Why is Verizon censoring us? Pt. 6

And the objections roll in...

"Servers are for business. Why in the world would someone want to run a server from their home?"

Despite what the corporate royalists would have us believe, the business of citizenship is not business. The business of citizenship is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The preeminent corporate goal is profit. In pursuit of profit the corporate royalists and ideologues push for low to no corporate taxes, low to no corporate regulation, unfettered flow of capital, compliant labor, and voracious consumerism.

Corporate marketers would corral us into segments and niches; pander to our fantasies, fears, and greed; turn discretionary income into compulsory spending; hook us on credit card debt.

The naked corporate agenda, in other words, has little to do with the duties, responsibilities, and rewards of citizenship in a democratic system.

Indeed the trend has been toward marketing political candidates and policies with the same high-powered top-down consumer marketing technologies that have been so successful with cigarettes, automobiles, prescription drugs -- all in the interest of corporate goals; indeed, in all too many cases, the short-term, personal goals of top managements and majority shareholders .

Think Harry and Louise, the campaign that scuttle universal health care; Enron's drive for energy deregulation; or Exxon's anti-global warming propaganda campaign.

Result: The citizen has been increasingly side-lined, marginalized, squeezed out of the public forum. Government has been increasingly perverted into serving corporate interests rather than public interest.

This is not to deny the benefits that corporations bring to our life -- jobs, investment opportunities, diversity of products, vast lifestyle options. Nor is it to deny the high standards of citizenship that many fine corporations uphold.

But from the citizen's standpoint, corporate activities and goals are means to an end -- not ends in themselves.

In recent years the courts and some FCC commissioners have argued successfully that media consolidation is a good thing. It fosters "efficiency." Efficiency is a fine corporate goal. But is it a proper goal for citizenship?

Effective citizenship and democratic participation is a messy process of digesting complex information, weighing many contending points of view, struggling toward consensus, hammering the best ideas into policy, and monitoring the execution of policy.

Media consolidation works against every one of these processes: information is diluted, the diversity of viewpoints is narrowed, editorial bias works against broad consensus, policy options are limited, the watchdog functions of the media are muzzled.

Verizon certainly has a right and obligation to pursue fair profit from its operations. But it also has a significant social function as a prominent carrier of information within our democratic system. Since it has a near monopoly in many parts of it's service area, it's a key gatekeeper to the Internet for many. This means, I would argue, that it has an additional obligation to the broader public to facilitate rather than hinder public participation.

Verizon's policy of forbidding residential servers blatantly disregards this solemn responsibility.

I salute and support Verizon's role as a CARRIER of information; I abhor it's efforts to control CONTENT. Forbidding residential servers on the Verizon FIOS network and blocking incoming web and mail ports is an unacceptable policy of content control.

So, why would a citizen want a server at home?

-- share information and photos with family and friends
-- share hobby interests with fellow hobbyists
-- publish creative efforts -- literature, music, art
-- attract a community of common interests
-- express a grievance
-- express a minority political viewpoint
-- reaffirm a majority political viewpoint
-- participate in open-source software development
-- support a home business
-- support a local team, club, or civic organization
-- support a local candidate

In other words, a home server enables the citizen to participate in the broad public forum with potentially far more reach and influence than available through any other medium.

Verizon's FIOS policies are strictly in their selfish corporate interest. They work in diametric opposition to the needs and interest of the broader public. And more... they subvert our democratic process.

Stay tuned...