Posted on 04/29/2014 3:14:56 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Out of 1.2 trillion Google searches in 2012, Trayvon Martin was the ninth most searched event. But the unarmed black teen who was fatally shot in Florida may have never become a household name if it wasn’t for Twitter, Facebook and the blogs that kept his story in the news until it reached a national level.
Now black and Latino net neutrality advocates say it will be much harder, and maybe even impossible, to catapult stories like Martin’s to a national level if new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ‘fast lane’ rules are implemented.
Martin was shot dead by George Zimmerman on February 26, 2012. It wasn’t until March 16 that national coverage of Martin’s death intensified. But in those three weeks, small local news sites, blogs and black news sites continued reporting on the story until it was one that national broadcast networks could no longer ignore.
Internet neutrality advocates (or activists who believe that all Internet traffic should be treated equally) say a similar media experience like Trayvon Martin’s would be harder to replicate if the FCC’s new rules are implemented.
The proposed rules “would also allow providers to give preferential treatment to traffic from some content providers, as long as such arrangements are available on ‘commercially reasonable’ terms for all interested content companies,” reported the Washington Post, who obtained a leaked copy of the proposal before the FCC announced its plans. “Whether the terms are commercially reasonable would be decided by the FCC on a case-by-case basis.”
“It’s really a freedom of speech issue and the right to speak freely and the FCC is basically turning control over to the internet service providers so they can determine who gets to speak and who doesn’t, they’re the ones will end up determining if they speed or slow down your content,” said Joseph Torres, a senior director at Free Press, a group that advocates for universal and affordable Internet access.
"The FCC chairman plans to deliver a gift for ISPs, who are among the most powerful and profitable corporations in the world, at the expense of muting the most vulnerable voices in our society," Torres said.
The FCC chairman disagrees. He says “there has been a great deal of misinformation,” since the Washington Post published their story on the FCC’s plans.
“To be very direct, the proposal would establish that behavior harmful to consumers or competition by limiting the openness of the Internet will not be permitted,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement.
“No legal content may be blocked,” the chairman went on to say.
Content may not be blocked but certain web pages could load slower than others.
“Essentially what is happening is that our internet will look more like our cable system where in order to access different types of channels or services you have to pay more,” explained Rashad Robinson, director of ColorOfChange , the nation’s largest online civil rights organization.
The new FCC rules could pave the way for more agreements where content providers team up with internet service providers.
In February, Comcast, the country’s largest cable and broadband provider, and the streaming media company Netflix, reached an agreement so that their content has faster and more reliable connections to Comcast subscribers.
“Historically the internet has been a place where a young mother in the inner city could start a blog and be able to push out ideas, or where young kids in the aftermath of Trayvon Martin could start Tumblrs and say that they too are Trayvon, or the DREAMers who have been able to tell their stories and advance their cause,” Robinson said.
“But what we’re moving in to now is a system where the price of entry, the price to be able to compete and to have your information be accessible will be much higher,” Robinson went on to say.
“More and more everyday people will be priced out.”
The new proposal will be reviewed during the FCC's May 15 meeting.
“will conservatives actually be the ones squelched, not so-called “people of color” as the author suggests?”
SHHH they’ll hear you. No, the FCC’s New Net Neutrality Rules are clearly racist and if you don’t oppose them it makes you a racist.
Sitting here in my jeans-of-blue after having bike of 30-speeds to the Guam of University and reading the Republic Free.
Besides speaking and writing in stilted phrases just exactly what is deal with the goofy term “a Person of color”?
There may be some transparent people around but I haven’t seen them. I guess if you can’t see them you can’t blamed for excluding them.
I don't think it's the Dems. They seem to favor Net Neutrality rules.
Democrats Introduce Open Internet Preservation Act To Restore Net Neutrality
Here is why I think Net Neutrality is not the way to go. Let's take for example a decision by Netflix to start running 4K videos since HDTVs that are 4K capable are becoming affordable (at last). And people are going to be watching those 4K movies streaming over the Internet.
Over an Internet that probably will be stressed to the limit to support those 4K NetCasts.
So what to do? Who should pay to increase the capacity of the Internet?
The answer is that the Netflix customers should pay. And if Netflix is allowed to pay Time Warner to upgrade their equipment to support the increased bandwidth then Time Warner will do it. With Net Neutrality in place I think that transaction would be against the law or at least more complicated.
So the answer is: Let Time Warner and Netflix figure it out. Let them make a deal. If we want 4K we will have a marginal increase in the cost at some point. That's life. But it's a free market solution and the right thing to do.
Is white a color?
Obama hates black people.
“Or let ISPs charge for bandwidth and total throughput. If the user wants to download a terabyte of movies in a month, then the ISP can charge for those bits without discriminating whether it is from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or some new service and which of those is paying the most to the ISP.”
Sounds too logical to charge people on their actual use of the ISP rather than a flat fee.
Apparently the satellite ISP’s do charge the users for their level of use.
The loss of net neutrality is intended to bring back the total control of message propaganda, be it L/R political, or corporate. It will be controlled by big media, just like it was in the days where network TV (using public airwaves), except it will be far more propagandized because the media is more consolidated now and with print media.
The blogs and alternative news sites will be put on dial-up equivalent networks (like late night low power AM radio) or bought out and dismembered by big media.
What this country needs is to send both establishment Parties out to pasture and replace them with Party or Parties that holistically serves the country. Not the US Chamber of Commerce, not bankers, not the UN, not the globalists, not illegal immigrants, not the global corporations but primarily for the USA Constitution and the interests people.
Most of us are already paying $50 and up/mo for broadband internet connections with half of it being eaten up with advertisements. We pay to watch ads.
We will all rue the day that the powers that be divided and conquered us by claiming net neutrality was political (left or right). They played us as fools. Net neutrality with equal access is in the public’s interest. Tiered access is in the MSM establishment interest that allows them to as always censor by exclusion the views of the public.
The elites...political, media, corporate, etc believe that giving the public a megaphone is too dangerous to their comfy position of controlling minds and matters.
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