When Astroturf Calls
May 18th, 2007 by tkarrCompanies fighting the drive to make Net Neutrality the online law of the land are back with more shady tactics designed to confuse the public over the issue.
Media Minutes reports today that people in Oregon are receiving automated telemarketing calls urging them “to call Senator Gordon Smith to oppose any congressional intervention into the Net Neutrality debate.”
Real People v. Robo-Calls |
The recorded message portrays the issue as a fight between phone and cable companies and big Internet firms like Google and Yahoo, when in reality Network Neutrality is not a battle of corporate titans but a grassroots concern that rallied the support of more than 1.5 million Internet users.
It is more about the rights of citizens, small businesses, bloggers, musicians and independent Web sites to freely communicate online without having the phone and cable companies discriminate against their content in favor of data from larger corporations.
A bill to restore Network Neutrality called the Internet Freedom Preservation Act is pending in Senate and has 10 sponsors so far including Oregon’s other Senator, Ron Wyden.
These “robo-calls” in Oregon never mention where they are coming from or who paid for the uninvited intrusion.
Elsewhere, a group calling itself the American Consumer Institute emerged from obscurity touting a new report which claims that a federal Net Neutrality law would cost consumers billions of dollars in higher Internet connection fees.
The problem is the American Consumer Institute is nothing but a front for a former chief economist of the phone company now known as Verizon — who also moonlights as a consultant for the telecom industry.
If you go to the ACI Website, however, nowhere does it mention this obvious conflict of interest.
Curiously, when three leading trade representatives for the phone, cable and wireless industries were pressed before Congress yesterday to list their biggest concerns about regulations and their impact on providing faster Internet services to more Americans, none mentioned Net Neutrality as a problem.
So why is it that they’re spending tens of millions of dollars on phony Astroturf efforts to mislead the public on the issue? Stay tuned.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:23 am
[…] SAVE THE INTERNET: Whereas television often suppresses public debate, Gore believes that the Internet encourages it. He writes that it “has extremely low entry barriers for individuals. It is the most interactive medium in history and the one with the greatest potential for connecting individuals to one another and to a universe of knowledge … It’s a platform, in other words, for reason.” While the majority of the major television networks ignored Comey’s testimony, blogs continue to cover it. Online watchdogs are holding the media accountable for responsible reporting. Presidential candidates are increasing their presence on the web, with several candidates allowing users to interact with each and give feedback to the campaigns. Ordinary citizens are able to submit questions to candidates during presidential debates. But as Gore warns, there is still just a “very small number of broadband network operators” who have an “an economic incentive to extend their control over the physical infrastructure of the network to leverage control of Internet content. If they went about it in the wrong way, these companies could institute changes that have the effect of limiting the free flow of information over the Internet in a number of troubling ways.” Help Save the Internet by telling Congress to preserve net neutrality here. […]