Blog Juice for Educational Technology

If the telecommunications industry had their way, there’d be no net neutrality. On that I think most people can agree.

If there is any doubt that net neutrality legislation is necessary, just be aware that the telecomms are very good at manipulating the system in their favor. Lessig has recently posted about some “sleazy stuff” going on with the DOJ and the SBC and Verizon merger. Meanwhile, somehow the Broadcast Flag issue has resurfaced this week. Public Knowledge explains,

Amidst all the Net Neutrality hubbub you might have missed the return of the Broadcast Flag, this time tucked into Senator Stevens’ 151 page telecommunications bill, S.2686. What’s an onerous copy protection scheme doing in the middle of a telecommunications bill? If you’re confused, you should be, it’s a tactic designed to sneak in a regulation that’s been repeatedly rejected by both Congress and the courts.

Isn’t it time to realize that the public will have to work harder to push through proactive legislation such as Net Neutrality? Consider the lessons of the DMCA and the more recent attempts at a Broadcast Flag. Corporations will try again, and again, and again to implement their vision for the Internet and intellectual property. We need to go on the offense with legislation that creates our vision instead of continually trying to defend againsts theirs. Otherwise, I fear the war will be lost and the Golden Age of the Internet will be over.

I know I’m being melodramatic, but we really needs some advances on our side instead of only being able to claim small victories when the other side has been stopped from advancing for a moment.

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Some writers and bloggers presently claim that “the internet” rules as a world-wide mode of interpersonal expression and communication. Even if this were so, the explorers in this field during its opening stages certainly didn’t think or sound that way. For many (if not most) of the early pioneers involved in the internet, the issue of power and control was never part of their early internet instincts and/or experiences and experiences and/or instincts. Yes, it is possible to have it in either or both ways.

Some might say, “Oh, the power of the unconscious!!” Unfortunately, that argument generally is made (one must try hard not to split infinites, although not all splitting is bad for one) by those who never held a belief in the unconscious, or who long ago gave up the belief in it (in favor of either one or another of many secular stances or a commitment to one of the somewhat heatedly competing religious faiths). On the other hand, a life characterized by solitude, hope and (sometimes painful) introspection can lead most of one’s unconscious into the realm of the preconscious. As a result, the access to and awareness of the unconscious can be a fairly direct one.

I would like you to comment The Cultural Metamorphosis of the Internet: Hypertext and Publishing in the ‘Digital Culture (Notes Regarding Communicative Convergence). It is not too long and focuses on the possibilities of the Internet for communication, education and research focusing on hypertext and online publishing.

It was first published in Spanish.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

Wired News reports that Google submitted a bid to offer free WiFi in San Francisco. Although Google has denied any intention to do so, Wired notes,

If Google is picked for the San Francisco project, it would provide a testing ground for a national Wi-Fi service — something that many industry observers believe the company is pondering as a way to ensure people can connect to its search engine anytime, from just about anywhere.

Note: Both are PDFs!

The Future of the Internet — And How to Save It by Jonathan Zittrain

Coase’s Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm by Yochai Benkler

Via Marco Carbone’s iLaw Cambridge 2005 H2O Playlist.