Net Neutrality and Corporations' Info Censorship

"The Whole World Is Watching!"

If you remember that slogan, you won't have to be told how important real-time, uncensored global communication is to citizens' freedom from government or multinational corporatist oppression.

So maybe you've heard the phrase "Net Neutrality" and wondered what it means.

Bottom line: With Net Neutrality, the companies that provide access to the Internet cannot give prefer some sites over others for any reason, including site content, ownership, or information destination.

Powerful interests would like to end that.

At the moment, you and I can access any site on equal terms with any other site. Some may take longer than others to download, but owners of slow sites can fix that if and when they want to. Nobody's discriminating against them based on who they are, what they have to say, or who wants to know.

If Net Neutrality is ended, that will change. Owners of the pipelines we use to access the Net will be able to reserve the fast lanes for deep-pocket sites and relegate the rest of us to the bike path. They'll charge usage taxes. Higher payers will download faster; bitty sites like this one may as well pack it in.

SavetheInternet.com puts it better:

Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. It protects the consumer's right to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network's only job is to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

Learn more in Net Neutrality 101.

Who wants to get rid of Net Neutrality?

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner — want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all.

They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services — or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls — and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.

The one thing that has forced mainstream media to do even the crappy job they've done covering the war, BushCo, crimes of the connected, and so on, has been the Internet--chiefly the blogosphere. Investigative journalistic, alternative news, and analytical sites like Daily Kos, TruthDig, Alternet, Consortium, Raw Story, and so many others have forced a degree of accuracy on cable and network news by creating a competing standard that is accessible to millions.

If that changes, if the Net ceases to be neutral and service providers become gatekeepers, we can kiss goodbye to freedom of information. Without freedom of information, we lose the means to act in our own best interests. Without knowing facts, we can't evaluate what we're told, or even determine that we're not being told all we need to know.

A few days ago, you may remember that Verizon caused a righteous rebellion when it censored text messages from NARAL, a leading abortion freedom-of-choice organization. We know about this effort to block NARAL only because of the Internet, and we were able to force Verizon to back off censoring NARAL only because of the Internet.

But it's worse than that. As Huffington Post reported, already AT&T and Verizon include clauses in their terms of service that allow them to decide when to provide the content you pay for, and when not to:

Censorship Is in the Details
Deep in its 'terms of service' for high-speed services AT&T had buried this tidbit: The phone company may 'immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your service ... without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes ... tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.'

We have since sifted the agreements of other access providers and found even more explicit language over at Verizon: The company 'reserves the right and sole discretion to change, limit, terminate, modify at any time, temporarily or permanently cease to provide the Service or any part thereof to any user or group of users, without prior notice and for any reason or no reason.'

That's nice. Any reason, no reason, White House reason, senator reason, coup d'etat reason, insane reason . . . .

Getting it now? Imagine your world if companies like Verizon and AT&T, or administrations dependent on, say, certain cranky and ultra-repressive constituencies, were able to turn information on and off at will. Click! You're in the dark, and we plan to keep you there!

Not good.

So. The next time Net Neutrality comes up, remember. Your freedom depends on keeping the Internet a level playing field for all sites. Fight like hell to keep it.