Sen. Franken: Stop the Corporate Takeover of the Media

GeeSussFreeKsays...

Net neutrality only addresses the symptom of a much more insidious problem. All of the companies he named have their major revenue stream in some form of government protected monopoly industry. Cable and telco media giants are the creations of government entanglement in the market. They created the monster they now claim they need to subdue. While it wasn't Al Franken that created these government protected monopolies, he proposes a solution that has time and time again shown to worsen our plight rather that help it. Any short lived deregulation ability the FCC would impose would surely over time be twiddled down by people who have billions to spend on lobbies and the ear of regulators. His sentiments of protecting free speech are admirable, but the prescription is that of an even greater disaster. Open up cable, telco, and radio markets to ACTUAL competition and their strangle hold over media will start to dissipate.

In other words, trying to kill the beast with the same thing that made the beast is foolish. Just undue that which made the beast first, then clean up any loose ends that didn't solve. It is practical, fair, and not reactionary, and doesn't open Pandora's box like it did for radio and TV (which are now HIGHLY regulated mediums).

iauisays...

That each packet is treated equally is a fundamental underpinning of the freedom of the internet. It's basic, it's easy to understand, and it's easy to see that if that one law is broken, the internet is no longer free.

Yes, telecom/media conglomeration is a _huge_ problem. But it is only peripherally related to this problem in that without any sort of intervening measures all corporations would (will) implement net-neutrality-destroying policies.

Human communication from and to each person on the planet must not be regulated by any forces, and net neutrality is exactly the measure that is needed to prevent this.

GeeSussFreeKsays...

Each packet is already treated differently on the internet and people haven't had a problem with it. For instance, I have a premium membership at file planet. As such, I don't wait in lines, and have faster service on the whole. AOL, and Google treat individual users to different ad experiences based on their profile. These types of explicit and implicit relationships make the internet the crazy mashup that it is, it is what makes it work. There might be a market for people who want to pay extra to have their traffic prioritized. When you are talking about a finite thing, that is worth paying for. For example, if someone on the bogged down AT&T network wanted to pay extra to have a bigger piece of the network pie, companies should be allowed to offer such things.

The REAL problem is that new network infrastructure isn't allowed to be installed by anyone other than explicit government enforced companies. As such, the network gets more and more crowed and the cable companies can charge people for these "deluxe rate plans" and not have to keep their services competitive. This has only changed small amounts in the era of high speed; once cable and DLS started to offer similar rates and speeds both sides tried to get the leg up. But in reality, they are still dealing with huge areas of influence against outsiders making it even more competitive. If Comcast becomes as data unfriendly as AOL did in its hayday, people have no choice due to decades of government control.

In reality, you don't want the government telling people what they can do with their pipes, the end result is worse than if you just opened up the markets to outsiders wanting to string up new services. It is no small stretch of the imagination to presume if the government starts getting in the business of telling ISPs what they can or can't transmit with priority, it will lead to what they can transmit at all. Like if they decided to crack down on cyber bulling, a very hot political subject right now, the FCC could demand that ISPs can no longer deal traffic to sights that have anonymous posting. That would be letter of law now instead of just one punk ISP trying to pull one over on consumers. The internet will remain more free the more you keep the FCC out of it, just look at their track record. How many small independent radio broadcasts companies exist? Well, it has gone form about 70% before the FCC to about 5% now, and less than 1% for television. If you want huge media corporations taking over the internet, then you want the FCC involved in the regulation of the internet.

Ask Howard Stern or George Carlin about the FCC and how open they are.

packosays...

>> ^quantumushroom:

Being an election thief kind of undermines your message, Al. In a non-corrupt election, when the other guy has 725 more votes than you on Election Day, you lose.


I assume you are referring to Coleman?
and how he lost, fair and square, then contested, and votes for Franken that were discounted actually got re-evaluated, and then still lost?

quantumushroomsays...

"Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat's strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total. The Franken legal team swarmed the recount, aggressively demanding that votes that had been disqualified be added to his count, while others be denied for Mr. Coleman.

But the team's real goldmine were absentee ballots, thousands of which the Franken team claimed had been mistakenly rejected. While Mr. Coleman's lawyers demanded a uniform standard for how counties should re-evaluate these rejected ballots, the Franken team ginned up an additional 1,350 absentees from Franken-leaning counties. By the time this treasure hunt ended, Mr. Franken was 312 votes up, and Mr. Coleman was left to file legal briefs."




