Net Neutrality

A free-flowing Internet. This is what net neutrality is all about. Net neutrality is a principle by which the Internet has guided itself since its early days. It promotes an open Internet, where users are in total control of what websites they access, what programs they run and what services they use. Net neutrality is healthy for a fair competitive market because it gives every single company the chance to grow and innovate on an equal playing field. (Google Help Center)

Nevertheless, network neutrality is at stake. Giant companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast want to regulate people’s access to the Internet by blocking websites and imposing fees on smaller companies and individual websites, who will have trouble meeting the fees. As a result, many websites will lose traffic, thus falling in the slow lane. Meanwhile, the media giants will continue to grow, hence creating a monopoly, drastically reducing consumer choice and hindering the development of many businesses. Basically, since these companies are the ones that usually provide the Internet service, they will be the ones who decide which websites will load quickly, which will load slowly and which won’t load at all… Of course, they will make their websites and services a lot more accessible than the others, thus increasing traffic and profit for their own interests. How would you react if you notice that you are unable to open your favorite website because your Internet provider has censored it? (Open Internet Coalition)

The year 2005 was a critical year for net neutrality. The FCC adopted the “Policy Statement”, which tries to protect net neutrality and ensure every user’s access to an equal Internet. This tries to prevent big companies from assuming a gatekeeper position and discriminating against other businesses. (The full text is available here).

Furthermore, on Feb. 12, 2008, the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act 2008” (HR 5353) was introduced. This bill inserts net neutrality into the Communications Act. Still, cable companies are trying arduously to counteract this new bill. The following quote demonstrates their determination to do so:
“Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?”
- Ed Whitacre of AT&T

Despite bills and laws, the media giants strongly believe they should limit Internet access and limit people’s experience online to their own services while downgrading competition. There are numerous examples of violations of net neutrality. For example, according to SaveTheInternet.com, “in 2006, Time Warner’s AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com – an advocacy campaign opposing the company’s pay-to-send e-mail scheme,” and “In September 2007, Verizon was caught banning pro-choice text messages. After a New York Times expose, the phone company reversed its policy, claiming it was a glitch.”

This ongoing strife between the cable companies and the people is another example of whether or not the Internet should be regulated, and for whose interest. To what extent should the Internet be controlled?

If you’re interested in supporting a free Internet, take action now by signing the Save the Internet petition to Congress. In the wise words of Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web:

“The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy. It is the basis of democracy, by which a community should decide what to do. It is the basis of science, by which humankind should decide what is true. Let us protect the neutrality of the net.”

The Internet and the 2008 Presidential Elections

The 2008 Presidential elections have been amazing in that they have managed to capture the voters’ attention in almost every imaginable way. How? Mainly through the Internet. With the exponentially increasing popularity of the Internet, print journalism and magazines have decreased in popularity since the last few decades. Now, most people resort to the Internet, and the candidates sure know how to use this to their advantage.

“The Internet IS the new television as far as 21st century campaigning is concerned.” These are the words of Walter Anderson, who argues that “While it is true that candidates have used the Internet since the 1992 election, its usefulness and capabilities really started to come alive in the presidential election of 2004.” Social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube allow candidates to quickly upload their campaign information and advertise, at no cost. The use of these sites as campaign media is a new invention. Thus, the Internet has adapted a huge cost-effective advertising role. It is now the main medium through which candidates reach millions of voters; this audience can’t be obtained through any other way.

On the other hand, Josh Catone argues that not everything that appears on the Internet is true or can be trusted. He notices a clear discrepancy between who the Internet suggests will be the next president compared to what the polls illustrate. MySpace, Youtube and Facebook all tend to lean more towards Obama than towards Clinton (based on number of “friends” and “supporters”). Nevertheless, according to Catone, every poll indicates that Clinton is in the lead. So why the difference? He explains that since “older voters still made up the majority at the polls (…) it could be that a lot of the action candidates see on those sites is from people who aren’t likely to actually cast a vote.” He therefore concludes that even though the Internet is a wonderful asset to politics, it can’t be trusted to predict outcomes.

