I think this is the most amazing thing I’ve seen in week. Make sure you watch the whole thing. And I don’t want to spoil the ending, but be sure to play around with it when it gets to the end.
I’m pleased to announce the publication of A Manifesto for Media Freedom, which I co-authored with Brian C. Anderson of the Manhattan Institute. Brian serves as editor of Manhattan Institute’s excellent City Journal and he is the author of best-selling books like South Park Conservatives and Democratic Capitalism and Its Discontents.
In this little manifesto, we highlight one of the central ironies of the Information Age. Namely, that despite “the breathtaking abundance of new and old media outlets for obtaining news, information, and entertainment…”
many people hate this profusion, and never more than when it involves political speech. The current media market, they charge, doesn’t represent true diversity, or isn’t fair, or is subject to manipulation by a small and shrinking group of media barons. They want the government to regulate it into better shape, which just happens to be a shape that benefits them. Doing so… would be a disaster, a kind of soft or not-so-soft tyranny that would wipe out whole sectors of media, curtailing free speech and impoverishing our democracy.
In other words, instead of celebrating the unprecedented cornucopia of media choices at our collective disposal, many policymakers and media critics are calling for just as much media regulation as ever. We itemize these threats in our chapters and they include: efforts to revive the “Fairness Doctrine”, media ownership regulations, “localism” requirements, Net neutrality mandates, a la carte regulations, cable and satellite censorship, video game censorship, regulation of social networking sites, campaign finance-related speech restrictions, and so on.
In each case, we advance a pro-freedom paradigm to counter the advocates of media control. What do we mean by the “media freedom” that we advocate as the alternative to these new regulatory crusades? Here’s how we put it in the book:
[Not sure if someone else has mentioned this here yet, but… ] There’s a terrific piece by Paul Korzeniowski in Forbes this week about the Comcast-BitTorrent debacle called, “Feds and Internet Service Providers Don’t Mix.” It’s well worth reading the whole thing, but I particularly like this passage:
For whatever reason, some believe ISPs should not be able to put any restrictions on the volume of information that any user transmits. That’s absurd. Per-bit and per-byte pricing models have long been used for data transmissions. In trying to build and sustain their businesses, carriers constantly balance their attractiveness and viability versus unlimited usage pricing models. By government decree, they no longer have that option. In effect, the FCC has decided to tell ISPs how to run their networks.
A related issue is Comcast’s reluctance to disclose its network management processes. The reason seems obvious. Carriers spend literally billions of dollars installing and fine-tuning their networks each year. If they can move traffic more efficiently from one location to the next than their competitors, it translates to a more profitable bottom line. But network neutrality advocates maintain that Comcast has an obligation to open its network operation to the world. Why not have Kentucky Fried Chicken publish its original recipe or Coca-Cola tell us how it makes soft drinks?
Exactly. It gets back to a point I stressed in one of our podcasts on this issue about how “transparency” regulations are great in theory but in practice might have some rather profound implications. More generally, there’s just the fact that it further puts the camel’s nose in the Internet tent by inviting regulators in to meddle more in the name of “transparency.”
As always, Richard Bennett has far more interesting things to say about the issue than me. Check out his essay about this same Forbes piece over at Circle ID.
Apologies for the non-technology post, but since the only topics of conversation these days are Wall Street, credit default swaps, and Putin’s flights over Alaska, I thought I’d post my review of Dave Smick’s new book The World is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy…the Mortgage Crisis Was Only the Beginning.
Three new pieces by me are up this week:
If you find the title of this post provocative, you’ll be interested in a Cato Institute book forum on Friday, October 10th.
In The Crime of Reason, Nobel laureate in physics Robert Laughlin argues that intellectual property laws and government security demands threaten the development of new knowledge. Without change, we risk bequeathing our heirs a world where knowledge is criminalized and our intellectual tradition of unfettered inquiry is lost.
The event should be a fascinating inquiry into the role of information and information rules in our society. Thomas Syndor of the Progress & Freedom Foundation will comment. I’ll be your humble moderator. It’s noon on Friday, October 10th, at the Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. Luncheon to follow.
You can register for the event here.
