These type of closed door meetings are all too common... I wonder how many private meetings like these happen without any disclosure or reporting about them at all???
Yes, many citizen groups stand up for the 1st Amendment and tell our representatives that Internet censorship is not feasible in a functioning democracy. The problem is that the Big Six (GE, News Corp., Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, & CBS) have a megaphone and bags of cash... so often the voices of the citizen groups get drowned out.
Couple that with the fact that the vast majority Americans form their world view from the television or the websites that the Big Six own. Sex scandals and Hollywood gossip is discussed, Internet censorship? Not so much.
And this is increasingly not just an American problem, as many people on this thread are pointing out. We live in a global society (thanks largely to the Internet), the challenges of the U.S. are increasingly the challenges of France.
The Internet has done a tremendous amount of good over the past 20+ years, but there is a flip side to this coin as well.
Check out this five minute documentary trailer (on KickStarter) that seeks to tackle some of these Internet censorship issues:
This documentary project is looking to get crowd-funded by small individual donations from the same citizens with the most to lose if we moved to a censored and centralized Internet.
It's not political gossip, it's probably the most important question concerning the future of a free and open Internet.
Are you familiar with the implications to the future of the Internet regarding the merger between the largest ISP (Comcast) in the United States merging with the largest content provider (NBC-U)?
Probably not, because there was no real news coverage of it...
But I bet you can tell me a lot about Congressman Anthony Weiner... And that's my point.
From the guidelines: Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
Mind you, a lot of HN readers (about half IIRC) are not in the US. Please have some mercy on us. I completely accept that fact that HN news are biased to US, because that's where most web startups are. But I'm sure there are many other forums where you can discuss American politics.
For comparison, a series of uprisings in the Arab world is a very big thing. Even conceding the extremely large importance of US in world politics, yet another case of conflict of interest in American politics is not that new or interesting. The fact that people pay more attention to sensationalistic news than to important stuff is not new either.
With all due respect, I think that you are missing the point.
Yes, the uprisings in the Arab world is a very big thing. Which is very much connected to my point of criticizing the largest ISP in the U.S. merging with the largest content provider. And the lack of media coverage in not only American media coverage, but world media coverage. Keep in mind that the economies of General Electric (which owns NBC-Universal) and Comcast are larger than most nations in the world. Needless to say they weild a significant amount of political power outside of the U.S.
The Internet was invented in the United States and it was invented as an open medium (decentralized), this is the reason why totalitarian dictators in the Arab world have such a hard time blocking communication within their regimes that is critical of them. This construct is severely jeopardized by the merger of these two companies... and once this construct is altered in the U.S. it will permeate the entire globe, including the Arab world.
I do not want this to happen... but no one is talking about it... and that is a major problem. This problem is not just the United States' problem, it is the world's problem.
Why do news stories such as Anthony Weiner's junk shot or Charlie Sheen's implosion last for weeks in America's news cycle?
But there's hardly any news coverage of NBC-Universal merging with Comcast or commentary on FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker cashing out to become Comcast's chief lobbyist right after approving the merger?
Doesn't it seem that the latter story is what the 4th estate should be doing in order to protect a functioning democracy?... or am I missing something?
JTfor2032:
I agree with what you are saying. It is impossible to have accountable governance when most people get their "news" from the television. Television news in the US is unfortunately concentrated among six huge media conglomerates.
The Internet as we know it, is unfortunately increasingly looking like it is going the way of cable television. Especially in the wake of the NBC-Comcast merger. If this progression continues, which it looks like it will... we will continue to have more and more people in the U.S. keep up with the Anthony Weiner and Royal Wedding Stories and less and less people know that the Internet was shut off in Syria.
It's really hard to make comparisons with Europe, because their situation is so different, and also within a very different cultural/historical context as well. Firstly, they don't suffer from a hyper-consumerized, anti-intellectual (shit throwing) Ape culture. So they're typically more immune from Corporate Propoganda. Furthermore, they have state TV stations that are liberal and honest. Our PBS was not allowed to do anything actually relevant or watched, so our PBS was ghettoized to do documentaries about the History of the ice-cream cone on the Eastern Seaboard during the late 19th Century.
I agree it is very hard to compare the United States with Europe, but there are many similarities and a ton of cross over in ownership. American media firms that are competitors in the United States are many times joined at the hip in Europe. There is a ton of collusion going on.
Ben Bagdikian, former Berkeley Journalism Dean and author of "Media Monopoly" has spent 30 years painstakingly chronicling these relationships.
These media conglomerates are constantly merging and getting more powerful by the day. They of course have their sights firmly on taking "control" of the Internet (will there always be some dissension...sure on the fringes of society) But those that think that the Internet will always have to be an open medium are naive, remember everyone said the same thing about radio in the 1920s.
One more thing to think about when we compare Europe to the US. One must look at French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy and his attempts "civilize" the Internet which is really a code for “regulations favorable to big business and the national security state.
The difference is the French citizens on the whole are more engaged (as braindeomon points out) so they haven't put up with Sarkozy's proposals... unlike the American populace who are largely uninformed on what's going on politically (outside of Congressman Weiner's antics).
I admit I painted an overly simplified, pre-1990's picture. Even the BBC has famously had to adopt a more "American" model of advertisers allowing more inroads by mega-corporations, and they've partnered with several American corporations.
Sarkozy is notorious for his overt racist statements and policies, so he will be no friend to democracy. I just feel sorry for his beautiful, talented wife, because he really is a narcissist.
Right wing Berlusconi built his media empire on trash, titilating television and is famous for his teenage lovers.
However, being ultra-/ far-right wing in Europe is famously understood to be well to the left of Liberal Democrats. Our actual "moderate" right wing would be illegal in Europe, since they had to deal with fascism, so won't countenance anything that vicious.
Well said Bmcarlisle. I couldn't have said it better myself. I've been very happy with the support of the hackernews community. Out of all the venues I blog, I get the most support from you guys. I posted early this morning and had about 30 of you guys back my project. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
If you haven't read my blog yet on savetheinternet.com
check it out here:
