Join New Year's Day One-Hour Peaceful Collective Cyber-Campaign for Net Neutrality

By Joan Brunwasser (about the author)    
opednews.com
December 30, 2010

My guest today is Elliot D. Cohen, medical ethicist and political analyst. Welcome to OpEdNews, Elliot. You recently wrote an article Help Stop Destruction of the Free Internet Now . What's going on with Net Neutrality these days? I thought we were safe on that issue. Didn't Obama campaign strongly on that issue?

 It's very good to be here today, Joan. First let me say a bit about net neutrality and why it's so important. Net neutrality means that everyone has an equal voice on the Internet so that service providers, ISPs, such as Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T, can't control what content passes through the pipes to the user. Net neutrality is what we now have. Even a small website operator as well as a major network news organization like MSNBC can have an equal voice on the Internet. This is what makes the Net such an incredibly free and democratic forum for the delivery of news and information.

And yes, Obama strongly expressed support for maintaining Net neutrality, but words are not the same thing as laws, and now the Obama FCC has passed new rules that have the outward appearance of preserving Net neutrality, but they are just smoke and mirrors, which cater to the giant ISPs and have no legal teeth. What I mean is that, while they "encourage" ISPs not to tamper with content, they are not legally enforceable. Consequently, these companies are now poised to dismantle the free and democratic architecture of the Internet. Unless people get to together on this and put their foot down,now, all of us are going to soon be paying higher rates for access to information and getting a lot less of it!

So, that sounds like very bad news. Because the FCC has passed new rules purporting to protect us, has the average net user been lulled into thinking everything's hunky dory? What is the point of passing rules that can't be enforced? And how do we make people understand that we're at great risk from Comcast and their ilk?

Unfortunately, the average person is not fully aware of the situation because the mainstream media is not covering Net neutrality in sufficient detail. Users who surf some of the more progressive websites have more of a sense of the issues, but the average person is not likely to even know about the new FCC rules. This is why the message has to get out and spread virally across the Net and get out into the mainstream.

And this is why I have a campaign to let everyone know about the situation and to take a stance. I am asking all Internet users to go offline between 2 and 3 PM Eastern Standard Time [12pm-1pm MST] on New Year's Day to express one unified voice against the creation of a pay-for-priority Internet system, the abolition of a flat fee for Internet access, and any attempt by ISPs to block, censor, or otherwise discriminate against legal content. Even one hour will cost advertisers big money, and it will send a message to the big telecoms like Comcast that we the people are madder than hell and that we won't tolerate it.  

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