daemonburrito's Journal: As Seen On Glenn Beck: Net Neutrality is Socialism

Slashdot should prepare itself for a coming crapflood of anti-NN astroturfing, now with extra John Birch Society rhetoric.

During a recent Glenn Beck interview on Fox News, a representative from Brent Bozell's MRC (who is a blogger on NewsBusters) stated that "[Net neutrality is] Socialism on the Internet".

It's hard to determine what the interview is about exactly, but the bit about Net Neutrality was woven into a narrative about some kind of Marxist/Fascist takeover of the Internet and talk radio. ClearChannel's desperate defense of the 1996 Telecommunications Act (they hated the localism regulations that the '96 law killed) has been combined with the anti-NN campaign into yet another juvenile Red Dawn fantasy, which now appears to be canon in the right-wing echo chamber.

Briefly, cable companies and telcos are now in bed with the far-right.

I watched it live, but complete transcripts of the interview are hard to come by, for some reason (it could just be me; I don't run scripts from sites like Fox's). Bits and pieces are available, and the quote appears in Google's cache. Not that there's any doubt that this campaign has begun (apparently some time in August): http://www.google.com/search?q=network+neutrality+socialism.

On a related note: This "online strategy" goes after nerds, too: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/10/us_radio_spectrum/.

On a partly unrelated note: Google seems to be getting better at using the various ways that timestamps are being marked up, and hopefully authors and designers will be using <time> more often in the future. Looking for patterns in the timestamps of obvious astroturfing could be a fruitful.

Yup

[Captain Splendid]

Already had this argument with a couple of libertarian chuckleheads. This one's been out in the wild for a while. All it really means is the GOP will lose a few tech-savvier members. Not like the Dems won't roll over too, though...

Re:

[daemonburrito]

I'm cautiously optimistic about the administration's tech advisers. I probably won't be getting a pony, but they have already shown skepticism of industry groups' advice. With the notable exception of exporting our IP law, I admit.

I have to disagree with your worst-case scenario, though. A whole bunch of people who had never heard of net neutrality now have a very strong opinion about it.

"In the wild"... That is just a perfect way to put it. It'd be cool to have an Internet Storm Center for online behaviora