>> ^packo:

I assume you are referring to Coleman?
and how he lost, fair and square, then contested, and votes for Franken that were discounted actually got re-evaluated, and then still lost?

xxovercastxxsays...

I can't imagine why you haven't listed your source. Oh, wait, it's from thisanonymous WSJ opinion piece.

I don't care about the WSJ's reputation for "partisan news" (though I doubt anyone else here will let that slide), but an anonymous opinion piece? Really?

>> ^quantumushroom:

"Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat's strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total. The Franken legal team swarmed the recount, aggressively demanding that votes that had been disqualified be added to his count, while others be denied for Mr. Coleman.
But the team's real goldmine were absentee ballots, thousands of which the Franken team claimed had been mistakenly rejected. While Mr. Coleman's lawyers demanded a uniform standard for how counties should re-evaluate these rejected ballots, the Franken team ginned up an additional 1,350 absentees from Franken-leaning counties. By the time this treasure hunt ended, Mr. Franken was 312 votes up, and Mr. Coleman was left to file legal briefs."

JiggaJonsonsays...

*doublepromote

Also I often think about Net Neutrality in terms of the radio, and why I hate fucking listening to the radio anymore. All they play is the same garbage over and over and over and over.

Let me spell it out for anyone who doesn't get it with one of my favorite James Brown songs:


Now would you ever hear this on the radio??? HELL FUCKING NO you wouldnt. And if you requested it the DJ would probably say something like "Well we don't have THAT in our library but we CAN give you some James Brown!" and then they'd proceed to play "Poppa's Got a Brand New Bag" or actually I take it back, they'd probably play "I Got You (I Feel Good)"

^Such is the way the internet would become if net neutrality was taken out. Dont let corporations take it over :--((((

PS Nice to see QM trolling about again.

quantumushroomsays...

I don't care about the WSJ's reputation for "partisan news" (though I doubt anyone else here will let that slide), but an anonymous opinion piece?


Doesn't bother me in the least. You probably think Bush "stole" the election in 2000, based on...what?

Less than this.

Oh, and feel free to google Franken, felons voting illegally

The punishment for electing a liberal is...getting a liberal. For more information, please see "Obama, Barack Hussein,"

xxovercastxxsays...

Nope, I don't. Bush lost in the popular vote but he didn't steal the election. It's just a case of an anomaly in our screwy election system.

This was a good example of why you're such a poor debater, though. If you can't make an argument you just change the topic. You've apparently got nothing to say on the topic of Net Neutrality so you start whining about the election from a year and a half ago. When I call you on your crappy source, you strawman me and start whining about the election from almost 10 years ago.

Most of your "opponents" here are just as ignorant, I know, but you'll have to step your game up if you're going to try to argue with me.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Doesn't bother me in the least. You probably think Bush "stole" the election in 2000, based on...what?
Less than this.
Feel free to google Franken, felons voting illegally
The punishment for electing a liberal is...getting a liberal

GeeSussFreeKsays...

You never addressed any of my problems and instead fed the troll and then complain about him being a poor debater when not taking place in the actual debate? Do you also not have anything to say about net neutrality and just want to engage in an asinine debate over corrupt politics?

I laid out a very sound argument that the government has been involved with the regulation of the radio, and TV waves since 1934 and has helped aid in the corporate take over all during that time. The rule sets and regulations they put in place favor people who have large sums of capital and extra man power. The assume they would do anything different with the internet would be counter to 60 years of history. What started as an effort to "clean up the air waves" of both congestion and indecency has ended up with the larges concentrations of media power in free society. TV tells the same, and even worse story. AM radio stations are about the only public domain for broadcast, but is volumes times higher than your public access TV station. The corporate take over of the media was facilitated by gaming the regulation system in favor of large corporate pools of influence over time. The web resembles the early radio days in many ways. There is one key difference, the ones who own a lot of the pipes now are legal monopolies. Erase that status, and you will get what you almost had 60 years ago with radio, truly free communication. Undo the damage that has been done to the cause of net neutrality be undermining the monopoly power base of those companies that are growing out of size and scope with the level of their consumer fulfillment.

