GUERRA AND WAR

Net what?



Maria Jimenez, 76, does not own a computer, and has yet to explore the World Wide Web.
She says she values computers as much as microwaves and coffee machines. They are “an unnecessary complication.”

Her granddaughter Diana Diaz, 28, strongly disagrees. It is the fastest and most efficient mode of communication, and a necessity for her son.

“We kept going to the library and the e-café, where they charge us per minute to use the Internet,” said Diaz.

Diaz doesn’t shop on-line, although her son taught her how, she doesn’t use the web for anything other than what is required of her at work.

“We don’t have to spend the money, but the little ones are forced to,” said Jimenez, who first heard about the Internet in her late 50s.

The World Wide Web was created in 1969, as an experiment funded by the U.S. government. It became accessible to businesses in the 1990s.

The quality of the content is often questionable.

“The internet allows a lot of people to have access to a much wide selection of news,” said Andres Oppenheimer, a Miami Herald columnist. “It also allows a whole new wave of irresponsible conspiracy theorists to create sites denying the holocaust happened or affirming the CIA planned 9/11.”

The idea that the medium could be policed has sparked some controversy.

Albert Franquiz, who has been working in on-line technology for about a decade, says user generated content sites such as Wikipedia and Digg have proven censorship is not needed.

“The Internet community corrects itself, but the problem is it takes time,” said Franquiz. “Users tend to point out when something is wrong.”

The challenge, Franquiz says, is that user censorship can lead to discrimination.
“A certain group will mark something inappropriate or inaccurate, when it may just be posing a point of view,” said Franquiz.

It is not difficult to censor or block information on-line.

In an effort to protect the public from certain content the Supreme Court allowed Internet blocks for Libraries around the United States in 2003.

But althought the U.S. is making advancements, China is leading the policing effort. It is believed to extend greater censorship over the net than any other country in the world, reported BBC in 2004.

The Network Neutrality Act, enacted by United States U.S. lawmakers, could change the way the internet works today.

Equal access also requires equal access to speed, and this requires broadband, defined by the Federal Communications Commission as high-speed-digital technology needed to transmit sound and video on-line.

Regulatory policies must promote technological neutrality, competition, investment, and innovation to ensure that broadband service providers have sufficient incentive.
-- The FCC on broadband. (www.fcc.gov)

This need for broadband and the nature of capitalism can turn on-line access and speed into a commodity giving a privileged position to business conglomerates and wealthy users, in this way harming the speech and assembly rights of minorities.

Senators Olympia Snowed, R-Maine and Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota enacted legislation to prevent telecommunication companies from providing any special treatment to specific content providers or censor competitors.

“It [a phone company] can deny such services to others… that is unfair and that would fundamentally alter the Internet,” said Rep. Ed Markey, D-MA, April 5th at a subcommittee discussing the Network Neutrality Act. “ [These companies do] not address, yet the preserving of nondiscriminatory open Internet that we enjoy today.”

Internet service providers are in the business for profits. It is likely that they will discriminate against a site that is not willing to pay extra for speed.

Speed depends on broadband, and telecommunication companies provide broadband. The more broadband the faster video and sound will upload to personal computers.

Broadband has a cost that telecommunication companies believe should be paid by the consumer or content providers such as Amazon and Google.

This becomes relevant since Google rencently invested in Youtube.com, a site where users can upload their own videos, in this way creating one of this first public video archives in the history of humanity.

“It could essentially determine if a web site loads or not; competition among online gambling sites and others for this is fierce,” said Paul Rodriguez, who works in computer technology.

Some municipalities and cities, such as Miami Beach are looking into providing wireless service to their citizens, infuriating telecommunication companies that feel they should not be competing with government in a free trade economy.
Rodriguez disagrees with telecommunication companies.

“Wireless should be treated like water, you know just like a public service, like the phone,” said Rodriguez. “But not that many people would be making money.”

Telecommunication companies such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon want to be able to offer Internet broadband services at different degrees to increase their profits.

The first amendment has limitations. Some believe that in order for the Internet to serve the Democratic process only “reputable” news organizations should have access, in the same manner that television, which is regulated by the government.

“One thing that is needed is a network of responsible media that can lead people to know what is really going on,” said Oppenheimer.

The Network Neutrality Act would not allow a selection process to determine what site is responsible and what site isn’t, or a review of what is considered responsible media and what is not.

The Network Neutrality debate in the senate and house has yet to make it to the front pages of most newspapers, because of its technical and legal terminology.

However, a decision on Network Neutrality legislation will be part of a new version of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to be issued on 2007.

The debate’s resolution will determine the future of the Internet, it’s freedoms and limitations, and most importantly the effect it will have in the democratic process.

“My neighbor can pay her bills from her computer we had to make line on my days,” said Jimenez. “One day, who knows, I will probably be dead by then people will vote on that thing from their bed.”

Posted by a bilingual skeptic on Thursday, October 26, 2006 at 10:28 AM | Permalink