After the Internet

[ixion]

by Ernest Partridge

It is not too soon for progressives to ponder, “what would we do without the Internet?” for it is folly for us to take the Internet for granted.

For consider: The right wing has captured AM talk radio, cable (so-called) “news,” and six Bush-friendly “conservative” corporations control virtually all commercial broadcasting and publishing. The only remaining free and diverse mass media “marketplace of ideas” is the Internet It would be naive to think that the corporate establishment does not also have its sights set on the Internet

No doubt about it: the progressive Internet is a threat, for it has recently displayed considerable political clout. The Internet promoted and coordinated the international anti-war protests that brought millions into the streets. It cost Trent Lott his majority leadership in the Senate. It has been the primary stimulus to the Howard Dean campaign. And it was a prominent source of the public indignation that led to the Congressional overturning of the FCC ownership ruling. As ever more citizens lose confidence in the credibility of the corporate media, they are turning to the Internet, and through it to international and independent sources of reliable news of the world and of their own country and politics. It is a trend that is continuing and accelerating.

Surely, the grand Poobahs of the corporate-GOP-media complex will not sit still for this!




http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0923-12.htm


This is a great read, and something we need to take seriously. While I believe that nothing short of changing the TCP/IP Protocol and refactoring DNS will fully privatize the internet, we know that they are trying to think of ways to do so, and that there are plenty of developers on the 'dark side' who will make it so.

[bemildred]

1. I think they are screwed.

It's not enough to come up with a new "controlled" version,
they have to make people stop using the old one. I don't
think they can. Even Micro$oft failed to "control" it.

Its not an intrinsicly scarce resource like broadcast frequency
or proprietary content like cable, its just connectivity, like
the phone.

Not that a little paranoia about it is misplaced.

[Resistance Is Futile]

5. Securing control of the Internet

Whatever make you think Microsoft ever stopped trying to take over the Internet?

http://www.google.com/search?q=TCPA+FAQ

TCPA is going to be the deathknell for using computers to exchange information which the powers that be define as subversive.

[ixion]

6. Palladium may be the deathknell for MS

the windows boxes on my network will become Linux and not MS... they can seize the desktop, but the internet is a different beast. TCP/IP is a protocol that doesn't know the meaning of the word security, by default. But what they can control is access and to a large degree DNS. They could force people to start keeping the IP addresses of sites they like that are not commercial sites, they could begin censoring. There is defintely something to be concerned about, IMHO.

[bemildred]

7. Whatever made you think I said they stopped trying?

They've been trying for some time now.

[damnraddem]

2. On the other hand, when they try to take it away, we can always organize .

using the internet.

Or is that what hackers are for -- to take it away from us, and then it won't be given back?

[villager]

3. I liked this section:

The Voice To America.

Despite the corruption and downfall of the once-magnificent American media, there remains in the United States, one untouched beacon of journalistic integrity: The Voice of America. The VOA understands that the best, indeed perhaps the only, guarantor of credibility is an uncompromising allegiance to truth and to scrupulous confirmation. (The same can be said for the BBC – now under attack by the British right-wing for the “offense” of exposing the lies of the Blair government in its servile allegiance to the Bush’s war in Iraq).

Ironically, this impeccable source of news is not available to the American public, for according to its charter, Voice of America broadcasts and news copy are not to be distributed domestically. Thus the audience of the Voice of America, in fifty languages throughout the world, gain unbiased and accurate information about the United States, that American citizens are hard-pressed to obtain from their own media.

Recently, I watched a CSPAN presentation by the retired Deputy Director of the Voice of America, Alan Heil, author of 'Voice of America – A History' (Columbia University Press). As Mr. Heil described the service of the VOA to the peoples of the world, I could only wonder, “but why not to us in the USA – where we need it most of all?” Well, the VOA charter forbids, and for good reasons.

So my suggestion: Given the deterioration and the present peril of the American democracy, perhaps it is time for “The Voice TO America.” Of course, the aforementioned journalists in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere are individually performing a fine service for us with the insight and integrity that we once enjoyed from our own media. And that magnificent British publication, The Guardian, is about to launch an American edition.

Still, sixty years ago the United States came to the defense of democracy in Europe. So perhaps it is time for the European Union to return the favor, now that our own democracy is in peril. If the Internet, the last refuge of the dissenting American progressives, is lost (or even before this happens), it will be time for the establishment of “Radio Free America” and “The Voice TO America.”

[BattyDem]

4. Maybe I'm being too optimistic

but I don't think it's going to be so easy to privatize the Internet, for one simple reason: the Internet is a means of communication and sharing information, it's not a broadcast medium. It's more like a visual telephone. Chat rooms are like a conference call. Ordinary citizens contribute to the Internet, unlike television and radio. The user can pick and choose what they want to see and hear, unlike media, which only allows the user to pick from the programming offered.

Privatizing the Internet would be like telling people who they can and cannot talk to and/or associate with. I'm not saying the Neo-Cons wouldn't love to do it, I'm just saying that there are far too many ordinary Americans who use the Internet as a communication and research tool - I don't think they'd stay silent if it was taken from them. The right has as much to lose as the left and that kind of blatant censorship is not something that could be kept hidden from the masses.