© Stuart Carlson I am becoming more and more convinced that micro-targeting of news (through AM talk radio, the internet, and especially social media) is largely to blame for the divorce of politics from reality (and consequently the election of Donald Trump). It also explains why Democrats were convinced that Hillary Clinton was about to […]
Remember earlier this year Comcast and several telecoms (particularly Verizon and AT&T) were trying very hard to destroy net neutrality? So hard in fact that many customers of Netflix found that “network congestion” was slowing down or even disrupting their movie watching experience. These companies were claiming that that in order for internet capacity to […]
Today, the FCC made two important decisions that will have a profound effect on the future of the internet. Most widely reported is their vote to reclassify the internet as a telecommunications service under Title II of the communications act. The immediate impact is that telecoms cannot charge extra for internet “fast lanes”. All traffic […]
© Zack Weinersmith Ever get the feeling that the echo chamber has taken on a life of its own, and doesn’t reflect the opinions of any real people? Back in 1964, Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message”. It is even more true today. McLuhan believed that a medium itself shapes and controls “the […]
Katrina vanden Heuvel (editor and publisher of The Nation) has published a powerful opinion piece in the Washington Post about net neutrality. I like this one because it doesn’t depend on technical arguments or anything speculative. It just uses clear examples to show why letting the telecoms have their way with the internet would threaten […]
Yesterday, I posted strong data showing that Obamacare was increasing competition and (consequently) health insurance costs were rising at the lowest rate in recent history. But of course, the people attacking Obamacare don’t care about facts. The same day, Obama announced that he was going to fight for net neutrality, and urged the FCC to […]
Science once again proves what we already knew. A psychological study of self-identified internet trolls shows that they are sadists, narcissists, and psychopaths. Or as Psychology Today put it: So next time you encounter a troll online, remember a few things. (1) These trolls are some truly messed up people and (2) it is your […]
More than 20 states have telecom-sponsored laws on the books that prohibit local communities from building their own municipal high-speed internet networks. This despite the fact that these networks are wildly popular in communities that have them. In addition, communities that have installed their own high-speed internet networks have seen better than average population growth […]
Econonomixcomix has an excellent explanation of Net Neutrality in comic book form. Go read it!
I had an interesting discussion with a friend recently. We were talking about the fact that there really is almost no need for telecom companies any more. Originally, telephones had to go through a large, centralized switch to connect one phone to another and to connect to long distance trunk lines that tied different cities […]
Finally! Someone came up with a simple explanation of why network neutrality is important (even vital). David Auerbach, in Slate, makes an excellent analogy: In the late 1990s, the deregulation of the California utilities—which forced them to sell off their power supplies to independent electricity wholesalers—proved to be a disaster. The magic hand of the […]
In January, a federal court struck down net neutrality requirements that had been put in place by the FCC in 2010. That was strike one. Then, just a few weeks ago, the FCC announced their intent to allow companies to buy preferred (faster, more responsive) access to the internet. Strike two. This started a huge […]
You may have seen terms like “mesh network” and “power grid” but not paid much attention (or even knew their significance), but the ideas behind these terms are becoming very important in many diverse ways. Whenever you connect things together, there are generally two ways to do it: in a centralized way, or in a […]
Do you ever wonder why your city has terrible broadband internet? Why there is limited or no competition for providing internet service to your home? Why Google didn’t put your city on the list of places it is considering for gigabit fiber? If you are lucky you have a choice of two internet providers, one […]
Internet network neutrality was dealt a severe blow last week by a federal court. This means that internet providers are now free to charge whatever they want to provide you with individual content, just like cable companies do. Verizon, who brought the suit, claims that killing network neutrality is required in order to allow “innovation”. […]
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