Despite all of the terrible things being done by our government these days, the
anti-network neutrality bill going through Congress
right now may be the most significant issue that we as an Internet community will face, because it deals with the survivial of Internet communities like this one.
The Internet as we know it may soon cease to exist.
Three weeks ago, a House subcommittee voted 27-4 to hand a giant victory to corporate interests. The bill, known as the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006, now goes to the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week.
With this bill, the Congress is continuing their trend of giving away public goods to corporations. But now, it's not forests or wetlands or wildlife refuges. It's the democratizing communication medium we use every day. And it's not just Republicans. Democrats voted for this bill too.
What will the Internet look like if this bill is passed? It will look a lot more like cable TV, where you can only choose to watch what your service provider puts in your package. If a particular channel isn't picked up by the cable service provider, you can't access it and might not even know it exists. Adelphia is the only cable provider that serves my neighborhood, so I can't watch Al Gore's Current TV channel because Adelphia doesn't offer it. Imagine an Internet like this.
Officially, the bill deals with speed of delivery. But in practice, speed will translate into access.
Let's say your Internet Service Provider is AOL/Time Warner. After this bill, Time Warner will be able to change the speed of your internet connection depending on what you're trying to look at on the web. They are allowed to speed up certain services and slow others down. The ISP corporations want to dictate where you can go on the web, rather than you deciding for yourself.
From a purely business standpoint, if Time Warner launches its own video delivery service, for example, they may slow down competing sites, like YouTube and Google Video, in order to encourage their subscribers to use their proprietary offering. This will have a damper on any new startup businesses. Sounds annoying, but not earth-shatteringly awful?
Well, Time Warner may not want their subscribers looking at a site that is critical of them as a corporation, either. A site like DailyKos, let's say. So they can simply slow it down to the point of being non-functioning. Or they may institute a policy of charging websites for faster access to their subscriber base, locking out sites without advertising budgets (like DailyKos) from being available to their subscribers.
If you don't believe me, check out what the good people at savetheinternet.com are saying:
The nation's largest telephone and cable companies -- including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner -- want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all.
They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video -- while slowing down or blocking their competitors.
...
On the Internet, consumers are in ultimate control -- deciding between content, applications and services available anywhere, no matter who owns the network. There's no middleman. But without net neutrality, the Internet will look more like cable TV. Network owners will decide which channels, content and applications are available; consumers will have to choose from their menu.
The Internet has always been driven by innovation. Web sites and services succeeded or failed on their own merit. Without net neutrality, decisions now made collectively by millions of users will be made in corporate boardrooms. The choice we face now is whether people can choose the content and services they want, or whether the broadband barons will choose for them.
This issue has not felt the kind of groundswell of support and righteous anger that other issues inspire around here. Why? Perhaps it seems technical, or unimportant. But if we don't deal with this issue right now, we may not be around to deal with any other issues in the future.
This is what Josh Marshall at TPM is saying about it:
This isn't some obscure issue of interest only to policy wonks. It may seem like it, but it's not. It's a very big deal and I strongly encourage you to find out what's going on.
We tend to take for granted how the Internet evolved. For all its shortcomings, it is a remarkably level playing field where all sorts of voices -- the strong and the weak, the popular and the despised -- can all make their voices heard. Yes, Viacom's voice is louder than TPM's or Atrios's or Newsmax's. But if you want to read TPM, we're right here, just as easy to visit as the media giants.
But it won't necessarily stay that way.
The Internet could have evolved very, very differently. It could have turned in to one or two big proprietary networks -- maybe AOL and Compuserve, or AOL and MSN, each closed, each controlled by one company, without the dynamism, freedom and entrepreneurial magic we associate with the web. The big media offerings would be easy to get to and easy to download while the blogs and other moderately funded alternatives, right and left, had to make do with second or third tier access. Or maybe Verizon decides that anti-Verizon content just won't run on their network.
Think of it like Cable TV. Anybody can start a cable channel. But if you can't get on TimeWarner Cable here in Manhattan, for me you might as well not even exist. The Internet could work like that.
It could have been that way. And it could still become that way.
In the subcommittee meeting mentioned above, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced an amendment that supported the idea of network neutrality, to force ISPs to treat all Internet traffic equally. This is basically what we have now. This amendment was defeated 23-8. That's a bipartisan vote.
What can you do?
1. GET EDUCATED
For a better understanding of the basics of this topic, I highly recommend this easy-to-follow youtube video.
Here is a SF Chronicle article about what happened to the Markey amendment.
Blue Meme's great diary on the subject illustrates how the Telcoms are positioning their side of the story.
2. FIND OUT WHERE YOUR REP STANDS
The sponsors of this dreadful bill are:
Joe Barton (R-Texas)
Fred Upton (R-Mich.)
Charles Pickering (R-Miss.)
Bobby Rush (D-Ill.)
This map shows you how the members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee currently stand
I was stunned to see that my representative, the liberal Henry Waxman, was on the map as undecided. I called Waxman's LA office to express my support for net neutrality and to ask about his position. The woman who answered confirmed that the Congressman has not yet taken a position on this issue!
We cannot count on even our most liberal members of Congress to stand up for our freedom of communications without public pressure.
3. ACT NOW TO SAVE THE INTERNET
A full committee vote could happen as early as Wednesday April 26.
Act now, by calling your representative and telling him how important it is to you that he preserve Net Neutrality and support Ed Markey's amendment.
SAVETHEINTERNET.COM is a great resource the likes of which may not be allowed to exist in the future. It has information, easy ways to email your congresspeople, and examples of the kinds of abuses we have already seen from ISPs.
4. SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THIS ISSUE
So that others will learn about it and take action.