Trying to legislate net neutrality will ultimately undermine it. That is, unless you are going to fund lobbies on the level that some of the richest companies in all of humanity are going to. If not, then it is a bad idea.

( I have to learn to stop speaking in the second person, it sounds so accusatory)

>> ^xxovercastxx:

Nope, I don't. Bush lost in the popular vote but he didn't steal the election. It's just a case of an anomaly in our screwy election system.
This was a good example of why you're such a poor debater, though. If you can't make an argument you just change the topic. You've apparently got nothing to say on the topic of Net Neutrality so you start whining about the election from a year and a half ago. When I call you on your crappy source, you strawman me and start whining about the election from almost 10 years ago.
Most of your "opponents" here are just as ignorant, I know, but you'll have to

Stormsingersays...

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Trying to legislate net neutrality will ultimately undermine it.

And leaving it all up to the very people that are threatening to destroy it will save it? Fat fuckin chance. Leaving it up to the corporate thieves is like leaving banking practices up to Wall Street...it won't "ultimately undermine it", it'll utterly destroy it in very short order.

xxovercastxxsays...

I didn't realize I was obligated to respond to you but, since I apparently am, here it is: I think net neutrality is a lose/lose situation.

First off, there's no 'neutral' option in this argument. The options are either to allow corrupt megacorporations to determine which traffic is prioritized or to allow a corrupt government agency to determine which traffic is prioritized.

Either way, us regular people are out in the cold. Basically, I mostly agree with you.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

You never addressed any of my problems and instead fed the troll and then complain about him being a poor debater when not taking place in the actual debate? Do you also not have anything to say about net neutrality and just want to engage in an asinine debate over corrupt politics?
I laid out a very sound argument that the government has been involved with the regulation of the radio, and TV waves since 1934 and has helped aid in the corporate take over all during that time. The rule sets and regulations they put in place favor people who have large sums of capital and extra man power. The assume they would do anything different with the internet would be counter to 60 years of history. What started as an effort to "clean up the air waves" of both congestion and indecency has ended up with the larges concentrations of media power in free society. TV tells the same, and even worse story. AM radio stations are about the only public domain for broadcast, but is volumes times higher than your public access TV station. The corporate take over of the media was facilitated by gaming the regulation system in favor of large corporate pools of influence over time. The web resembles the early radio days in many ways. There is one key difference, the ones who own a lot of the pipes now are legal monopolies. Erase that status, and you will get what you almost had 60 years ago with radio, truly free communication. Undo the damage that has been done to the cause of net neutrality be undermining the monopoly power base of those companies that are growing out of size and scope with the level of their consumer fulfillment.
Trying to legislate net neutrality will ultimately undermine it. That is, unless you are going to fund lobbies on the level that some of the richest companies in all of humanity are going to. If not, then it is a bad idea.
( I have to learn to stop speaking in the second person, it sounds so accusatory)

GeeSussFreeKsays...

^Stormsinger
I think you are drawing a false dichotomy. There are 2 issues at hand there. Firstly, the government is already involved greatly in the situation and has made the situation very bad. Secondly, just because the government isn't involved with something doesn't mean we all become victimized automatically. For instance, google is a service that has done very well with little government involvement. Additionally, many people are very satisfied with their service. But for those who aren't, they have the choice not to partake of their services, it is what the market is all about. The government has broken this system in phone and radio, where is has eliminated competing markets to "clean" up the way broadcasting was done. What this has done is centralized power in the hands of the very few. For a robber Barron to work effectively, they need to be able to hold a market captive. This is hard to do when the market is allowed to work, but in cable and radio, and telco, this practice is illegal. So the government is the strongman that keeps most markets captive to monopolistic forces; like the wall street mess you pointed out. It was a mess, but when you combine mess with legal precedent you don't help the issue any more.

The government is very great at taking emerging markets and smashing all the small competition to make way for corporate takeovers. You can bet your dimes to dollars that Comcast and NBC will be at the table when all this Net Neutrality law business kicks in, and you can bet your hindquarters they will get to write in all sorts of exceptions that will apply to smaller ISPs and not themselves. I think it is fair to say that we all want to same goal here, as open communications as we can. I just want to make clear that the government, in this case the FCC, has a horrible track record, maybe the worst in government for openness and non-censorship. TV and radio are the ONLY mediums that get censored, in reality, the FCC represents the pinicale of the violation of the first amendment...why in the hell do we want them to help with the internet?



