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Saturday, July 14, 2012

Freedom = Censorship?


CommonDreams.org



 
Think you have the right to speak freely via cellphones, websites and social media? Well, the companies that provide you with access to the Internet don’t.
The framers drafted the First Amendment as a check on government authority — not corporate power. But whether we’re texting friends, sharing photos on Facebook, or posting updates on Twitter, we’re connecting with each other and the Internet via privately controlled networks.

Verizon: Paying Politicians to Rule the Air  
(photo: watchingfrogsboil)


And the owners of these networks are now twisting the intent of the First Amendment to claim the right to control everyone's online information.
Right before the Fourth of July, Verizon filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that expressed this intent in no uncertain terms. The brief was part of the telecom company’s bid to overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s Net Neutrality rules, which prohibit carriers from blocking or discriminating against Internet users’ content.
In the brief, Verizon argues that the First Amendment gives the company the right to serve as the Internet’s editor-in-chief.

The First Amendment “protects those transmitting the speech of others, and those who ‘exercise editorial discretion’ in selecting which speech to transmit and how to transmit it,” the company’s attorneys wrote. “In performing these functions, broadband providers possess ‘editorial discretion.’ Just as a newspaper is entitled to decide which content to publish and where, broadband providers may feature some content over others.”

By “content” Verizon means all digital communications that cross its wires, from photographs of your cousin’s backyard barbeque to YouTube videos of human rights violations in Syria.

Verizon filed its brief quietly just before the July Fourth holiday, but it has caught the attention of the Internet freedom community like a skunk under the back porch.

This is not the first time Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have suggested that they have a First Amendment right to stifle speech online. AT&T argued in 2010 that its role is similar to that of an editor who selects content and speaks — and that it is not merely a conduit for the communications of others.

This defense of corporate censorship is no idle threat but a pretext for a full-scale takeover of the Internet — a move that first requires killing off any consumer protections that stand in the way.

We live in a time when growing numbers of people watch television programs, listen to music, create videos and share photographs via Internet connections provided by private entities.

A 2011 report from European Digital Rights states that ISPs and other technology companies are fast becoming the information cops of the world. The report paints a picture of an emerging “censorship ecosystem” fueled by private entities that often work hand in glove with governments.

This collusion serves both corporate and political interests. ISPs are seeking new authority to interfere with user traffic, including limiting access to the content of competitors like Netflix or shutting down the accounts of users they charge with sharing too much media. Governments are demanding that access providers help them filter and police the Internet — and that they do so under a veil of secrecy.

The most dangerous threats to free speech today lie at this intersection between corporate and political power. While businesses might do many things better than governments, our government is at least by definition directly accountable to the American people. So when Verizon claims the right to decide who gets free speech on the Internet, it’s making this claim as a benevolent despot, not as a representative democracy.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution could not have foreseen a time in which technology allowed more than a billion people to communicate via mobile phones connected to the World Wide Web. Nor could they have envisioned a world in which companies like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast wield more authority over our free speech than a British monarch.

And yet the First Amendment has survived to this day in defense of democracy’s most consequential right. People on both the left and right value freedom of speech. Just days after Verizon filed its brief, a diverse coalition of more than 1,000 groups and Internet dignitaries joined together behind a Declaration of Internet Freedom that establishes freedom of expression as its first principle.
But popular consensus behind free speech on the Internet is running headlong into media giants like Verizon that want to suppress open Internet culture.
Any claim that the First Amendment protects corporations — and not people — is absurd. And it shows just how far some companies are willing to go to control 21st century communications.

Tim Karr
As the Campaign Director for Free Press and SavetheInternet.com, Karr oversees campaigns on public broadcasting and noncommercial media, fake news and propaganda, journalism in crisis, and the future of the Internet. Before joining Free Press, Tim served as executive director of MediaChannel.org and vice president of Globalvision New Media and the Globalvision News Network.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Confidence in TV News Hits an All-Time Low



CommonDreams.org


Only 19% of liberals now trust television news

- Common Dreams staff 
 
Americans' confidence in television news has hit an all-time low, according to a new survey released Tuesday by Gallup.



Only twenty-one percent of the 1,004 adults polled said they had "a great deal" or "a lot" of confidence in television news media, continuing a steady decline from the 46 percent who expressed confidence in television media in 1993.