The Pew Research Center indicates that the Internet as a source of campaign information has increased. Meanwhile, traditional news sources have declined slightly. However, the Internet is still the secondary news source, TV being the first. Still, among the young, TV is secondary. Similarly, Tiesha claims that the Internet is a blessing for political campaigns. She mentions that blogs encourage debate and healthy disagreements which enrich the participants. This way, they become more informed. According to her, “anyone with a keyboard, monitor and internet connection can become a political pundit.” Blogs that foment debate can also aid in putting out there every point of view and avoiding polarization, which is what Sunstein advocates against.

The Internet is such a useful tool that even people who are just not into doing extensive research about every candidate have a solution. Speak Out offers a free survey that consists of multiple questions pertaining to political aspects, and it then “matches” you with the candidate that is more according to your beliefs. Isn’t this marvelous?

On another note, I must mention momatad’s (scroll down upon clicking the link) opinion, which I think is crucial in deciding how the Internet affects the 2008 elections. She says: “It is a useful tool, but just that, a tool, that can be used for good or bad.” This sounds quite reasonable. The Internet is out there, filled with knowledge, for anyone to use. However, it is up to the person to decide if he/she will use it as an information tool or for other purposes. When used correctly, the Internet could become an infinite fountain of campaign knowledge that aids anybody when making the decision of who to vote for.

Without a doubt, the Internet has revolutionized how Presidential elections develop and this year, candidates have experienced a transition to cyberspace unlike any other time.

Lessing’s Hunger For Books

The TCU Bookstore is a rich source of information. But, how many of us actually take advantage of it? Let’s imagine for a moment how many books we would be able to read if we were to stop browsing Facebook and Myspace on a daily basis.

The writer Doris Lessing was recently awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature. In response to this, she wrote an acceptance speech that quickly caused controversy. The text can be found here .

In it, Lessing adopts a nostalgic and pessimistic position towards the new digital era, ruled mainly by the Internet and TV. She sharply criticizes the Internet for seducing “a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging”.

Lessing sets up her argument by alluding to her visit to Zimbabwe and elaborately describing how “everyone, begged for books.” She then goes on to admire their “hunger for books” despite the fact that most of them have not even been properly fed. It is obvious that Lessing yearns to go back to the Golden Age of print; to an era where everybody who could read just couldn’t get enough of knowledge. For her, literature constitutes education.

Nevertheless, she contrasts Zimbabwe’s population with British boys who have been exposed to Internet and are an active part of today’s media culture. According to Lessing, “we are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women, who have had years of education, to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some specialty or other, for instance, computers.” Thus, she criticizes how people with a wide access to information are those who access it the least, hence not educating themselves as thoroughly as they could.

It is obvious that Lessing views the Internet as a cause of change. She takes a deterministic standpoint by claiming that “what has happened to us is an amazing invention – computers and the internet and TV. It is a revolution.” A revolution that she views with disgrace, since it has caused the rapid decline of desire for knowledge. She places books and education/knowledge in a parallel, calling upon several examples of famed writers who have reached their zenith because they were exposed to books since they were young. “In order to write, in order to make literature, there must be a close connection with libraries, books, the tradition.”

Her speech received a variety of opposing and similar responses.

John Connell argues that the world is not fragmented, but rather diverse. Unlike her, he conceives the shift that Lessing dislikes as part of a more complex change: “If any certainties once perceived as positive are now no longer such, is that necessarily because our modern condition is somehow less healthy or is it simply a reflection of major shifts in social, political and economic realities, and therefore consequentially of changing priorities and of shifting values?” Thus, he would agree with the theory that culture determines technology, and not the other way around, like Lessing. Finally, Connell believes that it is quixotic to try to remove today’s generation from technology only “to be replaced by some misty golden age when schoolchildren – eager scholars all – devoured yet another classic text before breakfast each morning.” Similarly, Duncan Riley from TechCrunch argues that the Internet has made education available to many people.

On the other hand, Alan replies to a post by arguing in favor of Lessing. He too takes a deterministic viewpoint and notes that “contemporary electronic media has left a generation of children with atrophied imaginative powers.” He makes an example by saying that his daughter, who attends a good public school, “rarely picks up a book out of [her] own free will and [her] knowledge of literature and geography is shockingly inadequate.” Hence, media has inflicted damage onto today’s generations.

So, which side of the spectrum holds more truth?

Doris Lessing