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Astroturfing Net Neutrality
Free speech online has come under withering attack from the Astroturf lobby -- corporate front groups that are determined to hand control of the Internet to companies like AT&T and Comcast.
They've joined the forces of the Tea Party and pro-corporate attack groups like Americans for Prosperity to urge weak members of Congress to betray the public interest by voting to strip the Federal Communications Commission of its ability to protect our basic freedom to access an open Internet.
And betray us is exactly what House representatives did earlier this month, passing a "Resolution of Disapproval" (H.J. Res. 37), which is designed to let phone and cable companies block any speech they don't like, charge users anything they can get away with, and hold innovation hostage to their profit margins.
If this resolution gets by the Senate and White House, there will be little anyone could do to stop these companies. The good new is that President Obama has already vowed to veto this resolution. (You can make sure that it doesn't get to his desk by urging your senators to kill H.J Res. 37).
The aim of front groups supporting this industry agenda is to stoke partisan rancor and fear over a principle called Net Neutrality -- a basic rule that keeps service providers from deciding what content we get to see and share via digital networks.
A favorite line of theirs is to portray Net Neutrality as part of a left-wing conspiracy, dismissing the vast coalition of people of every political stripe who believe that an open Internet is a basic requirement of a healthy, modern democracy.
An article earlier this month at Andrew Breitbart's website Big Government painted Net Neutrality as "oppressive" and "leftists policies" and urged readers to phone up Democrats and urge their vote for a Congressional "Resolution of Disapproval" that had been embraced by Rep. Michele Bachmann and pushed by House Speaker John Boehner.
Americans for Prosperity, the industry-funded Astroturf group with deep ties to the Koch Brothers, had asked its members to send letters to these and other congressional offices calling Net Neutrality "Obama's Internet takeover."
"Regulating the Internet under the banner of so-called network neutrality has been a far-left obsession for years," argues Americans for Prosperity VP of Policy Phil Kerpen.
Rhetoric aside -- it’s worth noting that companies like AT&T and Comcast have delivered truckloads of money to the re-election campaigns of most of those who voted against Net Neutrality. A recent report by MapLight.org illustrates the corrupting influence corporate donations have had in “convincing” members of Congress to turn against the interests of their constituents on this issue.
In the House, front groups' targeted Democratic Reps. Jason Altmire (PA-4), Sanford Bishop (GA-2), Leonard Boswell (IA-3), Jim Costa (CA-20), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Reuben Hinojosa (TX-15), Tim Holden (PA-17), Rick Larsen (WA-2), Mike McIntyre (NC-7), Jerry McNerney (CA-11), Gregory Meeks (NY-6), David Scott (GA-13), and Heath Shuler (NC-11).
Of these only two – Reps. Bishop and Scott – caved to industry pressure by voting for the resolution. But most every one has received considerable sums from the phone and cable lobby.
Now members of the Senate are hearing the same tune.
This push comes at a time when phone and cable companies have begun limiting our ability to connect with others and share information. Some like MetroPCS have already announced plans to block certain video applications via the mobile Web. Corporations like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are seeking to degrade access to competing services or sites that might threaten their bottom line; they’re also moving to penalize users who use their Internet connection for more data-intensive purposes than simple Web surfing.
Net Neutrality – like the First Amendment itself – is an issue that should transcend politics. Despite the partisan blather, it has received support from all corners -- from the socially conservative Christian Coalition to the rights advocates at ACLU, from librarians and educators to video gamers, journalists, musicians and even Harry Potter fans.
More than two million Americans have sent letters to the FCC and Congress urging leaders to "stand with the public by protecting Net Neutrality once and for all."
That's what real grassroots look like.
Just last week, Internet pioneer and die-hard Net Neutrality supporter Tim Berners-Lee said that access to the open Internet is "human right" that we all have "duty" to protect.
He’s right.
But don’t let that stop the hyperventilating among Beltway hacks intent on turning this into a divisive and politically charged issue.
Members of Congress without regard to party or ideology should ignore the astroturfing of a few to protect an open Internet that helps so many.
Comments
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9 Comments so far
Show All"Tim Berners-Lee said that access to the open Internet is 'human right' that we all have 'duty' to protect."
I wish the internet was a human right and that everyone had full broadband access at no cost (won't happen anytime soon). Right now it's still a business. Unless you're one of those hacker whizzes, you still have to pay somebody to be online and, as long as that's the case, business thinking people will try to control it and game the system in ways that helps them make money and control what they can of the content.
I agree that we should not allow our members of Congress to get away with allowing the Internet to be neutered. We should have paid attention to our Congressional elections so that we would not have been in the state of having to call them up with less faith that they will listen let alone honor our requests. I for one do my best to get in touch with my pols on all levels and yes, I call, write, and email. What I will not put up is anyone attacking me or anyone for "not doing enough". We do our best to contact and beg our pols to listen. However, if they are already owned by Big Money, then our chances of success are already limited which means that we will have to draw the line at some point and figure out who will stand with us and who refuses to try.
