Al Franken writes: "I've said that net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. It's true. If Republicans have their way, large corporations won't just have the loudest voices in the room. They'll be able to effectively silence everyone else. Every small business they'd prefer not to compete with. Every blogger who publishes something they don't like. We have to stop them."
Portrait, Senator Al Franken. (photo: Jeffrey Thompson/Getty Images)
Net Neutrality Is Under Attack ... Again
09 November 11
his week, the free and open Internet millions of Americans have come to depend on is under attack.
In a procedural move, Senate Republicans are trying to overturn the rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put in place late last year to help protect net neutrality - the simple idea that all content and applications on the Internet should be treated the same, regardless of who owns the content or the website. The House already pushed through this dangerous legislation, which would effectively turn control of the Internet over to a handful of very powerful corporations.
I sincerely hope the Senate doesn't follow suit, and I'm doing everything I can to make sure this terrible legislation never reaches the President's desk.
While millions of Americans have become familiar with the concept of net neutrality, it's important that we're all on the same page. Net neutrality isn't a government takeover of the Internet, as many of my Republican colleagues have alleged. It isn't even a change from what we have now. Net neutrality has been in place since the very beginning of the Internet.
This isn't a radical concept - it's what each and every one of us experiences every time we use the Internet. Right now, an e-mail from a friend arrives in your inbox just as quickly and reliably as an advertisement from Amazon.com. Consumers can go online and make a reservation at a small fishing lodge in Ely, Minnesota, just as quickly as they can at the Hilton.
But many Republicans want to change that so that the large corporations they represent can increase their profit margins at the expense of small businesses and consumers.
To illustrate why net neutrality is so critical to innovation on the web, I like to tell the story of a small online startup that launched in 2005 above a pizzeria in San Francisco. It had a product that now seems simple: it allowed people to upload videos so others could stream them. It was called YouTube - you may have heard of it.
At the time, Google had a similar product - Google Video - but it wasn't as easy to use, so consumers took their business to YouTube. The site took off and, less than two years after it launched, YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.6 billion. Not a bad payday.
But it wouldn't have been possible without net neutrality. If Google had been able to pay Comcast and other large Internet service providers to prioritize its data - and make YouTube's videos load more slowly - YouTube wouldn't have stood a chance. Google's inferior product would have won.
Last year, the FCC took action to protect net neutrality, establishing a set of rules designed to preserve the status quo - the rules under which YouTube and thousands of other start-ups flourished. While those rules didn't do nearly as much as I would have liked to protect consumers, encourage innovation, and keep the Internet fully free, they at least laid a foundation to preserve the basic principles of net neutrality.
These are the rules Republicans in the House have already voted to overturn. This week, my Republican colleagues in the Senate will attempt to short circuit the legislative process by forcing a procedural vote and ignoring the FCC's expertise on this issue. They hope to abolish net neutrality and give their supporters in big telecom what they want: an unfair advantage over small businesses and bigger profits at the expense of consumers.
I've said that net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. It's true. If Republicans have their way, large corporations won't just have the loudest voices in the room. They'll be able to effectively silence everyone else.
Every small business they'd prefer not to compete with. Every blogger who publishes something they don't like.
We have to stop them.
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And it's working...the American public, as a group, are the most ignorant people on the planet...except, maybe, for an Oronoco tribe in the jungles of SA.
I'm sorry to have to agree with this.
You need to learn to distinguish between communists and fascists. The GOP represents the latter. Fox News is every bit as effective as Hitler's propaganda machine.
Have we seen the real depths of despisable GOP conduct yet? Probably not. But we can't let this ploy happen. Not, of course, that our "representatives " pay one speck of attention to anything we say -- unless we can flash them a bundle of cash -- beyond what we already pay them to demean us.
There are glimmers of light coming on, out there, in Americans' understanding of what is happening to us. Much of this has been made possible through the Internet. Lord help us keep it open and free!
There's more!
Without net neutrality internet providers will have to install throttles and other data delivery limiters. These limiters will add to the cost of supplying data. There will be hardware investment, software costs to control the limits that tie each piece of data to how much the owner of corporate data is paying to the ISP.
Do you think the corporations will absorb all the costs when they pay for better service? The ISP will want a cut for themselves of this new revenue stream. And since you, the customer, will get your order into Amazon with almost no lag, your ISP cost will rise as well!
So that Amazon, Disney, et al can control the internet you get to pay more.
Ain't unregulated capitalism just the best thing that money can buy?!
The protesters are out there to influence policy by showing their numbers and their dedication.
Franken is busy in Washington trying to turn progressives' wishes into law. He has the formal right to speak in the Senate. He has an actual vote in the Senate.
Franken doesn't need to protest on the streets, because he's the sort of person the people on the streets need to listen to make things happen.
Franken for president!
Vote Democrat with a big majority and vote out Blue Dog Democrats
Joe Manchin, Amy Klouchar' Ben Nelson, John Tester, Barbara Mikulski They vote Republican more often then what they should as Democrats
Al Franken speaks for us on the floor of the Senate all of the time and sends out articles such as this alerting people to dangers they face that they may not even realize. The man can't possibly be everywhere at once and must decide where he presence is most effective.
He has been anything but silent. Where have you been, certainly not listening.
The last thing we need is people disparaging our own!
Which leads to the question, are you one of our own or a plant?!
Thomas Jefferson
"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government." -- Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837
Yesterdays elections have shown that all the throttling and stepping on Constitutional Rights and Privileges of the 99% have come to an end. The Congress, as individual reps for the people, had better decide where they are coming down on these issues.
If you are not with the 99%, then you are against the 99%.
Vote Democrat
I'm not sure I understand how the Republicans can force a precedural vote when the Democrats never seem to be able to.
This is an important free speech issue and I agree with Sen. Franken it must be stopped. One more issue to put on my list of wrongs needing to be addressed in my letters to Congress.
Partly true, but this goes deeper and is more about controlling the political power and speech. Citizens United has created a "pay-to-play" world where the biggest wallet gets the most speech and drowns out the voice and hence political power of the poorest amongst us...the 1% want to extend this to the internet, where the wealthy corporations and blogs can pay for an information superhighway, and less affluent blogs and sites like this are automatically relegated to the web equivalent of a dirt road. This is just another brick in the wall of the Plutarchs controlling all Speech and access to information, a necessary step for their conversion of our nation to a totalitarian state...
Please give the message to Jon Stewart -- and he'll be quoted on all networks.
OHIO -- and Mississippi -- true patriots.
VOTE DEM VOTE OBAMA - get all you can registered EARLY - with mail-in ballots.
These damn Conservatives are like tree trimmers trying to cut specific limbs from the "tree of rights." But we need to watch out. If they can't get the limb, they'll try to take the whole damn tree.
Please file a bill requiring national weekly online voting by the nation's internet users to select the pressing social need of the moment. Require that week's top ten earning corporations to meet those needs for the next seven days. This is the way to get rid of net neutrality and do some good.
I don't know. But today I received an e-mail supposedly from YouTube, urging me to renew my account or else... I never had any account with them. What is this? Anyone knows?
totals 13 trillion($ sent to banks and millionairs all over the earth). No wonderthat the US is bankrupted. Corporate takeover of this earth is being completed(corps are people and also criminals).
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