Iowa. I proposed to our city leaders to throw their support behind a decentralized broadband infrastructure. I received a letter letting me know no such support would be forthcoming, and that the telco monopoly, Qwest, would not permit such an initiative. I sent the same proposal to our state's governor, Chester Culver, to champion all communities to establish decentralized broadband infrastructure, and received a letter cautioning me not to do anything illegal.

We own the airwaves, and we could own the infrastructure for $50 per house, and true broadband speeds ten-fold faster than what the telcos and cablecos offer per house per month for less than $20. Something is terribly wrong, and it starts with net neutrality. Time to get really, really, angry.

[FairAndUnbalanced]

This was a very informative post. Thank-you!

[JustifiablyParanoid]

Amen.