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Malkia A. Cyril: The Internet Must Not Become a Segregated Community
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Co-authored by Malkia Cyril, Chris Rabb and Joseph Torres
When Fox News\' Glenn Beck called President Barack Obama a racist
this past July, the online advocacy group ColorOfChange.org launched a
campaign to convince advertisers to boycott the show. To date, some
285,000 people have joined the effort, and more than 80 companies have
pulled their ads.
CNN parted ways with Lou Dobbs last month after civil rights groups
and Presente.org mobilized thousands of Latinos online to call on CNN
to dump the talk show host for spewing hate against immigrants for
years.
None of this -- not these advocacy efforts, not countless small
business success stories, not even the election of President Obama --
would have happened without a free and open Internet. For communities
of color, the Internet provides us with a unique opportunity to speak
for ourselves without first seeking approval or permission or having
to secure major funds to do so. But the big telecommunications
companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast want to create an effectively
segregated online community where they will act as our gatekeepers.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is now considering new
rules that could protect the fundamental principle of \Network
Neutrality\ once and for all. Net Neutrality prohibits Internet
service providers (ISPs) from blocking, discriminating against or
deterring Internet users from accessing online content and
applications of their choice -- such as e-newsletters, blogs, social
networking sites, online videos, podcasts and smart-phone apps.
It\'s not that network owners are secretly plotting to stifle free
speech. But they have an undeniable, rational interest in creating a
pay-for-play model for the treatment of communication on the Internet.
Commercial Web sites that pay will get speed and quality, and the
noncommercial uses of the Net will be collateral damage -- relegated
to the slow lane. It\'s not necessarily that they want to block our
speech for political reasons. It\'s that our speech is not important
to them because it\'s not going to make them money.
The Internet provides our communities with a medium to access
services, find jobs, connect to friends, make inexpensive
international phone calls to family members, and to advocate for
social change. Many of the most valuable things we do online are
noncommercial; they exist because the Internet is the first mass media
system with no gatekeepers to dole out privilege to the highest
bidder. That freedom and openness is what makes the Internet different
from broadcasting and cable. We can\'t allow Comcast, AT&T, Verizon
and other broadband providers to deliver substandard Internet service
to our communities.
Telecom Companies Want to Create Second-Class \Netizens\
But the big phone and cable companies want to get rid of Net
Neutrality and control how the public accesses the Internet.
This threat to Internet freedom isn\'t hypothetical. Verizon got
caught blocking text messages sent by the pro-choice group NARAL to
its own members - backing down only in response to public pressure.
Comcast has also illegally interfered with file-sharing on its
network, a practice that earned the company a rebuke from the FCC.
Even though President Obama pledged that he would \take a back seat
to no one\ on Net Neutrality, the big phone and cable companies are
pulling out all the stops to derail it, including deploying Karl
Rove-style scare tactics within our communities and using their
massive resources to block Obama\'s agenda.
In the first nine months of 2009, they employed nearly 500 lobbyists
and spent some $74 million to influence Congress and the FCC. Their
misinformation has even convinced Glenn Beck that Net Neutrality is an
attempt by President Obama to take over the Internet.
Who will protect the online rights of marginalized communities
against the raw profit motive of big business? We urge leaders not to
yield to the underhanded scare tactics that corporations like AT&T
have used on our communities.
We Must Reject a Separate but Unequal Online World
One of those scare tactics is the claim, pushed by phone and cable
companies, that Network Neutrality poses a threat to digital
inclusion. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only does Net
Neutrality expand media diversity and access by ensuring fairness and
nondiscrimination by big corporations, it will prevent the kind of
media consolidation that has happened in the broadcast industry by
helping our communities develop a diversity of civic and commercial
online enterprises on a scale that represents our growing online
numbers.
A primary reason for the digital divide is that the cost of fully
engaging in the online world is just too high for many in our
communities. Broadband in the United States is among the slowest but
most expensive of any industrialized nation. After years of
consolidation, the largest telecom companies have gotten away with
price-gouging our communities because of a lack of competition in the
broadband market.
More choices for broadband service -- not permitting more
discrimination -- are the key to bringing down costs. Scrapping Net
Neutrality in order to consolidate control over the Internet by cable
and phone companies is not the answer. More market control won\'t give
them more incentive to sell low-cost high-quality services to
low-income communities. Our communities will still be subject to the
same business logic that has marginalized us in the first place since
our households don\'t have a lot of money to spend. Shareholders
aren\'t charities, and we are foolish to expect otherwise.
But more importantly, we should not be sacrificing an open Internet
to bribe phone and cable companies not to practice forms of
red-lining. The answer to the digital divide cannot be to deliver a
second-class, closed Internet to our communities.
The historic fight against discrimination by groups like the NAACP
and the League of United Latin American Citizens has led to great
societal change, laying the groundwork for the election of a president
of color. We urge our colleagues in the civil rights community to
fight with us to ensure that telecom and cable companies are not
allowed to discriminate against our communities or interfere with our
capacity to speak for ourselves without first asking AT&T, Verizon or
Comcast for permission.
So far, several organizations of color have spoken out in favor of
passing Net Neutrality regulations, including the National Hispanic
Media Coalition, UNITY: Journalists of Color and ColorOfChange.org.
We are living through a critical moment in our nation\'s history. The
FCC is going to decide whether the Internet will remain an open
platform that allows for the greatest number of voices to participate
in our democratic society, or whether it will be a closed network
controlled by the big telecom companies.
We are concerned about the dire consequences of living without Net
Neutrality. It would create a separate but unequal online world where
our communities will be unable to use the Internet to compete or to
advocate for justice when we have been wronged.
We need civil rights, media justice, community-oriented and
grassroots organizations to stand together to make sure effective Net
Neutrality regulation will protect our communities from the predatory
practices of the phone and cable companies.
As with past civil rights struggles that successfully expanded
access, thwarted discrimination, destroyed legalized segregation, and
created broad opportunity, so too will the cause of Internet freedom.
-- Malkia Cyril is the executive director of the Center for Media
Justice. Chris Rabb is the founder of the online community
Afro-Netizen and is a visiting researcher at the Woodrow Wilson School
of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Joseph
Torres is the government relations manager of Free Press and former
deputy director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
This news story was reported by Huffington Post 11 seconds ago
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