Net Neutrality Is a Civil Rights Issue
February 22nd, 2008 by caaronDecisions made by Congress and the Federal Communications Commission in the next few years — if not sooner — will determine whether we protect free speech online, close the digital divide, and bring a greater diversity of voices to this transformative medium.
The world of technology is rapidly changing. Pretty soon, you’ll get all your media — TV, phone, radio and the Web — from the same high-speed Internet connection. The potential democratic, economic, public safety and educational benefits of the Internet are almost limitless. Wiring our nation with a high-speed Internet connection is now a public necessity, just like water, gas or electricity.
Unfortunately, the powerful cable and telecom industry doesn’t value the Internet for its public interest benefits. Instead, these companies too often believe that to safeguard their profits, they must control what content you see and how you get it. Their plans could have dire consequences for those whose voices are often marginalized by our nation’s media system.
For communities of color, the Internet offers a critical opportunity to build a more equitable media system. It provides all Americans with the potential to speak for themselves without having to convince large media conglomerates that their voices are worthy of being heard.
Net Neutrality Is Internet Freedom
Our Internet freedom is protected by a fundamental principle called “Network Neutrality,” which allows the public to access any Web site or any Web application of their choice without discrimination. Net Neutrality has been the guiding principle of the Internet since its inception — but now it’s in danger.
Big phone and cable companies want to decide for you which Web sites and services go fast or slow. While the big corporate sites, especially the ones owned by these companies, get a spot in the fast lane on the information superhighway, everyone else — small businesses, independent publications, community groups — will be stuck on the slow road to irrelevance.
These companies spend a lot of money spreading misinformation about their plans. They’ve said there’s no evidence that they’re going to interfere with the Internet and that they can trusted to do the right thing. But actions speak louder than words.
Comcast Blocks Innovation
In the most glaring example, last October the Associated Press found that cable giant Comcast was crippling a popular way of sharing large files called BitTorrent — which allows people to quickly download large files such as videos, movies, and music without using a lot of bandwidth.
BitTorrent is perfectly legal. Hollywood studios and music companies use BitTorrent to distribute high quality films, TV shows and music. Even NASA has started using it to send high-resolution photos from outer space. Bit Torrent also provides Internet users with an online version of video-on-demand, allowing them to easily download content of their choosing. It is an ideal application for independent artists and individuals seeking an inexpensive distribution system.
Comcast claims BitTorrent users are hogging the network. But they don’t just cut off high-volume users trying to download 20 movies at a time. They block everybody. AP reporters weren’t even able to share a copy of the Bible.
Here’s what Comcast really doesn’t like about BitTorrent: It’s competition for their own video business. If we can pick and choose what we want to see for ourselves, we might be less inclined to keep paying Comcast an arm and a leg for all the channels we don’t watch.
Comcast is abusing its power. And their actions clearly violate FCC rules that say the Internet can be accessed by users without restrictions. After public interest groups led by Free Press filed a complaint — and thousands of angry Internet users flooded their in-boxes — the FCC launched an official investigation.
This investigation may well determine whether the Internet will remain open and free. After claiming they would never discriminate, Comcast is now trying to undermine the guiding principles of Network Neutrality by blocking whatever they want. The other big Internet providers — like AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner — filed in support of Comcast’s right to discriminate because they want to do the same thing.
A History of Discrimination
Communities of color and other under-represented groups have long fought for a more diverse and inclusive media system. Discrimination and segregation prevented people of color from obtaining radio or TV licenses when these mediums were first created. During the 1970s, cable promised to be a real alternative to TV for communities of color seeking diverse programming; it didn’t happen. Yet, many of these very same companies now want to prevent Internet users, including people of color, from accessing diverse online content of their choice.
While our nation must overcome the digital divide so everyone will have high-speed broadband access, the principles of Network Neutrality are important to ensure the Internet provides a real opportunity for all Americans to speak with their own voices.
The FCC’s investigation of Comcast — and passage of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act (HR 5353), bipartisan legislation now pending in Congress to protect Net Neutrality — will go a long way toward determining whether the Internet will protect the First Amendment rights of all Internet users and whether people of color will finally have unfettered access to a equitable media system.
