These type of closed door meetings are all too common... I wonder how many private meetings like these happen without any disclosure or reporting about them at all???
Yes, many citizen groups stand up for the 1st Amendment and tell our representatives that Internet censorship is not feasible in a functioning democracy. The problem is that the Big Six (GE, News Corp., Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, & CBS) have a megaphone and bags of cash... so often the voices of the citizen groups get drowned out.
Couple that with the fact that the vast majority Americans form their world view from the television or the websites that the Big Six own. Sex scandals and Hollywood gossip is discussed, Internet censorship? Not so much.
And this is increasingly not just an American problem, as many people on this thread are pointing out. We live in a global society (thanks largely to the Internet), the challenges of the U.S. are increasingly the challenges of France.
The Internet has done a tremendous amount of good over the past 20+ years, but there is a flip side to this coin as well.
Check out this five minute documentary trailer (on KickStarter) that seeks to tackle some of these Internet censorship issues:
This documentary project is looking to get crowd-funded by small individual donations from the same citizens with the most to lose if we moved to a censored and centralized Internet.
With all due respect, I think that you are missing the point.
Yes, the uprisings in the Arab world is a very big thing. Which is very much connected to my point of criticizing the largest ISP in the U.S. merging with the largest content provider. And the lack of media coverage in not only American media coverage, but world media coverage. Keep in mind that the economies of General Electric (which owns NBC-Universal) and Comcast are larger than most nations in the world. Needless to say they weild a significant amount of political power outside of the U.S.
The Internet was invented in the United States and it was invented as an open medium (decentralized), this is the reason why totalitarian dictators in the Arab world have such a hard time blocking communication within their regimes that is critical of them. This construct is severely jeopardized by the merger of these two companies... and once this construct is altered in the U.S. it will permeate the entire globe, including the Arab world.
I do not want this to happen... but no one is talking about it... and that is a major problem. This problem is not just the United States' problem, it is the world's problem.
I agree it is very hard to compare the United States with Europe, but there are many similarities and a ton of cross over in ownership. American media firms that are competitors in the United States are many times joined at the hip in Europe. There is a ton of collusion going on.
Ben Bagdikian, former Berkeley Journalism Dean and author of "Media Monopoly" has spent 30 years painstakingly chronicling these relationships.
These media conglomerates are constantly merging and getting more powerful by the day. They of course have their sights firmly on taking "control" of the Internet (will there always be some dissension...sure on the fringes of society) But those that think that the Internet will always have to be an open medium are naive, remember everyone said the same thing about radio in the 1920s.
One more thing to think about when we compare Europe to the US. One must look at French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy and his attempts "civilize" the Internet which is really a code for “regulations favorable to big business and the national security state.
The difference is the French citizens on the whole are more engaged (as braindeomon points out) so they haven't put up with Sarkozy's proposals... unlike the American populace who are largely uninformed on what's going on politically (outside of Congressman Weiner's antics).
It's not political gossip, it's probably the most important question concerning the future of a free and open Internet.
Are you familiar with the implications to the future of the Internet regarding the merger between the largest ISP (Comcast) in the United States merging with the largest content provider (NBC-U)?
Probably not, because there was no real news coverage of it...
But I bet you can tell me a lot about Congressman Anthony Weiner... And that's my point.
Why do news stories such as Anthony Weiner's junk shot or Charlie Sheen's implosion last for weeks in America's news cycle?
But there's hardly any news coverage of NBC-Universal merging with Comcast or commentary on FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker cashing out to become Comcast's chief lobbyist right after approving the merger?
Doesn't it seem that the latter story is what the 4th estate should be doing in order to protect a functioning democracy?... or am I missing something?
JTfor2032:
I agree with what you are saying. It is impossible to have accountable governance when most people get their "news" from the television. Television news in the US is unfortunately concentrated among six huge media conglomerates.
The Internet as we know it, is unfortunately increasingly looking like it is going the way of cable television. Especially in the wake of the NBC-Comcast merger. If this progression continues, which it looks like it will... we will continue to have more and more people in the U.S. keep up with the Anthony Weiner and Royal Wedding Stories and less and less people know that the Internet was shut off in Syria.
