The rules, approved by the FCC during the Obama administration, classified Internet providers as “common carriers” — a move that allowed the agency to regulate those companies more strictly than before. In addition to banning the blocking or slowing of Internet traffic, the regulations also gave the FCC the ability to investigate business practices among Internet providers that it deemed potentially anticompetitive.
No matter what we might be duking out on United States soil in regards to what that means for People of Color, women, transgender folk and whatnot .. what would our lives be like if those rights were permanently taken away from all of us, permanently .. and control over them were given not even to foreign governments, but to major corporations instead of any government at all?
It’s an embarrassment to the search giant that Google Maps produced highly inappropriate racist results, even though it happened because racist terms are often shared on the internet. A Wired reporter explains:
It was discovered that when searching for “n***a house” and “n***a king,” Maps returned a surprising location: the White House. A search for “slut’s house” led to an Indiana women’s dorm. Initially, you may have suspected this to be the work of a lone vandal, or even a coordinated campaign. But Google Maps gave racist, degrading results not because it was compromised, but because the internet itself is racist and degrading … It … means that if enough people online refer to a specific place using vile epithets, even one of the most recognizable landmarks in the United States can be reduced to racist garbage.
People have a right to privacy and also a right to develop our own minds and make thoughtful decisions. Every time major corporations and governments acquire one more way to track our activities and interests, compile statistics about what we like and what we do, and use that information to control our behaviour by limiting us, selling us and brainwashing us, our independence as autonomous beings is eroded. Privacy is not something we can give up on fighting for.
Why did Congress back off of trying to pass SOPA/PIPA legislation? In case you don’t understand how bad SOPA/PIPA are, here’s a fantastic explanation of what it’s all about for “privacy, liberty loving American(s)”. I guess it wasn’t because we scared politicians with massive protests and the blackout of many internet sites. Only days later, individual states are beginning to pass the same laws on a state by state basis. Believe me, this is a planned campaign and Hawaii is only the first. Monied interests are not going to give up the right they see as G-d given to make money on everything we do and to buy real estate inside our heads where they can camp out and dictate needs and wants to us. Make no mistake, this is more than a fight: it’s a war.
Michelle Maisto of Connected Planet writes,
“Barbershop Punk,” a David-and-Goliath style documentary about Net Neutrality and citizen’s rights to the Internet has been touring the film festival scene and on Friday night — a day after the Senate voted to strike down a move to block the FCC’s net neutrality rules . . . Small audience by small audience, the film — which includes interviews with Henry Rollins, OK Go’s Damian Kulash, Clinton White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry and FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, among others — is educating viewers . . .