The issue of astroturfing came up in another thread and I am glad that this article was put up to help some of us on this very issue. Eric A Blair and GWNorth raised some excellent points on the need to protect the forums and blogs. I was also assured that it was not about calling for censorship and I thank them both for kindly clarifying it all. The issue that most of us have is how we respond and react to governmental and corporate threats to net neutrality. Many of us believe that regardless of what Congress and the corporations do to the Internet, we would be better off debating the ideas and arguments rather than getting overprotective about who is who. If people who are reading our comments later stumble upon useful discussions, they could learn from them and tackle rightwing talk in the real world. I couldn't care less about anyone's "persona" so much as I do about the content of their posts. It is my gut feeling that rightwingers want us to be divided and paranoid because they know that this will only serve to distract us from turning these forums into both powerful tools and enlightenment and organizing. I sincerely believe that we must protect the forums and blogs while being flexible and not overprotective if we are to not only save net neutrality but to also succeed in proving that these forums can and will make a difference after all.
We also need to find ways to change our economic system from "too big to fail" to small and local so that the same rightwing astroturfers will be doing some local and truly productive rather than working for stifling online dissent for money. We also need to abolish the Telecommunications Act of 1996 so that we can bring back smaller ISPs who used to exist in the earlier days of the Internet before the bigger named ISPs took over and dominated. The reason I recommend this is we are unfortunately forced to depend on them without having local choices of our own aside from dialups.
P.S.:
I apologize for any of my recent posts that may have come off as looking "rightwing" to anyone. As always, I welcome corrections and feedback minus rudeness and disrespect. Thank you.
Also, except for the rightwingers on this site, I apologize for coming off rough on anyone. I try not to post in a too foul mood.
" I couldn't care less about anyone's "persona" so much as I do about the content of their posts."
If I want to read industry press releases I'll go to the industry/industry front group sites. I don't want to waste time on thinly disguised press releases posted by fake personas. If a shill is upfront about it and actually contributes to a discussion that's a variation on truth in advertising, but a shill pretending to be a regular poster ought to be ostracized.
Yes, it is difficult to be certain who is a shill and who is a true believer, but we have to make our best efforts to limit the damage these con artists do. If a few true believers in mountaintop mining and nuclear energy should get falsely accused in the process, so be it.
There is no reason to let these corporate owned thugs inject corporate bs into every forum.
Ctrl-z, I just remembered after running across a posting of "Greg R" in one of today's columns that I and others used to get into countless arguments with his irritating and shameless pro-Monsanto posts. I believe that he eventually admitted that he worked for Monsanto or at least some GMO industry as a corporate "farmer". I remember some of the Big Nuclear shills acting similarly. We have also seen quite a lot of Democrat Party apologists and a few of them eventually confessed to working straight for the party as PR cults. Such folks when found out that their arguments for the wrong side stem from working in those controversial industries and/or political parties will not receive any sympathy from me and that is where I can see the need to prevent them from entering the forums lest they succeed in dividing and corrupting enough minds on this forum. Thank you for your reply.
Ms Bedingfield,
I find you call for "thought control" in this forum to be positively chilling.
As a civil engineer with a broad scientific understanding of things, I very sincerely believe in urgent action on global warming - including rapid replacement of coal electric generation with a mix of renewables and nuclear.
But it looks like for me to advocate such a position will get me facing calls to be gagged by the technophobic, luddite wing of the left.
Sabo, I am not calling for any kind of "thought control" on this or other forums. Our focus is on separating those who troll on purpose from the truly undereducated who could learn. Your advocating for the position you described will not get you called luddite. As a matter of fact, I would argue that it is NOT "luddite" to call for alternative renewables. I am already getting called a "luddite" by my local teabaggers for tightening my own belt and making myself less materialistic systematically but that does not stop me from doing so. I know that most Americans would look at you and me as if we are stifling ourselves when in fact we are proud to each do our best to adjust ourselves to good lifestyles abroad.
SaboCat: During the recent turmoil over Japan and nuclear power I didn't see you getting anything like the response many others expressing similar opinions got. I think it's because you aren't a single issue poster and people were familiar with you.
Undue corporate control of the internet possesses two levels of severity. The first, notional, issue relates to the classic economic problem, consumption of bandwidth resources vs the limited amount of capital equipment: routers, switches, etc. It is my understanding that this issue exists largely due to the need for the ISP to maximize its return on investment. The second, IMO more nefarious, issue relates to corporate control of the flow of information and free speech. The fact that the solution to the stated, mentionable issue is a technical solution more suitable to the latter issue (content filtering, rather than a quota based approach) should be indicative of the ultimate intent.
Issue 3 (illustrated by the Comcast acquisition of NBC Universal) is that there are significant synergies available to a content provider which ALSO controls the access: Filtering of competition, etc. Once again, not achievable via quotas.
The free Internet is democracy's last stand