^xxovercastxx

I am sorry man. Really, I wasn't trying to be hostile. I was more frustrated that you were frustrating yourself. It seemed like you wanted to have a good conversation on the subject, but instead got tangentilized. My apologies. I would like to suggest, however, there is a third option. The main problem with both of those situations is choice. In ISPs, and in some net neutrality law, you really don't have any consumer choice. Both situations in reality, though, have come from a system of bad laws. If we were to remove the monopoly system that protects these mega media dirt bags, then consumers that don't like the NBC, Comcast pipes can leave. Right now, in many areas, that would be against the law, which is bull crap. We need to restore balance, I think that is something we all agree on, but the way to do so isn't with more bad legislation that could backfire, but to undo that which was a mistake from 50 years ago.

Jesusismypilotsays...

"Progressives" built the foundations of the internets? Since "progressive" has become the vogue word for liberal I'm going to have to disagree with you there Al.

Too bad Minnesotan's didn't decide to investigate the illegal felons that voted for Al. I'm not saying he stole the election but since Al made/makes such a big deal about President Bush's election it would only be fair to hold him to the same standard.

Blessings,
JIMP

Stormsingersays...

I know, I know...the government is bad. Same song, different day.

I don't really give a rat's ass for the FCC. I don't even care about prioritizing between different types of data. Giving VOIP priority over filesharing traffic is fine and makes perfect sense, one's gap-sensitive and the other isn't. What I want is one simple rule. The -source- of the data packet cannot be used in that prioritization. IOW, all VOIP packets must be treated the same, all video must be treated the same, etc.

Allowing the big network providers to do WHAT THEY'VE ALREADY THREATENED TO DO is just stupid. Allowing them to do so because you're worried about something that -might- happen later is even more so. It's like allowing a mugger to stab you, because you're worried that fighting back or running will allow him to file a claim against your insurance.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

^Stormsinger
I think you are drawing a false dichotomy. There are 2 issues at hand there. Firstly, the government is already involved greatly in the situation and has made the situation very bad. Secondly, just because the government isn't involved with something doesn't mean we all become victimized automatically. For instance, google is a service that has done very well with little government involvement. Additionally, many people are very satisfied with their service. But for those who aren't, they have the choice not to partake of their services, it is what the market is all about. The government has broken this system in phone and radio, where is has eliminated competing markets to "clean" up the way broadcasting was done. What this has done is centralized power in the hands of the very few. For a robber Barron to work effectively, they need to be able to hold a market captive. This is hard to do when the market is allowed to work, but in cable and radio, and telco, this practice is illegal. So the government is the strongman that keeps most markets captive to monopolistic forces; like the wall street mess you pointed out. It was a mess, but when you combine mess with legal precedent you don't help the issue any more.
The government is very great at taking emerging markets and smashing all the small competition to make way for corporate takeovers. You can bet your dimes to dollars that Comcast and NBC will be at the table when all this Net Neutrality law business kicks in, and you can bet your hindquarters they will get to write in all sorts of exceptions that will apply to smaller ISPs and not themselves. I think it is fair to say that we all want to same goal here, as open communications as we can. I just want to make clear that the government, in this case the FCC, has a horrible track record, maybe the worst in government for openness and non-censorship. TV and radio are the ONLY mediums that get censored, in reality, the FCC represents the pinicale of the violation of the first amendment...why in the hell do we want them to help with the internet?

^xxovercastxx
I am sorry man. Really, I wasn't trying to be hostile. I was more frustrated that you were frustrating yourself. It seemed like you wanted to have a good conversation on the subject, but instead got tangentilized. My apologies. I would like to suggest, however, there is a third option. The main problem with both of those situations is choice. In ISPs, and in some net neutrality law, you really don't have any consumer choice. Both situations in reality, though, have come from a system of bad laws. If we were to remove the monopoly system that protects these mega media dirt bags, then consumers that don't like the NBC, Comcast pipes can leave. Right now, in many areas, that would be against the law, which is bull crap. We need to restore balance, I think that is something we all agree on, but the way to do so isn't with more bad legislation that could backfire, but to undo that which was a mistake from 50 years ago.

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