Intro - Net Neutrality and Water Rights
I believe that Net Neutrality is very poorly understood. There is a clear reason for this. The industry that is most responsible for informing us about net neutrality is also the industry that would be most deeply effected by its implementation, big media.
Net Neutrality is usually represented with a freeway metaphor that espouses the logic of a toll road vs. a public roadway where you pay for speed and a better experience in general. The primary problem with this analogy is that it places all the emphasis on the transport mechanism as opposed to what is being transported. I was listening to an NPR interview with Maude Barlow recently. They were discussing water rights and it dawned on me that this was a much more interesting analogy. Water is becoming a commodity because corporations (Bechtel, Nestle, GE, …) see an opportunity to create profit by controlling distribution of a valuable resource. This is directly analogous to information and how the telcos are working to control the distribution of information. In both instances, we see predatory corporate practices working explicitly against individuals and our ability to access resources that rightfully belong to the commons. Additionally, in both examples, there are legitimate and lucrative business opportunities for private corporations to exploit that will actually contribute positively to the well-being of the communities to which they belong.
Net Neutrality and Free Speech
To that end, I see an enlightened Net Neutrality policy as creating an open and equitable venue for civic participation as a necessary component of democracy. This venue is required to make free speech meaningful. This venue is required to publish, defend and grow an informed citizenry. No individual interest can censor, filter or throttle this venue.
Specifically, I believe Net Neutrality is most accurately described in the context of free speech. (This is an idea that I stole from Yochai Benkler’s, The Wealth of Networks). This connection to free speech, I believe, is why Net Neutrality remains an obscure issue. Not because of the technology involved, not because of the technical details of peer to peer networks and copyright, but instead, because free speech is not important to us, at least not in any meaningful way.
It is assumed that the only limit on free speech is the safety of others. This is the don’t yell fire in a crowded theater principle. However, the true limits are more interesting than that. The actual reason not to yell fire in a crowded theater is not about safety, it is about comfort. The first real limit on the practice of speaking freely is propriety. We don’t like to make each other uncomfortable. That’s what we need reality TV for.
The second limitation on
free speech is our inability to take responsibility for our words. In the same way that Peace is now an integral
part of war and love is silly and relegated to romantic fiction, the demand to
“stand up for your rights” is completely impotent. We define our “rights” as given, as inherent
and not earned. We assume our privilege
is some how innately deserved. It is
critical that we reject empty individualism, that we reject our absurd agreement
to all be exactly the same person that we are sold to uniquely be. The purpose of getting up, the purpose of
standing up is to commit oneself to action, to take responsibility for that
action. In this scenario, we are not pleading to be granted permission; instead, we are manifesting, we exercising our rights, our right to be real. I believe that only in this context can we be counted, only in this context is our voice worth hearing regardless of our ability to speak.
Next Installment...
The right to speak vs. the right to be heard
What is An Informed Citizenry - a right, a responsibility or an impossibility
Is all speech equal?
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