Law in the Internet Society

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PoliticalCalculus 3 - 02 Oct 2011 - Main.DevinMcDougall
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To the extent "platforms" disempower technology users and the major corporate telecom/media/tech entities exert undue control over the public's access rights, it seems that their ability to do so is a function of a regulatory regime that facilitates such conduct (see, e.g. 1996 Telecom Act). In other words, the current state of affairs was not inevitable, but rather the result of the government's willingness to look the other way to obtain the political benefits accruing from kowtowing to large, rich and organized business interests (as Moglen said in class, Obama realized "what it took" to win an election and altered his votes accordingly). There are examples, however, of hostile government action toward the very corporations that, generally speaking, receive significant political favors (in terms of both legislation that is and is not passed). For instance, on the heels of the UK investigation into News Corp., the US has (allegedly) started to consider taking serious action against Murdoch's company as well; recently, a federal lawsuit was filed to prevent the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile (several states have also joined in the suit); Google seems to be under perpetual antitrust scrutiny from both the FTC and DOJ. It therefore appears that there are times when the political costs of favoring "platforms" and corporate interests are simply too great to justify what, based on our class discussions, looks like outright collusion between big-business and American politicians (at the expense of the public, of course). My question, then, is at what point does the political calculus shift in favor of more rugged (and balanced) regulation? More importantly, how do we get to that point more often? If platforms' sweeping power is an outgrowth of favorable legislation, selective political inaction and a general reluctance on the part of regulators to meaningfully regulate, then a more permanent shift in the political calculus could mean the undoing of platforms' current position in the market. What is the best way to achieve such a change?

-- MatthewLadner - 29 Sep 2011

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I think one interesting issue here is - if the problem is unfree communications, increased government regulation is only one possible answer.

Given the nature of the relevant federal and state playing fields, this seems unlikely. It may be that given the way our democracy and economy are structured, the telecoms will win every time when it come to regulation, with only minor exceptions.

However, I think there are other possible pathways for change. There may be technical means of circumventing restrictions. These technical solutions may be amenable to pursuit by a relatively small number of dedicated people using technology to coordinate their efforts. Some examples might be the GNU/Linux operating system and the FreedomBox project Eben is working on.

Distributed technical self-help and mutual-aid may be a more promising solution to the problem of unfree communications than federal regulatory politics.

-- DevinMcDougall - 02 Oct 2011

 
 
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Revision 3r3 - 02 Oct 2011 - 18:41:20 - DevinMcDougall
Revision 2r2 - 29 Sep 2011 - 19:17:39 - BahradSokhansanj
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