Internet Neutrality and What You Can Do

There's only so much you can do in a week. If you're an activist you learn to pick your battles. I've staked my battles on the front lines of environmental sustainability, freedom of expression and protecting our vibrant democracy. As a component of the last two, Internet neutrality is now on my map...

A vibrant (read: living) democracy REQUIRES an informed populace. In the last 15 years media ownership has dwindled from 50 competitors to a handful of giants; "...Disney, Viacom (now known as CBS Corporation), Time Warner, News Corp, Bertelsmann, and General Electric together own more than 90% of the media market". News has become a commodity better described as infotainment (at best) and at worst, propaganda. In either case the information is severely slanted and limited and I presume it to routinely omit information detrimental to its corporate owner's interests.

The Internet has become the last open, free information conduit regulated more by reader interest than editorial slant. I don't trust everything I read to be accurate but I do trust that I will find enough information on any topic to draw my own conclusions. For this (at least) it has become a valuable resource for many and hence drawn the attention of its profit-driven providers. Who will control this seeming last frontier of the public media landscape? What will happen to Internet neutrality or as Mediageek puts it: "...who will control what information, data, images and sound you can receive over your broadband connection, and whether or not the big telcos like AT&T and Verizon can filter out some types of content or charge you significantly more for the privilege."

These quotes are from an excellent 'jumping-off' post on the topic:

MediaCitizen: "As major communications companies plan to control and profit from our broadband future, bloggers, independent media makers and their audiences need to remain vigilant and encourage a real debate about protecting the free flow of information and ideas.

Free Press has started to convene monthly blogger calls at the intersection of media and policy. With this series, we hope we can spark a serious debate about what the future of the Internet -- and all digital media -- will be."

Laurence Lessig (Stanford Law School):

"If business were as usual, [the telecom companies] would win this. But there have been important instances where grassroots resistance has actually stopped major changes in public policy... I think a similar thing could happen here. If there really were a grassroots opposition to this, that raised a lot of anger and passion around it, I think there are a lot of politicians who would pick up on it.

"One thing I saw at the hearing, when I was testifying, is that it just didn't sit right, either with Republicans or Democrats, to imagine the Internet changed into a place where you basically could control what people had access to, or the networks had the right to control what people had access to. There really is an opportunity to do something successful in this context if there really were a movement."

I propose this process for success:

1. Commit to securing Internet neutrality for your own good--could the tools you use go away or cost you (even) more? Could sites you rely on for political news, simply disappear? Tell Congress how you feel.
   
2. Do your own research and while you're at it ask yourself how much you save in time and dollars doing it online. Providers are asking that question too but remember, you already pay for the line use, should you pay for "choice use"? Take that up with Congress.
   
3. Share what you discover and what you do with others through letters to the editor, chats around the water cooler and heck, in online chat rooms. Get others to contact Congress.
   
4. Get folks to sign petitions--just email them the links. The petitions go to Congress.
   
5. Repeat. Did I mention anything about Congress?