DU, BuzzFlash, and DailyKOS are in BIG trouble

[joeunderdog]

if the Republican-controlled mega-media corporations succeed in neutering Network Neutrality. The RW has already shown how devastating it can be when they control the media--in my mind the key to their continued political success in the face of continued real-life failures. The internet, the last bastion of Free Speech and independent thought, is now at risk. If they can charge at will for bandwith, then only the biggest vendors be able to afford to have user-friendly, easy opening websites. Walmart will squash all of the cyber-vendors who can't compete in the brick and mortar world. Think it's bad now? This will continue to feed the money-gets-money disease that is corrupting this country at every level.

Who's got more cash, DU or Fox? How much time do you have to get informed about your world?

Make some time to put some pressure on Congress about this before DU and all the littler guys get squeezed into inconvenience and insignificance. MoveOn.org has a petition on this and they are up over a quarter of a million signatures. Call your pols and/or sign http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet?track_referer=706%7C6853139-uduiU4ij2whLZmLAM99ghw

[izzie]

1. I e-mailed Congress on it.

You have to know that the money that can be made on this just has to have every greedy little person at Congress door so they can tie it up in some Corp.

[kaygore]

2. I have called my senators and representatives

and signed the petition...in fact several of them.

[regnaD kciN]

3. And it isn't just a matter of buying bandwidth...

Telecos and cable providers could just decide not to carry left-wing sites, for no reason whatsoever. And don't you think that would be part of the deal for currying favor with the Republican-owned government?

This is something we must ALL fight, RIGHT NOW! :bounce:

http://www.savetheinternet.com

[mwooldri]

4. Who has more cash: Fox or Microsoft?

It's good to speak up about it... but one thing we need to remember: Microsoft is on our side. The main content providers (Google, Ebay, major newspapers, etc are on our side). The strange thing about my circumstance is that I use the services of Earthlink, who have a deal with Time Warner Cable - who want to be acting as an Internet gatekeeper - and Earthlink want to have network neutrality. Nevermind the fact that Earthlink's cable subscribers get a slower speed than their Roadrunner counterparts (but it's a little bit cheaper) - Earthlink's customer's traffic is going over AOL's network - Earthlink wants neutrality but AOL doesn't??

Also another point: if this happens the way people are saying it is going to happen, doesn't it change Verizon/AT&T/etc's position from that of a provider of network services to an actual publisher, because they have struck a deal with XYZ place to provide you with such and such content? And couldn't you therefore sue the phone company for providing you with defamatory content (e.g. if you were looking for WWII artifacts for auction, and were fed a Nazi-worship site instead) ??? Because they're no longer a carrier but now a publisher - because you asked for certain content from the Internet and they fed you something else?

I'm all for shaping certain traffic (say more bandwidth for video and voice traffic but pay more for it... that's OK - as long as I can choose the provider though) but in essence net neutrality of a sort should remain (e.g. webpages should load at appropriate speeds based on the bandwidth allocated for web pages, pictures, etc). Discriminating in the same way like Clearwire does (it doesn't allow certain VOIP networks to work on its system - I signed up with them and asked them this, the rep said yes but the trial didn't work).

However if this does come to fruition, I assure you the geeks and the nerds will be out there to circumvent this.

Mark.

[Joe Fields]

5. It won't be too much of an inconvienience for these sites .....

It is my opinion that they are not going anywhere. What will most probably happen, and of course I could be way off base, is that these sites will go to mandatory membership fees and drop the free sight hoping for a donation approach.

[alfredo]

6. We need a fall back position. P2P networks (Bittorrent networks),

ham radio, mailing lists, usenet. If it comes to it, we must adapt.