{"id":322340,"date":"2017-08-19T09:34:33","date_gmt":"2017-08-19T08:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/net-neutrality-reduced-to-mogul-vs-mogul-in-corporate-medias-shallow-coverage\/"},"modified":"2017-08-19T09:34:33","modified_gmt":"2017-08-19T08:34:33","slug":"net-neutrality-reduced-to-mogul-vs-mogul-in-corporate-medias-shallow-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/net-neutrality-reduced-to-mogul-vs-mogul-in-corporate-medias-shallow-coverage\/","title":{"rendered":"Net Neutrality Reduced to Mogul vs. Mogul in Corporate Media\u2019s Shallow Coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"John<\/a><\/p>\n

John Oliver (6\/1\/14<\/a>) on net neutrality: “The only two words that promise more boredom in the English language are ‘featuring Sting.’”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A common refrain in popular news media is that net neutrality is just too boring and esoteric for ordinary people to be interested in. \u201cOh my god that is the most boring thing I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d John Oliver (HBO<\/b>, 6\/1\/14<\/a>) once exclaimed after showing his audience a short clip from a government hearing on the subject. \u201cThat is even boring by C-SPAN<\/b> standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Net neutrality is the principle that internet data should be transmitted without discrimination. \u00a0Absent net neutrality rules, internet service providers (ISPs) are free to act as gatekeepers, controlling which data users have access to and at what speed.<\/p>\n

Oliver proved himself wrong. His 2014 segment, which explained net neutrality and successfully implored the public to support the FCC\u2019s proposed reclassification of ISPs as \u201ccommon carriers\u201d under the Telecommunications Act, so that they could be regulated as public utilities, has been viewed over 13 million times on YouTube<\/b>. 3.7 million people sent comments<\/a> to the FCC that year.<\/p>\n

Clearly, if net neutrality is framed in a context an audience can relate to, they are very interested and get involved; it is not so much a problem of boredom but of understanding the underlying importance, which Oliver illuminated. But he also made another important observation: \u201cWhat\u2019s being proposed is so egregious, activists and corporations have been forced on the same side.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the new FCC under Trump-appointed chair Ajit Pai prepares to roll back<\/a> the net neutrality rules put in place just two years ago, corporate media appear to have largely sidelined the activist perspective. Instead, they have presented the issue as a simple matter of which corporate brands consumers prefer.<\/p>\n

\"Search<\/a><\/p>\n

Also the ACLU and the American Library Association, among many other non-corporate titans.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cAmazon<\/b>, Google<\/b> in last ditch protest to support Net Neutrality,\u201d proclaimed USA Today<\/b> (7\/10\/17<\/a>). \u201cGoogle<\/b>, Amazon<\/b> Plan Protest Against FCC Plans to Reverse Net Neutrality,\u201d CNBC<\/b> reported (7\/17\/17<\/a>). \u201cTech Companies Rally on Net Neutrality Day of Action,\u201d CBS<\/b> (7\/12\/17<\/a>) declared. CNN<\/b> (7\/12\/17<\/a>): \u201cTech Companies Go Big and Small for Net Neutrality Protest.\u201d NBC <\/b>(7\/12\/17<\/a>): \u201cGoogle<\/b> and Facebook<\/b> Join Net Neutrality Day to Protest FCC\u2019s Proposed Rollback.\u201d And on and on.<\/p>\n

To be sure, these companies contributed to the \u201cDay of Action to Save Net Neutrality\u201d organized by Fight for the Future<\/a>, a nonprofit internet advocacy organization, but they were by no means the only participants. The ACLU<\/a>, Free Press<\/a>, the Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a>, the American Library Association<\/a> and the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation<\/a> (to name just a few<\/a>) all reaffirmed their noncommercial commitment to defend net neutrality.<\/p>\n

By characterizing the debate over net neutrality as a clash of corporate titans, the press not only alienates readers who don\u2019t have the time to worry about squabbles in the business world, but also misconstrues what is at stake in the struggle for power over one of humankind\u2019s most important inventions of the last millennium.<\/p>\n

Net neutrality is, at base, a question of who should control access to the internet, which, as Harvard law professor Susan Crawford explained in her 2008 testimony before Congress<\/a>,<\/p>\n

