Free Speech in the 21st Century
May 9th, 2008 by tkarrFreedom of the press extends only to those who own one — or so the saying goes. It once rang true in a world ruled by newspaper chains, radio and television broadcasters, and cable networks.
But the Internet has changed all that, delivering the press — and in theory its freedoms — to any person with a good idea and a connection to the Web.
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Backyard Auteurs |
This extraordinary twist to “mass media” has catapulted many an everyday YouTube auteur to celebrity-status while turning ideas born in a garage or dorm room into Fortune 500 companies. It is the reason so many Americans are now passionate about protecting their right to choose on the Internet. But it’s also triggered a backlash from the old regime — media corporations that built their empires upon controlling the ebb and flow of information in America.
This list of media giants includes the nation’s largest phone and cable providers, who provide a portal to the high-speed Internet for more than 98 percent of residential users in America. Now they want to be more than just a window to the Web. These companies have proposed a closed scheme of Internet fees and filters that affords them the final say over which ideas make it to the top of the heap.
Say “goodbye” to indy rock bands breaking big via a backyard YouTube video and “hello” to censored rock-and-roll courtesy of AT&T’s “Blue Room.”
Open v. Closed — A Clash of Cultures
This closed business model has proven a financial windfall for the gatekeepers of traditional media. But it comes at a too heavy a cost to the millions of Americans who see the open Internet as the 21st Century’s catalyst for free speech and opportunity.
It’s against the backdrop of this clash of cultures — open versus closed — that an unusual series of official events have occurred this year.
Washington — where lobbyists for Comcast, AT&T and Verizon have long had the home-field advantage — recently witnessed an extraordinary series of public meetings and congressional hearings on the fate of the Internet. If you listen carefully, you might actually hear the people’s interests being represented. They are certainly being expressed.
The 110th Congress has called Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and Chad Hurley, the founder of YouTube, to testify in favor of Net Neutrality — the principle that safeguards the Internet against blocking and censorship from Internet service providers. In recent weeks, leading consumer and Internet rights advocates, Silicon Valley’s top entrepreneurs and Hollywood’s creative community have testified that an open Internet is vital to the health of our economy and democracy.
The Federal Communications Commission has gone one further, venturing beyond the Beltway to take the public temperature on the Internet.
At hearings in Cambridge, Mass., and Palo Alto, Calif., the agency got an earful; hundreds of Net Neutrality supporters stood before the microphone to condemn Comcast’s recent efforts to block people from using peer-to-peer applications, which make possible the sharing of videos and other rich media without the need for corporate media to broker the content. One after the other. people called on the federal agency for basic protections against Comcast’s brand of digital discrimination.
The New Free Speech Movement
They are not alone. A growing movement of Internet users is pushing for legislation to stop would-be gatekeepers from re-routing the free-flowing Web. It has attracted millions of supporters ranging from MoveOn.org to the Christian Coalition of America, from independent rockers OK Go to the executive producer of the TV show “Hannah Montana.”
Our voices are starting to rise above the din of lobbyists that too often drowns out genuine public debate in Washington. It’s now up to our elected officials to act.
The official inquiry on Net Neutrality has given a public voice to the remarkable consensus in favor of free speech and user choice on the Web. And it may turn out to be more than show. The bipartisan “Internet Freedom Preservation Act” is making its way through the House at this very moment. It is a bill that takes into account the many voices that have spoken out since Net Neutrality became a much-debated principle.
Fundamentally, this bill recognizes that we must establish baseline protection for an unfettered Internet. It doesn’t call for Web regulation, but gives the public the power to stop the old regime from turning the Internet from a revolution of the many into a funnel for the few.
And that’s a freedom worth fighting for.
May 11th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Tim, you write:
“This list of media giants includes the nation’s largest phone and cable providers, who provide a portal to the high-speed Internet for more than 98 percent of residential users in America. Now they want to be more than just a window to the Web. These companies have proposed a closed scheme of Internet fees and filters that affords them the final say over which ideas make it to the top of the heap.”
Really? I’m going to have to challenge you on this. Please show us this putative “closed scheme of Internet fees and filters.” The fact is that you cannot, because none exists.
