Why is Verizon censoring us? Pt. 5

Ok, I hear the first sputtering objection now...

"The very fact that you're speaking through this blog proves that your right to free speech is intact. What does it matter that you can't connect a server to the Verizon FIOS network as a residential customer?"

Fact is, this blog is hosted on a Google server. Google could shut it down in an instance with no recourse on my part. That's not free speech. That's speech by sufferance of a third party. Who's to say that I'm not self-censoring for fear that Google will shut me down?

Democracy depends upon informed citizens vigorously debating issues and ideas in a lively public forum. This requires multilateral communication. Ideally, every citizen should have equal right to speak out and be heard in the vast public forum.

But, excluding the Internet, only mass media -- newspapers, radio, television -- have the power to reach across our vast social, cultural, and political landscape. Problem is, they've been structured as one-way, top down, channels. Unless you own the outlets, or have a substantial advertising budget, you can only consume ideas generated by others. Not disseminate your own.

This is not a recipe for healthy democratic participation. Nor is it an effective way to bring the best ideas into contention; shine the light on incompetence, corruption, and malfeasance; generate broad consensus, or produce the most effective policy reflecting the very best thinking of the land.

Control over public debate and the public agenda through money and power has a lot to do with the ills of our democracy today. And as consolidation of the mass media into ever fewer corporate hands has accelerated these ills have become ever more acute.

The Internet, by design, provides the basis for broad, multilateral communication. It imposes no preferences upon which way bits travel. One-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, many-to-many, multilateral interactive -- it's all possible technically. This means that we, as citizens, can disseminate information and ideas around the world -- until, that is, corporate or governmental gatekeepers impose their own artificial barriers, dam up the flow, in their own self-interest.

This is exactly what Verizon's no server policy accomplishes. It artificially dams up the flow of public discourse in favor of those willing to pay more for the "privilege" of disseminating their information, ideas, and services through the Internet, a medium conceived and developed with taxpayer funds.

If I own my own server, operate it out of my residence, and connect to the Internet through a content-neutral Internet Service Provider, then I control how, where, and when I participate in the public forum. My data and access is as secure as I can make it. I have free speech. Yes, I'm perfectly willing to pay a fair price for the speed and volume of bits that flow through the pipes. But no one stands in the way of my expression.

But this is not the case under Verizon's current policies. And I contend that they're wrong.

Stay tuned...