Make your voices heard. The stakes couldn’t be any higher.
This post was written by Mark Lloyd, author of Prologue to a Farce, and Joseph Torres of Free Press. It originally appeared here.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
[…] Net Neutrality Is a Civil Rights Issue For communities of color, the Internet offers a critical opportunity to build a more equitable media system. It provides all Americans with the potential to speak for themselves without having to convince large media conglomerates that their voices are worthy of being heard. […]
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Cool. We play semantics game to fuddle the debate - and that’s all it really does is fuddle it so that we have confusion instead of discussion based on clear historical precedent. You can call it Net Neutrality. You can call it Internet Freedom. You can call it Fred. Fundamentally, what we are talking about is the basic principals of common carriage.
Civil rights? Sort of. In 1800 whatever, the politicians realized the power of the telegraph, and that if the telegraph companies controlled the flow of information, that could influence the outcome of elections. Therefore the politicians were keen on imposing common carriage on telegraph. That clearly is civil rights / free speech. From the beginning, Congress recognized the value of information and the importance of those who carried the information.
The jurisprudence of common carriage is both in the area of bailment (the carrier of some third parties goods, a third party who has entrusted the goods to the carrier, the third party who has no control over the goods now that the carrier has them, and the carrier who has both opportunity and incentive to discriminate) and market power.
Carriers are uniquely situated in a society - almost like a countries operating system. The economy is greatly dependent on functioning carriers. Carriers who carry goods to market, that if they do not get there, the goods will spoil or the people will go hungry. Ships that need to be able to dock at port (here the port is the common carrier). If the carrier extracts excessive rents or discriminates, the public welfare will suffer. Not only in terms of the market but also in terms of culture, discourse, and debate.
There seems to be a modernistic notion that we have created something new here out of the ether: Net Neutrality (aka Internet Freedom). But consistent with post modernism, we realize it is simply a newly dressed variation of an old theme: common carriage.
See http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutral.htm
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:18 pm
OVERSOLD CAPACITY AND THE CONGESTION PROBLEM
More important, BitTorrent users have already paid for the capacity they are using and are not “causing” congestion any more than any other users of the internet who have also paid for their respective capacity in terms of megabits per second at the level of individual connections.
The essential problem of congestion is separate from the incentive to block a competitor, but the two problems are being used to confuse the issue of net neutrality.
Specifically, “internet hogs” and an “exaflood” of “large users” or “large content” are being blamed for something they could not possibly cause in isolation from other users during peak periods.
Further, the congestion problem (separate from the blocking problem of competitors) is itself caused by oversold capacity from providers at the connection level which exceeds total capacity at the network level.
Many individual connections do not have the capacity sold and paid for by customers. When sufficient internet use of any size or source emerges during peak periods, congestion occurs because the provider’s system is not large enough to service the total capacity it sold to its customers.
Contracts for internet service are intentionally based on vague and loose language that allow providers to oversell available total network capacity by not committing to specific, individual amounts of dedicated, non-transferable capacity to individual customers.
Then when congestion occurs, the providers exploit these conditions to blame falsely, particular users and content as the claimed “source” of congestion.
One solution is for providers to admit that the capacity has been oversold, then downgrade it in proportionate, neutral fashion by individual connection to match actual network capacity.
If each connection constitutes dedicated, non-transferable capacity as sold and purchased to each user, chronic congestion could not occur by definition regardless of user or content identity or size.
The longer term term solution is either to expand network capacity to match individual connection capacity or to admit that some service will be degraded in net neutral fashion intentionally due to congestion and offer it to customers at a discount from the “firm” service rate.
A false, misleading “solution” emerging for congestion is associated with metered pricing of volume use over time in terms of total gegabytes used per month.
Metered pricing plans which do not recognize differences in peak versus off-peak use are instead designed to undermine net neutral internet use by opening the door to “fast lane” and “everything” high-priced packages along the lines of cable tv forced packaging and bundling plans.
Prevention of blocked competitor content is only part of a serious violation of net neutrality. Congestion caused by oversold capacity is the rest of the problem and requires net neutral solutions as well.