Well said Bmcarlisle. I couldn't have said it better myself. I've been very happy with the support of the hackernews community. Out of all the venues I blog, I get the most support from you guys. I posted early this morning and had about 30 of you guys back my project. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
If you haven't read my blog yet on savetheinternet.com
check it out here:
benvanderbeek:
Thanks for the positive feedback. I agree that we have to be skeptical of an all powerful government state, it is just as dangerous as an all powerful corporate state.
Preserving the decentralized integrity of the Internet, where no one government, corporation, or person "owns" the Internet... rather it is essentially owned by every one, whether you're Bill Gates or Ben Vanderbeek - everyone is equal in communication.
Don't get me wrong I believe in a capitalism, within the constitutional framework of a democratic-republic... but our Freedom of Communication and 1st Amendment is too important to be put up for sale.
Tim Wu's, "Master Switch" does a really good job explaining how communication mediums over the years have gone from Open to Closed. I encourage any one who is interested in the subjects of Communication Empires, Internet, and the democracy to get this book:)
Here's a blog posting I recently wrote on savetheinternet.com
Our central premise in #killswitch - the documentary, is that decentralization of knowledge is essential for democracy.
The Printing Press gave society this during the enlightenment period, halting centuries of oppression in the Western World. And the Internet is doing this today by revitalizing democracies in the Western world and helping ignite revolution in the Middle East.
We advocate a Constitutional framework that protects the integrity of the Internet. i.e. a separations principle, whereby content providers should not be ISP's and vice versa. (Detailed account of this in Tim Wu's, "Master Switch").
We are averse to any "Big Brother" Regulation by the Government or "Brave New World" Corporate take-over of the Internet.
The only way to combat oppression is to have accountable governance is to have decentralization of info/knowledge.
One of a demcocracy's central purposes is to protect this decentralized and accountable framework (by protecting the decentralized integrity of the Internet).
One way the gov. can do this by enforcing the 1st Amendment, i.e. Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech. But the gov. won't do this with out an aware and educated citizenry. Which is why we're making the documentary.
(for a detailed account of how our founding father's expressed the difference between Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech, check out Robert McChesney's "The Death and Life of American Journalism")
Thanks very much for your contribution to the production of #killswitch the documentary.
You're right, there is a lot corruption and sometimes it's difficult to make sense of it all.
In my opinion the most alarming part of all is the unprecedented corruption and concentration of the traditional media.
You can really get a sense of how corrupt and concentrated the media industry is when you check out these ownership charts on FreePress.com... You'd be amazed at how many television stations, Film Production Studios, Magazines, Online, holdings, etc. a company like General Electric or Walt Disney owns.
Once you realize how much control over knowledge and information these six companies have and how few people in the US get their news outside of these six sources you realize we've got a major problem for a functioning democracy.
Now that these companies are threatening the integrity of the Internet (NBC-Comcast Merger)... Wait to see which major media conglomerate will be the next to merge with a major ISP... it's quite possible that in the not so distant future the Internet will look like super-charged cable T.V.
(Our 5 minute trailer is posted there - and you can contribute to production if you would like to - we've raised over $14,000 in two weeks thanks friends passing this along)
You can read our treatment on our official website:
www.killswitchthefilm.com
And if you want to see the film projects we've worked on in the past go here:
www.akorn.tv
Thanks everyone for taking interest. We have no advertising budget, so any interest we generate is word of mouth.
Tim Wu's book is excellent and was one of the many books that have influenced me in the writing of this doc. He's on our list of future interviewees.
His explanation of the "Separations Principle" is essential reading for any one that wants to protect the integrity of the Internet as we know it.
Have you read Evgeny Morozov's book, "The Net Delusion"...?
Interesting book -- He looks at the future of the Internet and of democratic government from an interesting perspective. His central premise is that totalitarian governments in the 21st century will look increasingly more like Huxley's, "Brave New World" than Orwell's "1984"...