The mainstream media outlets don't want you to know, but an internal fight over censorship of the web is going down right under our noses. This doesn't just mean that your favorite porno could be cut off (goodness knows what kind of riots that would start), but it could prevent you from reading certain news outlets, seeing certain videos, or researching certain topics.
If you click the link to the story and tool around the site a little more, one of the things you will find is that there is a fight from Native American groups to stop discrimination on television. Ironically, this discrimination would be OK but reading nebulous wording of White House bills- potential laws for the country!- would not be.
FCC Public Hearing on the Future of the Internet
On April 17th, more than 600 people gathered in Dinkelspiel Auditorium at Stanford University to discuss the future of the Internet. All five FCC commissioners were on hand to listen to expert witnesses and members of the public.
Not one person on the expert panels, made up of scholars, network engineers, lawyers, and consumer advocates, defended Comcast's practices of blocking and discriminating online. While some speakers believed that Internet providers should be allowed to manage Web traffic, the majority felt as though any blocking of consumer choice or legal content was a slippery slope that would crush innovation and competition as well as free speech.
Video of the public testimony, and the rest of the hearing, is available here: http://www.vontv.net/events/080417. You can also listen to the audio archive at the FCC Web site: http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio.
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