May 12th, 2008 at 7:06 am
http://www.savetheinternet.com/=threat
May 13th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Here’s what STI claims, annotated with the truth:
“In October 2007, the Associated Press busted Comcast for blocking its users’ access to peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like BitTorrent and Gnutella. This fraudulent practice is a glaring violation of Net Neutrality.”
Nope. Comcast slows BitTorrent seeding, but doesn’t interfere with BitTorrent downloads. And it doesn’t interfere with Gnutella (a piracy tool) at all. No violation of any law.
“In September 2007, Verizon was caught banning pro-choice text messages. After a New York Times expose, the phone company reversed its policy, claiming it was a glitch.”
Nope. Verizon didn’t block a single text message. There was a 24-hour delay in issuing a shortcode to NARAL; shortcodes enable people to setup the equivalent of an e-mail list of SMS addresses. It had nothing to do with the Internet.
“In August 2007, AT&T censored a live webcast of a Pearl Jam concert just as lead singer Eddie Vedder criticized President Bush.”
This was a concert AT&T streamed from its own web site, not something Pearl Jam did on its own. This is no different from STI censoring comments on its blog, which it does all the time.
“In 2006, Time Warner’s AOL blocked all emails that mentioned http://www.dearaol.com — an advocacy campaign opposing the company’s pay-to-send e-mail scheme.”
This was simply a spam filter run amok. It happens.
“In 2005, Canada’s telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.”
CANADA.
“In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.”
No, they blocked VoIP, not a “web-based” anything. And the FCC fined them for it.
“Shaw, a major Canadian cable, internet, and telephone service company, intentionally downgrades the “quality and reliability” of competing Internet-phone services that their customers might choose — driving customers to their own phone services not through better services, but by rigging the marketplace.”
Nope, Shaw sells (in CANADA) a service that prevents P2P degradation of VoIP. It’s a good service.
So the bottom line is: exaggerations, half-truths, and outright lies.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Bennett: Comcast did not interfere with BitTorrent services.
The public record contains clear evidence that the opposite is true. The FCC (and pretty much the rest of the world) agrees that Comcast blocked it’s customers’ ability to use certain peer-to-peer applications. The Associated Press, EFF, and several noted technologists have tested Comcast’s services with the same conclusion. Understandably, the debate has now moved beyond proof of blocking to the appropriate punishment for Comcast’s actions.
Bennett: Verizon didn’t block Naral Pro-Choice America text messages.
The phone company even admitted to doing that. In fact, I was in the NY State Assembly room when Verizon’s lead counsel testified that, indeed, they had blocked NARAL’s messages. NARAL was censored, he said, because their text message had been deemed “unsavory” and “controversial.”
Bennett: A Pearl Jam concert lyric wasn’t blocked by AT&T.
Guess all those news reports and video documents were wrong. As was AT&T’s own admission of guilt. Check the record.
Bennett: SavetheInternet.com censors comments on its blog “all the time.”
The only person whose comments were removed from the STI blog was … you guessed it, Richard Bennett. The reason? He was in blatant violation of our “rules for commenting.” (posted above)
For example, on this site he has called one member of Congress a “moron” and another a “fascist bastard.” Their crime in Bennett’s view? supporting Net Neutrality. When the inventor of the World Wide Web posted a pro-Net Neutrality video here, Bennett called him “either an idiot or a liar.” This is the same person that the Telegraph ranked number 1 on its list of “Top 100 Living Geniuses.”
Another guest blogger here, who has revolutionized online e-commerce, was simply a “big, fat, lying liar” according to a Bennett comment. While an esteemed chronicler of Silicon Valley was judged simply “retarded.” Elsewhere, one charter member of the Coalition is “an asshole and a moron.” The list goes on.
In accordance with our rules for commenting (numbers one through five), we removed Bennett’s child-like attacks on others. Despite this, we have let him return here to comment. Now Bennett has begun to tell stories about Free Press and the SavetheInternet.com Coalition. (We were secretly paid a million dollars by Google; we’re following a secret agenda set by George Soros; we planted people at a Boston hearing who drowned out his comments in a chorus of hisses and boos).
Bennett was shown clear evidence (audio files even) that disproved most of these claims. With the other Bennett fantasies, he was asked simply to provide some, any, proof. On every occasion he ducked the challenge.