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is best understood as a collective agreement to use a particular language (the Internet Protocol<\/a>) when connecting computing machines to telephone, fiber and cable lines that are interconnected around the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the internet should not be conflated with either the corporations that facilitate Americans\u2019 access to the network, or the corporations that produce content transmitted over that network; the internet is a global means of electronic communication that transcends any particular commercial application.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it is only natural that media so thoroughly saturated by corporate influence would have trouble explaining socio-political issues beyond that restricted frame. But even corporate media\u2019s coverage of the business angle ranges from incoherent to unethical.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Comcast<\/strong>-owned MSNBC<\/strong> (7\/14\/17) explaining that net neutrality means “government just hasn’t caught up with technology yet.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Following an introductory video on the potential economic implications of dismantling net neutrality on MSNBC<\/b> (7\/14\/17<\/a>)\u2014which is owned by Comcast<\/b>, the largest cable ISP in the nation\u2014Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle proceeded to dismantle any understanding their viewers might have gleaned from it.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the issues is government just hasn\u2019t caught up with technology\u2014no one has, given how fast things have moved,\u201d Ruhle surmised.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight,\u201d Velshi agreed, \u201cthere are 23-year-olds inventing some of these fantastic websites and these apps, and the government is still thinking about the way it applies trade regulations when, you know, Staples and Office Depot want to merge,\u201d naming two presumably old-school businesses.<\/p>\n

A better example might have been Comcast<\/b>\u2019s recent attempt to acquire Time Warner Cable<\/b>, which would have given it control of 40 percent of the broadband market. That merger fell apart after the Department of Justice, which apparently had not \u201ccaught up with technology,\u201d signaled its disapproval on antitrust grounds (Justice.gov, 4\/24\/15<\/a>). TWC<\/b> was eventually purchased by Charter<\/b> to form the second-largest ISP in the country, now known as Spectrum<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Or, even more relevant, Comcast<\/b>\u2019s successful takeover<\/a> of NBCUniversal<\/b> in 2010, making it the most powerful vertically integrated<\/a> telecommunications and content provider in the history of the world. But these examples are inconvenient if one\u2019s agenda is to convince viewers that government regulators are incompetent and corporate America is the proper steward of the public interest.<\/p>\n

Last year CNBC<\/b> (2\/12\/16<\/a>), another Comcast<\/b> property, dropped even the pretense of objectivity and invited the CEO of AT&T<\/b>, the third-largest ISP in America, to set viewers straight on net neutrality. \u201cNot everybody knows all the nuances like you do,\u201d Joe Kernen gushed, before asking Randall Stephenson, \u201cWhat would help or hurt AT&T<\/b> based on what\u2019s in front of the court?\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephenson expressed optimism, in light of a Supreme Court decision to block the Obama administration\u2019s climate-change regulations<\/a>, that \u201cthe courts are pushing back on some of the regulatory overreach.\u201d \u00a0Petitioners for the plaintiff in that case, pending before the DC Circuit Court, include dozens of corporate industry associations and private-utility monopolies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One year later, AT&T<\/b> is set to buy what remains of Time Warner<\/b>, giving it the kind of control over both the creation and delivery of online content to millions of Americans that worries those concerned about concentrated media power. Although a federal court recently upheld net neutrality regulation<\/a>, no doubt Stephenson is encouraged by the new DOJ\u2019s more permissive attitude toward corporate mergers (Bloomberg<\/b>, 7\/24\/17<\/a>).<\/p>\n

MSNBC<\/b>\u2019s Velshi was more interested in downplaying the concern. \u201cEven the internet providers say they\u2019re OK with a light touch in regulation,\u201d he explained, using language lifted from Pai\u2019s speech<\/a> on rolling back net neutrality rules. \u201cTheir argument is that this entire internet has grown with relatively light-touch regulation, why do you want to throw more on it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The claim that the internet developed as a result of \u201clight-touch regulation\u201d is central to Pai\u2019s argument against net neutrality\u2014and it\u2019s utterly false. In fact, the internet was first introduced to Americans via dial-up connections transmitted over phone lines already subject to common carriage regulation. Because phone companies, as regulated utilities, were required to treat all transmissions over their lines equally, scores of ISPs were able to offer services across the country, and robust competition ensued.<\/p>\n

