Politicizing the Internet
Fabricating a Free Speech Threat to Justify Regulating the Internet and An“Information Commons” American ISPs are facilitating an unprecedented explosion of free speech.
- More people use the Internet in the U.S. than any other country, ~211 million, per World Internet Stats.
- The number of blogs is exploding ~50% annually, with 175,000 new blogs created daily per Technorati.
- The number of active Internet websites grew ~38% in 2007, per Netcraft’s 2007 Web Server Survey.
- The evidence is overwhelming that ISPs are active facilitators and champions of free speech, facilitating more people to speak to more people in more ways than any time in human history.
A key net neutrality proponent admits only one alleged Internet free speech violation.· “We didn’t expect the first violation to be so blatant” said Marvin Ammori, General Counsel of Free Press to the AP 10-31-07, in claiming that Comcast’s network management violated free speech. · After trillions of Internet communications handled by over 2000 broadband ISPs, one of the most informed net neutrality proponents admitted they knew of only one alleged free speech violation. · Preemptive regulation of the Internet to address an infinitesimal threat would do more harm than good. Net neutrality activists admit to politicizing Internet free speech to advance their agenda.· “The whole net neutrality issue is really about a power struggle” said Professor Tim Wu, who coined the term “net neutrality” to CNET, 11-5-07. · “This is about framing an issue that would have been an obscure policy in terms of bad faith and free speech,” blogger Matt Stoller of OpenLeft in a conference call with reporters 11-8-07. If net neutrality was really about free speech, the legislation would be about free speech.· All net neutrality legislation has been about mandating common carrier-like, nondiscrimination regulation of Internet service providers, not about advancing constitutionally-protected free speech.
- If it was truly about protecting free speech, the Save-The-Internet coalition would not have opposed the explicit free speech protections below that were supported by the broadband industry in 2006:
o "SEC. 904. APPLICATION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT. Consistent with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution – (1) no Federal, State, or local government may limit, restrict, ban, prohibit, or otherwise regulate content on the Internet because of the religious views, political views, or any other views expressed in such content unless specifically authorized by law; and (2) no Internet service provider engaged in interstate commerce may limit, restrict, ban, prohibit, or otherwise regulate content on the Internet because of the religious views, political views, or any other views expressed in such content unless specifically authorized by law." (From H.R.5252 Amendment proposed in Senate 6-06.) Free speech is a smokescreen hiding the real “information commons” political agenda. · Net neutrality legislation, wireless open access regulation, and overturning copyright are signature goals of the information commons, wealth redistribution movement, which believes that all Internet infrastructure and Internet-produced-content should be required to be public not private property.o See “Saving the Information Commons” produced by the New America Foundation and Public Knowledge in May 2002. http://www.newamerica.net/files/archive/Pub_File_866_1.pdf NetCompetition.org is an e-forum on net neutrality funded by broadband companies who favor Internet competition over Internet regulation. See: www.NetCompetition.org.
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