Posted on 04/04/2011 10:09:46 AM PDT by Halfmanhalfamazing
The internet is under threat. At risk is what's known as "net neutrality", or the principle of free access for each user to every online site, regardless of content. That's the view of the man who coined the above term, Tim Wu, whose new book, The Master Switch, was published yesterday. It argues the internet now runs the risk of not just political censorship as seen in Libya and Egypt, and in the American reaction to WikiLeaks but that of commercial censorship, too. Monopolies such as Google and Apple may soon decide to choose which parts of the internet to give us or switch off and in some cases have already started to do so.
"We are in a critical period for the internet," Tim Wu, the book's author, says. "What the internet is, is in flux." Wu looks, a colleague suggests, like a cleverer version of Keanu Reeves. In reality, he is a senior adviser to the Obama administration on, fittingly, the competition issues that concern internet and mobile industries. A position which, ironically, makes him a distant colleague of the officials waging war against WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning. An academic lawyer by trade he has taught at Chicago, Columbia and Stanford Wu has also long been a respected commentator on internet issues, and writes regularly for Slate magazine.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Contradiction 1:
=========Monopolies such as Google and Apple may soon decide to choose which parts of the internet to give us or switch off and in some cases have already started to do so.==============
Apple doesn't have that power. Neither does Google. At best an ISP would have to be the one to do it.
But at the same time, our government has multiple times tried passing legislation for kill switches. But remember! Google and apple are the real threats.
------------Wu's fear is that a similar consolidation of power may be about to happen to the internet.----------
All the while he is the one pushing for that very consolidation. Witness his "separation principle", which grants vast amounts of regulatory power to the federal government so it can heavy handedly deem who is what and where within the technology field. Don't you dare step out of line.
===========But, he says, like AT&T in the 1910s, "Google has similarly promised the world: 'We will be a good company.' And we have essentially conferred it a dominance over the market, and over how we find our information, because we believe it will be good." However, warns Wu, "the question everyone has is whether one day Google will have its Heart of Darkness moment."=============
This is the same progressive google that boasts about helping in the overthrows in the middle east! (specifically, egypt) This is dangerously naive on his part.
-----------If it does, says Wu, what's at stake is the principle on which the internet was founded. At its inception, "the internet was typically a place where you could put up content without anybody's permission".----------
Now with Wu's help, you'll need big daddy government's permission, depending on how you fit in with the separation.(see his proposals)
=================Wu recommends protecting these values through the maintenance of something that in his book he calls the "separation principle". Just as journalists maintain "a separation of news and opinion", Wu argues, "the people who move and carry information should stay at some distance from the creators of content, because they have a natural conflict of interest." In other words, though Wu does not name names, companies such as Apple and Google should stay well away from mobile networks such as AT&T and Verizon.================
Big daddy government.
I'm not ready to wear the chains that these people are fashioning for us.
free access for each user to every online site, regardless of content
The New York Slimes should jump on the bandwagon. I’m sure Thugman is a devotee of Wu.
yes and no. Although ISP’s traditionally have that power (see comcast throttling speeds without telling anyone why it was doing so - and it was proven that they were not doing to maintain their network), other companies have already stepped into the ring to to block traffic. For example, Fox blocked Cablevision customers access to HULU and fox.com in october of last year as a bargianing ploy.
I’m actually in support of what net-neutrality is supposed to do - it’s supposed to prevent all of that type of activity, and keep the internet neutral - meaning that nobody, not even the government, can control in any way your access to any legal content or website, by either blocking or restricting the data in any way, or by arbitrarily adding costs to certain content. The trick is making sure that nothing else is contained in there, giving anyone more power than they should have. It doesn’t state that you’ll have to get permission from big govt to provide access - only to block access. So if my ISP decided that I would no longer have access to free republic without paying an extra $9.99 per month, they’ll have someone to answer to.
Apple = iTunes.
Google = lots of stuff, including most searches.
If you think those folks aren't capable -- and willing -- to play favorites with what they give you, you're nuts.
——————Im actually in support of what net-neutrality is supposed to do-——————
I really do wish people would realize what net neutrality is actually going to do.
I think they have blips of power in certain areas, yes.
I just............
You should read the road to serfdom. While due to his age, he’s not literally/actually in the book, but just read it. Tim Wu is in the road to serfdom.
All statists are. We’ve been told how to avoid losing our freedoms. We just have to apply it and say no to men like these.
The difference between Tim Wu and the devastation he and his kind are planning, and google/apple/etc is the difference between Japan’s nuclear disaster and recycling.(I hope you saw the diane sawyer vid)
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