Now, we’re telling “exaggerations, half-truths, and outright lies.”
Go figure.
Net Neutrality is not a “solution in search of a problem” as Bennett and other industry cohorts have claimed. The problem is very real, phone and cable companies seek to block and or degrade Web content in a discriminatory and, in Comcast’s case, deceptive, fashion.
It’s now up to the FCC to rule against such unreasonable and dishonest network management — and to Congress to safeguard an open Internet with enforceable Net Neutrality protections.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Tim Karr does an interesting hatchet-job on the comment I left here. I invite readers to compare what I wrote with what Tim Karr says I wrote. The discrepancies you will find indicates the extent of STI’s problem with the facts.
For example, I said Comcast doesn’t interfere with BitTorrent downloads, which is true. They do interfere with BitTorrent seeding, the sense that they slow it down, sometimes drastically. But Tim Karr can’t make the distinction between BitTorrent downloading - which many people do and care about - with the speed of BitTorrent seeding, which is a much less important thing.
This is how you make mountain out of a molehill.
So please, gentle reader, read and compare, that’s all I ask.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Um, well, seeing as you need people to seed in order to download, logically, then, isn’t seeding just as important as downloading? Freedom on the internet is under attack in many sorts of ways, from Comcast’s shady little moves, to ISP’s simply blocking sites they don’t like. I know this is a free market and all, and I respect that, I honestly do, but as is always the case with humans, it starts with one person banning this site and that site, and then soon everyone is. If you look back throughout history, it’s the curse of humans to not be able to handle their own power, and ultimately act like a complete cock to everyone. You see, some people have this thing called foresight. Even if most people can’t see the problem, or the problem isn’t that major, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a problem. It certainly doesn’t mean that problem won’t be debilitating in the future. That kind of lack of foresight was what caused World War 1 to be as bad as it was, and World War 2 to be such a sham. Now, as far as either poster, or even the author of the article go, no one really displays much in the way of support as far as their claims about either side. You can say this and that about the other person all you want, but, I mean, I can’t honestly take your words as canon. I simply know what Comcast is doing because I’ve experienced it first hand, and I generally only deal with out of country servers because of it.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Tim, your “threat” page is full of trumped up half-truths and does not show anything LIKE a “closed scheme of Internet fees and filters.” You’re crying wolf.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:34 am
lordofzwergs, somebody has to seed for somebody else to download, yes indeed. But Comcast doesn’t slow down all seeding, only stand-alone seeding that’s being done after a download completes (and only then if the network is heavily-loaded.)
They don’t mess with the seeding that happens during the download. So the point is that Tim Karr (and Free Press generally) have misrepresented what’s happening on the Comcast network, and have also misrepresented what I’ve said by way of criticism of the their overbroad claims.
Tim Karr has given you the proof that what I say is true - and that what he says is not true - on this very comment thread. Free Press claims you can’t use BitTorrent on Comcast, full stop: “Comcast blocks access to peer-to-peer networks.”
I’ve just downloaded Fedora 9 over Comcast using BitTorrent, and seeded after the download was done. According to Tim Karr this is impossible, but I’ve done it. The facts on not on Karr’s side.
And also according to Tim Karr, an SMS Shortcode is a “Text Message” that has something to do with the Internet. But it’s not.
And according to Tim Karr, it’s OK for some web site owners to censor the content they deliver but not for others.
Free Press employs some odd people, and it’s clear that whatever merit their concerns about the Internet’s future may have, by entrusting them to people like Mr. Karr they ensure that nobody will take them to heart.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Net Neutrality is not a “solution in search of a problem” as Bennett and other industry apologists have claimed. The problem is very real. Phone and cable companies seek to block and or degrade Web content in a discriminatory and, in Comcast’s case, deceptive, fashion.
That Comcast secretly put in place a system that makes it virtually impossible for most of its users to use BitTorrent and other file-sharing applications has been widely documented by independent and authoritative sources. This is no longer under dispute (except, perhaps, in the wild imaginings of some of our favorite trolls here).
