Digital inclusion and who controls the Internet
New America’s Open Technology Institute released this report examining the use of data caps on wired and mobile broadband service in the United States. The report analyzes the financial incentives that major Internet service providers have to implement these usage limits and research that demonstrates the behavioral effect of these policies on consumers.
Update: After 56,000 signed the petition, Comcast upgraded speed and added seniors to the digital inclusion program. We won! Continue reading Speed for Some
Posted by Tracy Rosenberg on December 15th, 2014
Huffington Post
When Barack Obama came out publicly for the reclassification of the Internet as a public utility, his announcement indicated that the decades-long battle to maintain neutrality on the Web had entered a new high-profile stage.
From a wonky side discussion found mostly in the technology sections of major newspapers and on computer blogs, net neutrality had suddenly morphed into a national obsession, filling up late-night TV and social-media feeds with one meme after another and finally crashing the FCC’s website with 4 million public comments. Continue reading Some Internet Activists Think Obama Didn’t Go Far Enough
Update October 15, 2014: Only hours before a scheduled vote to authorize the California Public Utilities Commission to weigh in on the federal network neutrality debate and share the overwhelming opinions of Californians that the Internet should be re-classified as a public utility, the item was suddenly withdrawn from Thursday’s meeting agenda for undisclosed reasons. Continue reading CA Public Utilities Commission Buries Net Neutrality Vote
Posted by Victoria Kaplan on July 28th, 2014
Move On
This video is a quick tour of the two July 23rd rallies, one in Silicon Valley and the other in Los Angeles, where activists brought together by a dozen different groups, made sure the visiting president had an open internet on his mind.
Animated short on net neutrality by filmmaker Mark Farinas.
Great for explaining net neutrality to young people! Continue reading The Internet You Need
Media Alliance joined sixteen other grassroots media group in a letter to the White House embracing a rights-model for the handling of big data.
The letter states “we believe that big data creates significant new risks of racial injustice. In order to ensure a fair and inclusive future for our nation’s communities of color, and to enable the potential benefits of these new technologies to be fully realized and broadly shared, it is vitally important that the emerging policy framework for big data explicitly acknowledges and address issues of racial discrimination”. Continue reading Big Data and Privacy
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In what has become a highly controversial move, advertising agency BBH transformed some of Austin’s homeless people into mobile hotspots during SXSW Interactive. Thirteen homeless from Austin’s Front Steps shelter donning an “I’m a 4G hotspot” T-shirt and armed with a MiFi were strategically placed throughout SXSW and offered internet access around their personal location to attendees. Continue reading SXSW Misfire – The Human Hotspot
