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Why let the Americans dominate this discussion with their ‘freedom of speech’ ‘1st Amendment’ nonsense?
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Why support and advertise them in doing this?
Why bleat about freedom?
Well because someone is doing something…
Because if these rights were taken away, ILP wouldn’t exist innit!
A
siatd,
The arguments here in the States is about controlling content, even though those who would control try to disguise their agendas. I suppose Britain can sit back and watch if it likes, but the U.S. comprises the largest block of users and advertising dollars on the net. If you think that what happens here won’t affect you, you need to think about it some more.
I remember back before the internet was used by the masses. Horrid, dark days they were, when the people were isolated and distant from their neighbors, all speech was censored, and nobody knew what was going on in the world.
Ucc,
You didn’t tell me you had lived in Idaho! 
Dear @liquidangel,
For several days I have been reading this forum, reading only, looking for a topic that really suited my feelings and thinking over this period. Thank-you for your, post, small though it be, this is my “issue of the week.”
“Words, words, words…”
Or these days JPEGs, GIFs, MP3s and Adobe.
The internet was made in America. It is still heavily American, one sometimes doesn’t realize just how much non-Anglo-American content is on the net, because it doesn’t come up too often on Google. There certainly are parallel worlds, divided largely by language and culture, but also by economic and social status. 6-degrees-of-seperation is a pretty egalitarian lie. Different spheres of the world listen to different music, wear different clothes, have different prejudices and even scientific beliefs. The internet hasn’t really changed that. The odd time you’ll have a difficult conversation in a chat room or get an e-mail from an Arab, or an Oriental, but by in large, the same kids I went to school with are the same ones I run into on forums and BBSs. Fighting for freedom on the internet is fighting for the Anglo-American internet.
These days we’re taking the fight for freedom abroad, so the White House tells us. But, the internet is governed by a queer principal, one of self-choice. For example, I will never end up on Muslim Extremist web sites (unless out of curiosity) and vice versa. No amount of free speach on the net is ever going to reach the people who are not looking for it. As any one driven to find a fact, or a forgotten URL knows, eventually it will usually turn up. But on the otherhand, what I am not looking for, does not really turn up on my screen that often, and if it does, I deleat it, or edit-my-user-options or my search parameters so that that unwanted content doesn’t show up again. Those who do not search for freedom on the internet are not too likely to have it popping up on their screen.
HTML files don’t kill people-- guns do. One could feel that way all day long, but it makes no difference; because there are people who want to control what I can read and write and post and view on the internet. Even people like me. There might even be stuff on the net I don’t want there. Not that I’ve encountered much of it, I never search for it, and I don’t even get many spam e-mails about it, anyway, I delete those.
The fact of parallel universes on the internet makes the need to enforce rules of content even more absurd. The internet is in this sense very self-policing, groups and individuals continually feed themselves exactly what they wish to be fed. Controlling content on the internet is a bit like banning fast-food restaurants. And yet a lot of people would think that pretty reasonable, or at least setting regulations to control fat content, benzine parts per million, plasticizer contamination and so on. How about selling arsenic in the grocery store? Right next to salt and dry spices.
But it’s just words. No one gets poisoned by child-porn or Right-wing-hate-group web sites.
Arguments are useless. Decisions are not made by bloggers or posters or voters of politicans on a rational level. I’m commited to free speech on the internet, even though there are a hundred moral arguments to undermine that possition. Absolute freedom of form and content. Windows and Netscape or ilovephilosophy.com and hate groups, bring all comers.
Yours truly,
G.
BTW, a huge part of this ‘network neutrality’ stuff has nothing to do with censorship, per se. It also has to deal with issues like bandwidth and community usage- should people running file-sharing services be subject to a premium cost by their service provider, since they are eating up bandwidth that may slow down the casual web-surfer? It’s a good question, but I don’t see why the Government should step in and say ISP’s aren’t allowed to do stuff like that.
Groups like save the internet have their corporate interests as well- people like online gaming companies and file-sharing services that provide features that cause regular consumers to eat up tons of bandwidth. People in businesses like that want to pass laws saying ISPs can’t control or restrict pricing or access to people based on what they are using the internet for. The whole ‘free speech’ thing is only a part of this, and may just be a smokescreen for the real corporate issues here.
Hello F(r)iends,
The Internet is not and never has been “free”.
Someone, somewhere is footing the bill.
Some of us (like me) pay a premium to have Broadband…
Some use a “free” service like NetZero but advertisements are paying the price…
Also, television is not and never has been free.
-Thirst
Why not?
Not not money free, content free-- err freedom of content.
I’m free to fish even though I need to pay 55 dollars for a seasonal licence.
Damn right.
A great video, highly informational and entertaining that deals with this exact subject.
can someone explain this issue to me. im so used to the way the internet is now i dont think i can imagine a world where things are restricted. i just dont understand how it would happen. or whos trying to make it happen. or what the hells going on.