That this filtering and blocking is a problem spreading among giant network operators was confirmed today in an exhaustive study that shows Cox Communications blocking in the same manner as Comcast. (Stay tuned for more twisted logic to explain this one away)
It’s now up to the FCC to rule against such unreasonable and dishonest network management — and to Congress to safeguard an open Internet with enforceable Net Neutrality protections.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Tim Karr tells the biggest whopper of his big whoppers: “That Comcast secretly put in place a system that makes it virtually impossible for most of its users to use BitTorrent and other file-sharing applications has been widely documented by independent and authoritative sources.”
Comcast customers don’t have this experience, and no responsible source has claimed it. Even Robb Topolski admits that he can download with BitTorrent from his Comcast connection just fine; he claims to have a problem seeding, and even that is in dispute. What Comcast does is limit BitTorrent seeding in order to make BitTorrent downloads run faster. There’s nothing nefarious about that at all.
And BTW, BitTorrent doesn’t deal with “Web content;” it’s a file transfer application that moves files directly from user computers to other user computers. Take networking 101 before spouting such nonsense.
The regulatory hammer is still looking for a nail.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Reality 101:
Lesson 1: EFF: Packet Forgery By ISPs
Lesson 2: EFF: Comcast is Forging Packets
Lesson 3: AP: Comcast Blocks Some Internet Traffic
Lesson 4: Free Press et al Petition for Declaratory Ruling
Lesson 5: Comcast Blocakge of BitTorrent 101
Lesson 6: Max Planck Institute Finds Traffic Blocking
Comcast is using a packet forgery system that cause users’ connections to drop. This is reportedly the same technique used by Internet censorship systems in China. The net effect: Comcast blocks users efforts to use the Internet.
This is no longer in dispute in the real world. It was the clear consensus at both FCC hearings. The question now is the appropriate punishment.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Tim, out here in the real world (rather than “inside the Beltway,” where lobbyists invent issues to get themselves paid) we know that Comcast is doing the right thing. It’s blocking bandwidth hogs and pirates and thereby PROTECTING free speech on the Internet. And it’s doing this using a well known, established, and very effective technique which is not “forgery” but rather a leading edge technology.
We also know that your lobbying group, as well as the EFF, have conflicts of interest. The chairman of EFF is a board member and major stockholder of BitTorrent, Inc., and has caused that organization to circulate the misleading white papers you’ve cited above because it benefits his personal pocketbook. Your own organization makes money by stirring up false fears and then asking for contributions to fight the bogeymen you’ve dreamed up.
What you’re doing is beyond wrongheaded; it’s harmful to consumers and destructive to the Internet.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
The fact remains that BitTorrent runs just fine on the Comcast network today. I’ve been seeding Fedora 9 on Comcast for 24 hours at an average rate of 40 Killobytes per second. So even after any RSTs that Comcast may be inserting, the application still runs well.
We don’t object to metering access to freeways because we know that the net result of those lights on the on-ramp is to speed up the traffic flow for all of us. At the end of the day, that’s exactly what Comcast and Cox are doing.
May 17th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Well, Richard, “Save the Internet” is telling us that they’re worried that when their particular car gets to the metering light, Comcast or Cox or AT&T or some evil demon will pull the switch and it’ll just stay red. Forever.
I don’t think that they’re really that paranoid; I think that they’re lobbyists out to make a buck by spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), no matter how far-fetched a conspiracy theory they’re trying to hatch.
Oh, and by the way: I just looked up Free Press on a site that lists nonprofits, and they are registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. That means that they shouldn’t even be lobbying. It might be a good idea to report this to the IRS.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
According to Karr, they’ve already hit the switch, making it “virtually impossible for most of its users to use BitTorrent and other file-sharing applications.”
But we know this isn’t even close to being the truth.
FP’s motives for misleading the public with such ridiculous charges can’t be good.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
No, they’re not blocking BitTorrent. However, if they were to do so, I’d say, “bully for them!” As I’ve written elsewhere, BitTorrent is an exploit. It attempts to seize priority for traffic — bulk downloads and pirated material — that should not have priority. It is also non-neutral in that it attempts to shift content providers’ costs to ISPs. And it sets up servers on ISPs’ networks for third parties without permission or compensation and in violation of their terms of service.
Protecting the integrity of the network PROTECTS free speech.