New Mockumentary Highlights Why An Open Internet With Real Competition Is Important
from the though-a-bit-over-the-top dept
A new "mockumentary" called The Internet Must Go launched today, in conjunction with the latest court hearing in the Verizon case against the FCC over the FCC's net neutrality rules. I got to see a "preview" showing of the film last week with the filmmaker. You can see the whole thing below, or at the link above, which includes a number of extras. The premise of the mockumentary is that the major ISPs have hired a clueless market researcher to figure out how to convince Americans that we don't need an open internet with basic non-discriminatory end-to-end connectivity. That researcher then goes out and talks to a bunch of net neutrality supporters who school him on the importance of an open internet.Frankly, where the film shines best is the part where it gets a bit away from the loaded term of net neutrality, and gets to the real problem: the lack of competition in broadband. For almost a decade, we've been pointing out that the so-called "fight" over net neutrality is really just a symptom of the lack of true competition in the broadband space. Get real competition at the service level and the issue of net neutrality fades away. What the ISPs claim is an attempt to get rid of "net neutrality" is really just an attempt to leverage a dominant position to get people to pay twice for the same bandwidth. So the part in the middle of the film where they start to look at the lack of competition, and how certain areas are completely underserved by the major ISPs because of this, the film gets more interesting.
Overall, the message that an open internet is worth protecting, and that we need a competitive and innovative broadband infrastructure, is absolutely true. I'm just not sure the film really presents that message in the best way possible. It's way over the top in how it paints the goals of the ISPs, and that takes away from what could have been a stronger message about how to actually tackle the lack of competition.
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Filed Under: alexis ohanian, broadband, competition, fcc, internet must go, isps, john hodgman, larry lessig, mockumentary, net neutrality, open internet, susan crawford
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Re:
They should not be allowed to stifle free speech. If they want to be completely private and have their "rights", then they should stop using public land and stop accepting government money.
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ISPs aren't the major problem: they're already regulated.
Used to be common knowledge that BIG IS INHERENTLY BAD. Let's not let them become "too big to fail". Capitalism requires active policing to ensure actual "free markets", not just in theory if you've got billions for a start-up...
Think the Internet means more competition? Take a look at the graph here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/30/amazon_dot_com_holds_ludicrous_lead_in_online_retail_sales/
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Re: ISPs aren't the major problem: they're already regulated.
You remain clueless. The whole point of the Verizon v. FCC trial is to get the ISPs out from any (slight) regulation, by saying the FCC has no mandate over them.
Have you ever made a comment on this site based on anything even remotely factual?
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Re: ISPs aren't the major problem: they're already regulated.
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free speech
solution B: let them (Verizon) do, present, filter, whatever they want, but make them 100% liable for all of their users actions (copyright violations, kiddie porn, etc) since free speech does not cover breaking the law.
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Broadband Plans
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