Freedom of Speech

Fox News reported that Google quietly reinstated an Inner City Press news service that specializes in UN corruption news, that Google had previously censored from its search engine and from Google news.

• Per Fox News: "The reaction to the de-listing, however temporary, had been furious. The non-profit Government Accountability Project lambasted the company, calling Inner City Press "the most effective and important media organization for U.N. whistleblowers.""

Important Questions:

I had to stop myself from bursting out laughing when listening to Google-YouTube's product counsel, Mia Garlick, speak on the Internet Caucus panel on "Internet Copyright Filters: Finding the Balance."

• Google-YouTube's representative said with a straight face: "human review trumps technology" in copyright filtering.  

Let that little quote sink in for a moment.

Google...

• the self-described technology company,
• the algorithm leader,
• the company that automates virtually everything internally,
• the company that is not interested in pursuing businesses or tasks that cannot be automated or condensed to an algorithm,
• the company that has taken innovation and technology to a new level on the Internet,
• the company that uses technology for customer service not humans...
  •  is saying that "human review trumps technology"?

If human review of content trumps technology, why doesn't Google rank/filter all the world's content in its search process with human review rather than technology -- if human review is better?

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) entered the fray on net neutrality yesterday in an important ACLU blogpost: "Free Speech and Net Neutrality: Separating fact from fiction."

While the ACLU predictably voiced strong POLITICAL support for net neutrality, the ACLU Blog surprisingly and effectively eviscerated the LEGAL and practical case for using the analogy that "Net Neutrality is the First Amendment of the Internet."

• ACLU blog: "At the same time, the First Amendment is not directly implicated because unlike the government, your ISP is not a traditional "state actor" — a requirement for triggering First Amendment cases."
  • Duh.
  • The ACLU makes plain what any junior high civics student knows -- that the First Amendment is there to prevent the Government from abridging individuals freedom of speech -- not companies or other individuals.
  • This badly flawed "First Amendment" analogy only highlights how net neutrality proponents are loose with the facts and analogies. 
    • The net neutrality movement is "all slogan and no substance."

Net neutrality is not about free speech. It's classic buzzword political blackmail. Proponents cynically believe that if they repeat the conspiracy theory that big corporations want to systematically take away their customers freedom of speech -- that some people will believe it.

Tim Wu is losing credibility fast. 

• His new piece in Slate: "Has AT&T lost its mind? A baffling proposal to filter the Internet" is myopic, uniformed, and borderline hysterical.

Mr. Wu please calm down. Put away any sharp objects and please listen to some reason. 

The Washington Post reports that a consortium of Google's closest net neutrality allies: FreePress/Moveon.org, Public Knowledge, New America Foundation, Media Access Project, are poised to petition the FCC again, this time to mandate that wireless carriers deliver all text messages to their customers, even including text messages by wireless competitors trying to sell their competing wireless services.

An editorial by the New York Times on free speech points out that Google and other big Internet companies in fact oppose legislation that promotes free speech for those who most need it around the world.

• "Last January, Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey reintroduced the Global Online Freedom Act in the House. It would fine American companies that hand over information about their customers to foreign governments that suppress online dissent. The bill would at least give American companies a solid reason to decline requests for data, but the big Internet companies do not support it. That shows how much they care about the power of information to liberate the world." [emphasis added]

It seems all this Google-funded effort to cloak net neutrality as a "freedom of speech" issue by Moveon.org, FreePress, Public Knowledge and other Google-supported pressure groups, is just a cynical tactic and political ploy because Google actually opposes free speech when the rubber meets the road -- like with the "Global Online Freedom Act."

• In other words, Google supports freedom on speech when it benefits Google's business, but opposes it when it does not help Google's business.
• I just wish Google would be honest and forthright about their supposed "don't be evil" principles...  

I most highly commend George Ou and Richard Bennett for bringing some much-needed adult supervision and technical excellence to the issue of Comcast's network management. Please read George's latest blogpost.

• FreePress...read it and weep -- you have laid another high profile net neutrality egg.

George has produced the must read piece on this issue. In "A rational debate on Comcast's Traffic management" George explains, with the assistance of Richard Bennett's exceptional expertise, what is really going on with Comcast's traffic management. 

• In a nutshell, they explain the real world design limitations of a shared cable network, especially on the upstream path, and how those limitations practically require network managers to limit how much traffic goes through a particular network point, just like traffic lights must do on highway ramps during rush hour to ensure that the highway does not degrade into a parking lot. 

The already low credibility of net neutrality proponents will fall even further as the FCC investigates this allegation and determines Comcast's network management to be well within the bounds of "reasonable." 

• While net neutrality proponents and their activist reporter friends may like to play engineers on TV, noone would want to entrust them with operating anything more complicated than a mouse.   

The reason we have due process in this country is precisely to protect against this type of spurious allegation.

I think I see the beginning of a backlash trend against those advocating unfettered "openness" on the Internet. 

According to the Columbus Dispatch, the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police is pushing for legislation to limit the availability of police and firefighters' property records to anyone on the Internet.

•  ""Our major concern is the criminal element that's using the Internet for a number of criminal ventures, one of which is to seek retribution on law enforcement," said Mark Drum, a lobbyist for the Ohio FOP."

I'll be surprised if their isn't a growing number of people, from all walks of life, who will want to protect their privacy/safety and be able to remove some of their information from public view on the Internet.

With all due respect to all the folks I read often at Business Week, I have to challenge the thinking behind Stephen Wildstrom's column in Business Week where he shares that he switched his year-long position opposing new net regulation, largely because of Verizon's admitted mistake in delaying by one-day a text messaging approval code to NARAL. 

After Verizon and the rest of the industry have handled literally billions upon billions of communications for years without significant similar incidents, one company makes an admitted mistake, takes full responsibility, immediately fixes it, changes its procedures so it won't happen again, -- and Mr Wildstrom's answer is to now throw the common-carrier regulatory book at Verizon and the whole industry? 

The plot thickens. Robert Cox of The Examiner has produced another must-read piece uncovering much more detail of the closeness of the Google-Moveon.org relationship: "New questions raised on Google, Moveon.org relationship."

• The piece documents a detailed timeline of the infamous Moveon.org New York Times' General Betray-us? advertisement and then Google's subsequent efforts to help and protect Moveon.org from anti-Moveon.org advertisements on Google. 

What's new and fresh in this piece is the very detailed timeline that connects-the-dots of all of the coverage to assemble a compelling chonology that shows how Google did not follow its own policies and procedures, or even trademark law and practice, in order to censor other's free speech that would be critical of their close political ally Moveon.org.