John Oliver | HBO This Week Tonight | (Video Clip) | – –
“Equal access to online information is once again under serious threat. John Oliver encourages internet commenters to voice their displeasure to the FCC by visiting www.gofccyourself.com and clicking “express” to file your comment.”
Last Week Tonight (John Oliver): “Net Neutrality II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)”
The internet is a public utility that was developed by the US government, not by private enterprise, and is now necessary for citizens to function in the world. Net neutrality insures that no content is favored over other content, and thus protects free speech.
I find the support of the far right for demolishing Net neutrality very short-sighted on their part. Net neutrality enabled many extremists in getting their views out there and finding like-minded followers. The media corporations might come down just as hard on Islamophobes and homophobes as they will on liberals – depending on the capitalist calculus on public relations.
It’s as if they’re ready to shut all their activities down and hand over their voice to Trump and Bannon and those corporations that have bowed down to them. Not a path for a healthy grass-roots movement.
As countries start hunting down and destroying “fake news” sources (and legitimate sources they find “inconvenient), the ISPs and community groups are going to find that any controversy starts becoming very expensive.
For example many nations on earth are starting to punish Facebook for “hate speech” and it is driving Zukerburg crazy. No matter how much he screams “free speech,” many countries are either fining the company a lot, jailing executives or simply blocking the company via the DNS servers they control. Note, before condemning this behavior, please realize that the USA government which controls huge portions of the DNS system has taken over thousands of sites (mostly for USA copyright “infringement”).