Meanwhile, just 25 percent (down from 28% last year) of those polled expressed confidence in newspapers -- the second-lowest rating since 1973 and less than half of the 51-percent peak in 1979.

"It is not clear precisely why Americans soured so much on television news this year compared with last," when confidence was at 27 percent, Gallup wrote. "Americans' negativity likely reflects the continuation of a broader trend that appeared to enjoy only a brief respite last year. Americans have grown more negative about the media in recent years, as they have about many other U.S. institutions and the direction of the country in general."

Confidence in television news also declined across the ideological spectrum, though the decline in confidence among liberals and moderates was far more severe, putting their outlook below that of conservatives for the first time since 2007. Nineteen percent of liberals expressed confidence in television media, versus 20 percent of moderates and 22 percent of conservatives.



Liberals and moderates lost so much confidence in television news this year -- 11 and 10 points, respectively -- that their views are now more akin to conservatives' views. This marks a turnaround from the pattern seen since 2009, in which liberals expressed more confidence than conservatives. Conservatives' views of television news were last similar to liberals' in June 2008, before the last presidential election. However, moderates are significantly less confident now than they were then, 20% vs. 28%.
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Sunday, July 8, 2012

Not Only Phony Conservatives and Progressives in the Media

Dissident Voice: a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice


Phony Conservatives and Progressives in the Media

Most of us probably knew for the longest time how the Fox Cable talk show hosts keep labeling themselves conservatives.  A purist conservative would never dare refer to the Hannitys, O’Reillys et al as one of them. After all, these blokes rail and rave about how broke our government is, and then wave the (false) flag repeatedly for more and more military spending. “Stay the course” is the newest mantra for our illegal and immoral invasions and occupations of Iraq & Afghanistan. When the Bush-Cheney gang was behind it all, these so-called journalists bent over backwards to support their acts of aggression. More importantly, these pundits supported the obscene spending increases that the compliant Republican and Democrat Congress approved. This brings me to part 2 of my disgust.

The so-called progressives on MSNBC. I sat there the other night as Ed Shultz lambasted those of us who are against what is known as Obamacare: the cave-in to the private insurance megalith that rules health care forever. Shultz was indignant at the Republicans who are trying to derail this new law. Yet, he never will acknowledge that Obamacare, as it is called, will destroy the only hope we have for real health insurance reform, which is a Medicare for All first step. Of course, the Republicans are against the law for their own political reasons. After all, do you think a right wing ideologue like Justice John Roberts would vote to keep Obamacare if not for the fact that it ultimately will increase profits for the private health insurers? Trust me on this one: If the insurers do not like any part of the new law as hurtful to their profits, they will simply raise deductibles and co-pays. They will have millions of new customers too, mandated by law with threat of a tax for evasion. Yet, this is not the key reason why I for one have absolutely NO connection with the phony progressives out there.

There have been more drone attacks under Obama than during the eight years of their use by the Bush-Cheney gang. Gitmo is still open, rendition of suspects is still going on, and we still are in over 100 countries with over 800 permanent bases. We still occupy and kill and are killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, the real tragedy is that under Mr. Obama and his party, in collaboration with the Republicans, military spending goes up and up and up — to the tune last year of over $563 billion. Imagine what some of that money could have done to alleviate the housing mess or the need for more good paying jobs? Infrastructure repairs for our cities, our roads? How about having our National Guard out there doing what they were meant to do: help out in disaster relief? Nope! Where are the Ed Shultzs and Rachel Maddows, Chris Mathews, Al Sharptons et al.? Silence!

Someday, and I hope soon, Americans who now struggle to make ends meet will awaken from this 2-Party One Big Empire hypnosis. They will turn off the mainstream media, whether it be on radio or the boob tube, whenever a so-called ‘news or news talk show’ comes on. It is time to rally behind the need to pull back this military industrial empire; the same one that both General Smedley Butler (War Is a Racket) and President Eisenhower (“Farewell Address”) warned us about.

Phillip Anthony Faruggio is a free-lance columnist, environmental sales rep, and organizer of the ProActivists of Volusia. He can be reached at: paf1222@bellsouth.net. Read other articles by Phillip.