Reining in the Netocracy
The internet has been perhaps the most significant technological development of the late twentieth century. It certainly is the most powerful tool of grassroots communication, and it continues to burgeon and blossom like kudzu alongside a southern highway. One subset of the phenomenon known as the net that has really taken off is that of the blog. Anyone with a connection can now easily put opinions and information about anything. Blogs can also raise $100,000 for a candidate in a matter of days. It is no wonder that those used to traditional sources of power are feeling a tad nervous and therefor use every opportunity to snipe at the blogsters.
Recently the NY Times carried a snarky piece on the blog phenomenon.
THE rise of blogging is often cast in black-and-white terms: blogs versus the "MSM" (the derisive term some bloggers apply to the mainstream media).
But things may shake out more along the lines of journalism versus armchair yammering. Both can be, and are, presented on Web sites that call themselves blogs. Both have been presented in the mainstream media all along. [Emphasis added]
Under this analysis, web sites run by the Washington Post and NY Times are journalism. Web sites run by individuals tend to be armchair yammering. To some extent, that is true. I admit to being a yammerer, quite proudly in fact. I doubt that Media Matters or Firedoglake or much of HuffingtonPost qualify as yammering, though, and they have a huge and influential following.
Us yammerers, most of whom have daily hit counts that rarely rise above double digits, still have something we feel compelled to say, and the internet provides a wonderful medium for us to say it. We follow in the tradition of pamphleteers of the 18th century and the samizdatists of the 20th. It works out quite nicely, or it has at least up to this point. That appears to be changing. The Nation has an incredible article that details the upcoming attempt to wrest the internet away from us common folks.
The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.
Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.
Under the plans they are considering, all of us--from content providers to individual users--would pay more to surf online, stream videos or even send e-mail. Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum," "gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received.
To make this pay-to-play vision a reality, phone and cable lobbyists are now engaged in a political campaign to further weaken the nation's communications policy laws. They want the federal government to permit them to operate Internet and other digital communications services as private networks, free of policy safeguards or governmental oversight. Indeed, both the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are considering proposals that will have far-reaching impact on the Internet's future. Ten years after passage of the ill-advised Telecommunications Act of 1996, telephone and cable companies are using the same political snake oil to convince compromised or clueless lawmakers to subvert the Internet into a turbo-charged digital retail machine.
...At the core of the new power held by phone and cable companies are tools delivering what is known as "deep packet inspection." With these tools, AT&T and others can readily know the packets of information you are receiving online--from e-mail, to websites, to sharing of music, video and software downloads.
But these tools are also being promoted as ways that companies, such as Comcast and Bell South, can simply grab greater control over the Internet. For example, in a series of recent white papers, Internet technology giant Cisco urges these companies to "meter individual subscriber usage by application," as individuals' online travels are "tracked" and "integrated with billing systems." Such tracking and billing is made possible because they will know "the identity and profile of the individual subscriber," "what the subscriber is doing" and "where the subscriber resides."
...Phone and cable companies claim that the government shouldn't play a role in broadband regulation: Instead of the free and open network that offers equal access to all, they want to reduce the Internet to a series of business decisions between consumers and providers. [Emphasis added]
What this means is that only those with the big bucks will be able to play in this heretofor free playground. And it also means that money (which equals power in this society) will determine content. And that means that most of us will successfully be shut up.
Go the The Nation and read the whole article. And then sign up to do something about this.
Recently the NY Times carried a snarky piece on the blog phenomenon.
THE rise of blogging is often cast in black-and-white terms: blogs versus the "MSM" (the derisive term some bloggers apply to the mainstream media).
But things may shake out more along the lines of journalism versus armchair yammering. Both can be, and are, presented on Web sites that call themselves blogs. Both have been presented in the mainstream media all along. [Emphasis added]
Under this analysis, web sites run by the Washington Post and NY Times are journalism. Web sites run by individuals tend to be armchair yammering. To some extent, that is true. I admit to being a yammerer, quite proudly in fact. I doubt that Media Matters or Firedoglake or much of HuffingtonPost qualify as yammering, though, and they have a huge and influential following.
Us yammerers, most of whom have daily hit counts that rarely rise above double digits, still have something we feel compelled to say, and the internet provides a wonderful medium for us to say it. We follow in the tradition of pamphleteers of the 18th century and the samizdatists of the 20th. It works out quite nicely, or it has at least up to this point. That appears to be changing. The Nation has an incredible article that details the upcoming attempt to wrest the internet away from us common folks.
The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.
Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.
Under the plans they are considering, all of us--from content providers to individual users--would pay more to surf online, stream videos or even send e-mail. Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum," "gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received.
To make this pay-to-play vision a reality, phone and cable lobbyists are now engaged in a political campaign to further weaken the nation's communications policy laws. They want the federal government to permit them to operate Internet and other digital communications services as private networks, free of policy safeguards or governmental oversight. Indeed, both the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are considering proposals that will have far-reaching impact on the Internet's future. Ten years after passage of the ill-advised Telecommunications Act of 1996, telephone and cable companies are using the same political snake oil to convince compromised or clueless lawmakers to subvert the Internet into a turbo-charged digital retail machine.
...At the core of the new power held by phone and cable companies are tools delivering what is known as "deep packet inspection." With these tools, AT&T and others can readily know the packets of information you are receiving online--from e-mail, to websites, to sharing of music, video and software downloads.
But these tools are also being promoted as ways that companies, such as Comcast and Bell South, can simply grab greater control over the Internet. For example, in a series of recent white papers, Internet technology giant Cisco urges these companies to "meter individual subscriber usage by application," as individuals' online travels are "tracked" and "integrated with billing systems." Such tracking and billing is made possible because they will know "the identity and profile of the individual subscriber," "what the subscriber is doing" and "where the subscriber resides."
...Phone and cable companies claim that the government shouldn't play a role in broadband regulation: Instead of the free and open network that offers equal access to all, they want to reduce the Internet to a series of business decisions between consumers and providers. [Emphasis added]
What this means is that only those with the big bucks will be able to play in this heretofor free playground. And it also means that money (which equals power in this society) will determine content. And that means that most of us will successfully be shut up.
Go the The Nation and read the whole article. And then sign up to do something about this.
posted by Diane at 9:38 AM
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