The Crazed Man’s Words

“Behind every great and abusive monopoly almost always lies a network- and not only a network, a network which has been co-opted, which has been turned into a discriminatory network, and which is used to carry out and further the power of the monopoly” - Timothy Wu, Columbia Law Professor, speaking at staff briefing for the House Commerce Committee on Capital Hill on February 15th

These strong words are addressing the important and extremely timely issue of net neutrality. The referenced network is both the infrastructure (physical connections to hubs) and the operation (network management) which is owned by the vast, few corporate telecommunications companies. What is meant by neutrality is that internet service providers (ISPs) do not (and should not) determine a different quality or type of service to their customers based upon the content they are accessing. The current system of ISPs that are in place throughout the United States conducts business almost completely as a monopoly- meaning they set their own standards of service and stomp out any competition through open and/or closed practices. They, like Standard Oil operating the railway network in the past, control the connections and the service while also holding the ability (and accusation) to filter our content (deep packet inspection). Comcast was recently lambasted publicly at the FCC Hearing held on February 25th for such discriminatory practices, specifically those targeting users of peer-to-peer file-sharing software (p2p).

This meeting was one of the first steps of the FCC to come to a defined stance on the issue of net neutrality, and hopefully not the last as they continue their campaign to ensure Comcast isn’t violating any laws. However Comcast and Verizon executives both agreed that they did not believe the FCC had the power to regulate their private business practices- and by any laissez-fare understanding that should be the case. However, this instance is different because of what is at stake: access to a public network through private means. The internet is a public realm of free speech, the most extreme example our society has seen. The telecommunications giants continue to claim to see, hear, nor do no evil. What is remarkable about this issue is how not only the American public has come together to fight for this issue, but how it has world wide ramifications and has brought a diverse amount of different people from all political, social, economic, and racial groups.

“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” - Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web

As we are all aware the internet has dramatically changed our society and the world moreover. The ability to access information freely and without discrimination is paramount our freedom as a democratic society. Thankfully we, the internet population, are not without representation in our government to help this fight. At the same time I feel that any American policy on net neutrality will have great ramifications leading to similar causes in other nations, akin to the “Atlantic Revolutions” that followed our own War of Independence.

For my closing remarks I turn to an internet phenom, Ask a Ninja.