Montag, 22. Mai 2006, 14:31

I'm a very politically active person, and just to keep myself sane I try to put my politics on my political journal (http://www.xanga.com/elokin_of_the_swift_feet) and my music commentary here, but lately the two have been merging on the issue of Net Neutrality.

First, a little on Net Neutrality:

It's frustrating that soon my own personal noise might be muted because big telecommunications providers don't like what I have to say (or that I'm not willing to pay to say it). I wrote about this before (http://www.xanga.com/elokin_of_the_swift_feet/483717762/listen-up-peeps.html), but I feel the need AT&T and Verizon are lobbying to get Network Neutrality taken out of Internet law. In a nutshell, network neutrality is what keeps Internet users deciding where they want to go on the Internet. It makes the decision of what email service, search engine, blogs, net stores, porn sites you want to go to yours, when telecommunications companies have the technology and the will to make that decision their own. For a more eloquent (and visual) explanation of Net Neutrality, go here: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9jHOn0EW8U").

An Illustration:

Let's take a walk in Elokin's Internet journey. Today I got an email from moveon.org. I was immediately grateful, in light of AOL's use of its telecommunications power to block emails from dearaol.com (http://news.com.com/AOL+charged+with+blocking+opponents+e-mail/2100-1030_3-6061089.html), a group that is protesting AOL's adoption of a policy that requires marketers to pay to send email. MoveOn asked me to publicize a protest (http://www.savetheinternet.com/=press5) by exercising my own Internet freedom and writing about it. The protest had several speakers, most notably the musician Moby, each discussing the fate of the Internet should Net Neutrality come to an end. Getting this email, I thought about writing an entry about it and went to read my blogs on bloglines. Another friend of mine had written her own entry (http://barcetta.livejournal.com/140429.html?view=410765#t410765) on the subject, and I mused on the fact that, were Net Neutrality to be taken away I may or may not be able to access her blog. For more on how Net Neutrality affects bloggers, check out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5RQrxkGgCM) from the aforementioned blog. So then, all riled up, I sat down to write. You guys know how I am with the links, and after a minute I was inserting left and right. All of my links took me where I wanted them to without any corporate-sponsored delays.

Relevance:

There is a coalition of artists dedicated to Net Neutrality. Their spokesperson is Moby, but their ranks include REM, The Indigo Girls, Jill Sobule, Wilco, and Trent Reznor among others. This isn't really surprising, since the Internet is a major tool for artists to collaborate, record, get their music out, publicize, etc. I don't even have to mention last.fm itself, which would have to be much more corporate were it to continue to exist after net neutrality was revoked.

Just some food for thought.