The sea change came with the development of broadband and the two competing technologies that facilitate it: DSL and cable. While DSL (transmitted over phone lines) had been subject to common carriage, in 2002 the FCC under Michael Powell<\/a> made a fateful decision<\/a> to classify cable modem service as an \u201cinformation service\u201d rather than a \u201ctelecommunications service,\u201d thereby greatly weakening its regulatory authority. The Supreme Court later deferred to the FCC<\/a>\u2019s interpretation of these concepts in its 2005 Brand X<\/i> decision.<\/p>\n

\"Broadband<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The superiority of cable for transmitting high-bandwidth content, the rapid consolidation of the ISP market<\/a> over the last three decades, and the latter-day \u201clight-touch\u201d regulatory approach in Washington have all contributed to the present situation in which, according to the current FCC\u2019s own assessment, 90 percent of Americans have at most two choices<\/a> for high-speed internet. Where we do have access, our options are slower and more expensive<\/a> than in much of the developed world.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, corporate media have failed to educate the public on the history of common carriage and the true stakeholders in the current debate over net neutrality, opting instead to frame it as a corporate battle royale, and to let readers pick a side. Do you like Netflix<\/b>? Well, then you\u2019re for net neutrality! Or is AT&T<\/b> more your type?<\/p>\n

The inevitable outcome of conjoining public and corporate interest was demonstrated in reactions to Comcast <\/b>and other ISPs\u2019 disingenuous expression of \u201csupport\u201d<\/a> for net neutrality (AP<\/b>, 7\/12\/17<\/a>). In an explainer on \u201cHow to Smoke Out Where Broadband Companies Stand on Net Neutrality\u201d (New York Times<\/b>, 7\/13\/17<\/a>), Farhad Manjoo simply adopted the companies\u2019 position: \u201cMaybe it is time to push Congress, rather than the FCC, to take up the neutrality fight,\u201d he wrote, despite acknowledging \u201cthere is a Republican Congress, a Republican president and a deregulatory mood ascendant in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berin Szoka, president of the advocacy group TechFreedom, concurred in the Washington Post<\/b> (7\/19\/17<\/a>): \u201cDemocrats should have worked out a legislative deal while they held the White House. It\u2019s not too late, but it soon might be,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n

The problem is that the long history of telecommunications law belies these na\u00efve appeals. As T.C. Sottek pointed out for The Verge<\/b> (7\/12\/17<\/a>), \u201cThere\u2019s a reason the ISPs are all saying the same thing, and it\u2019s because they\u2019re very confident they will defeat the interests of consumers and constituents.\u201d And while it is true that the current FCC is no friend of net neutrality, legislation always outlasts the president who signs it into law.<\/p>\n

In 2014, two political scientists compared the influence of the opinions of ordinary citizens had on policymaking compared to the views of the wealthy and organized, mostly business-oriented lobbying groups (APSA, 9\/14<\/a>). \u201cWhen the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for,\u201d they reported, \u201cthe preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Populist<\/a><\/p>\n

“The Farmer and the Railroad Monster,” 1873 political cartoon<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So while it might seem like friendly corporations are coming to the aid of activists in the debate over net neutrality, the truth is that for-profit, publicly traded corporations don\u2019t have friends\u2014they have interests, which they spend millions lobbying<\/a> in Washington to defend. When profits are at stake, any stated principles may be set aside<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in her book Captive Audience<\/i>, Susan Crawford recalls the Populist Party platform of 1892, when America was dealing with the monopolized private control of that century\u2019s preeminent transmission technology: \u201cWe believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the people must own the railroads,\u201d the party wrote.<\/p>\n

While the technology has changed, the underlying question remains the same: Will the American people control their own access to the internet, or be subjected to the whims of corporate interest? Unfortunately, corporate media\u2019s coverage of net neutrality puts the people in the back seat.<\/p>\n

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\nThis piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Oliver (6\/1\/14) on net neutrality: “The only two words that promise more boredom in the English language are ‘featuring Sting.’” A common refrain in popular news media is that net neutrality is just too boring and esoteric for ordinary people to be interested in. \u201cOh my god that is the most boring thing I\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-322340","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}