This is a good article by Harvard professor Harry Lewis. He worries that the ease of spreading lies on the Net puts us at risk of losing “a thoughtful, analytical, educated citizenry, capable of sharing responsibility for the long-term welfare of the nation.” Here’s a excerpt from his piece:
“If he wins, Barack Obama is going to be sworn in on a Koran instead of the Bible. Trig isn’t Sarah Palin’s baby, it’s her daughter Bristol’s. Obama refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Here’s the list of books Palin wanted to ban from the library …
All these claims — none of them true — turned up in the e-mail inboxes of millions of Americans this summer. In spite of both campaigns’ efforts to correct the record about their candidates, the rumors linger on and spread.”
Register here for what looks like a very interesting event:
In 1995, Internet entrpreneur Craig Newmark started Craigslist — an online community featuring free classified ads. Thirteen years later, Craigslist serves 567 cities in 55 countries and is a good example of how the power, reach and openness of the Internet can help turn a simple idea into a global phenomenon.
As part of the ongoing “Google D.C. Talks” series, Craig — who still helps users in a customer service role at Craigslist — will speak about the founding of the future of Craigslist, the future direction of the Internet, and what public policy makers can do to keep the Internet and American democracy free, open and vibrant. For anyone who’s ever bought or sold a used piece of furniture or concert tickets on Craigslist, you won’t want to miss hearing from the man who started it all.
Speaker:
Craig Newmark, Customer Service Rep & Founder, craigslistModerator:
Alan Davidson, Director, Public Policy and Government Affairs, Google
In my nearly 17 years of public policy work, I have never felt so vindicated about something as I did this weekend when I read Dan P. Lee’s Philadelphia magazine feature on “Whiffing on Wi-Fi.” It is a spectacularly well-written piece about the spectacular failure of Philadelphia’s short-lived experiment with municipally-subsidized wi-fi, which was called Wireless Philadelphia. You see, back in April 2005, I wrote a white paper entitled “Risky Business: Philadelphia’s Plan for Providing Wi-Fi Service,” and it began with the following question: “Should taxpayers finance government entry into an increasingly competitive , but technologically volatile, business market?” In the report, I highlighted the significant risks involved here in light of how rapidly broadband technology and the marketplace was evolving. Moreover, I pointed to the dismal track record of previous municipal experiments in this field, which almost without exception ended in failure. I went on to argue:
Keeping these facts in mind, it hardly makes sense for municipal governments to assume the significant risks involved in becoming a player in the broadband marketplace. Even an investment in wi-fi along the lines of what Philadelphia is proposing, is a risky roll of the dice. [… ] the nagging “problem” of technological change is especially acute for municipal entities operating in a dynamic marketplace like broadband. Their unwillingness or inability to adapt to technological change could leave their communities with rapidly outmoded networks, and leave taxpayers footing the bill.
I got a stunning amount of hate mail and cranky calls from people after I released this paper. Everyone accused me of being a sock puppet for incumbent broadband providers or just not understanding the importance of the endevour. But as I told everyone at the time, I wasn’t out to block Philadelphia from conducting this experiment, I just didn’t think it had any chance of being successful. And, again, I tried to point out what a shame it would be if taxpayers were somehow stuck picking up the tab, or if other providers decided not to invest in the market because they were “crowded-out” by government investment in the field.
But even I could have never imagined how quickly the whole house of cards would come crumbling down in Philadelphia. It really was an astonishing meltdown. Dan Lee’s article makes that abundantly clear:
I’ve posted a copy of the proposed bailout legislation online in html format, which is easier to read, copy, and paste. Considering its size and significance, I urge you to review it and share it with others.
I pointed out before that my employer, the Cato Institute, has several experts on the bailout, and media producer Caleb Brown has ably drawn them out. Give a listen to his podcasts with Bill Niskanen, Jagadeesh Gokhale, Arnold Kling, and Gerald P. O’Driscoll. [all mp3 format]
There are a couple of elements of the legislation where I might add some insight, so here goes.
Congressional Oversight? Nope. $700 Billion Spent
The bill made available Sunday devotes a good deal of verbiage to oversight of the proposed $700 billion bailout. But it doesn’t do anything to prevent that money being spent.
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.