“Censorship” is a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a man or suppress a publication; only the government can do so. The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one’s own [...]
Archive | Technology
Fairness Doctrine for the Internet? It Could Be Coming…
Michael J Hurd (2011.04.13 ) Politics, Technology
Have you forgotten about Obama’s attempt to control the Internet — in Orwellian doublespeak known as “Net Neutrality”? Well, the Republican House of Representatives (to their credit) has not forgotten. Two days before Christmas, the FCC issued “net neutrality” rules on a partisan 3-2 vote that restrict how Internet service providers like Comcast and [...]
Net Neutrality: Obamacare for the Internet
Michael J Hurd (2010.12.23 ) Healthcare, Politics, Technology
In case you haven’t heard, Obama’s FCC has passed new rules requiring private companies who provide Internet services to submit to control under the government. What will government’s rules be? Those are yet to be determined. But the government alone will decide what those rules are, how they are to be implemented, and to whom [...]
Net Neutrality vs. Internet Freedom
Alex Epstein (2009.09.23 ) Politics, Technology
America’s leading Internet service providers (ISPs) have spent many years and billions upgrading their transcontinental networks, which constitute the backbone of the Internet. Now they are eager to profit by offering new, compelling services. One plan is to give certain websites high priority on their data, so as to guarantee “quality of service”–the speed, frequency, [...]
Anarchy on the Internet
Thomas Sowell (2008.08.31 ) Politics, Technology
The Internet provides vast amounts of information but it can also spread vast amounts of misinformation, or even deliberately misleading disinformation. For more than two weeks, scarcely a day has gone by without e-mails pouring in to me, asking about columns that someone has written and brazenly spread around the Internet with my name on [...]
“Net Neutrality”: Destroyer of Internet Freedom
Alex Epstein (2008.02.24 ) Politics, Technology
Advocates of “net neutrality” are apoplectic amid reports that ISP Comcast slowed down file-sharing programs on its network. The FCC is threatening action against Comcast, while advocates of a new net-neutrality law sponsored by Congressman Edward Markey are taking the occasion to claim such legislation is necessary to protect “Internet freedom.” But net neutrality is [...]
Truly Disgusting: Internet Gambling Prohibition Act of 1999
Walter Williams (2006.07.26 ) Politics, Technology
The House of Representatives voted 245 to 159 to pass the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act of 1999. Because of a rule requiring two-thirds approval, the measure didn’t pass. Its sponsor, Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., plans to introduce it again when only a majority is needed for passage. If enacted, it would “Amend the Federal criminal code [...]
The United Nation’s First Salvo In Its Bid To Take Over and Censor The Internet
Tom DeWeese (2006.02.28 ) Politics, Technology
The American people simply have no idea what it’s like to live in a totalitarian society. We go where we want; watch movies and television shows or any kind; start new businesses on a whim; shop in huge supermarkets that carry any item imaginable; even sit in public places and say anything we want about [...]
Fallacy of Self-Exclusion
Amit Ghate (2005.12.19 ) Technology
For several years now, Research In Motion (makers of the blackberry) and NTP have been embroiled in an intellectual property dispute wherein NTP claims that RIM is infringing some of its patents. As part of the dispute NTP was granted an injunction against RIM which would prevent RIM from operating in the US unless it [...]
UN Should Not Control the Internet
Yaron Brook (2005.10.06 ) Politics, Technology
A cabal of countries, including Cuba, Syria, China and Iran–now backed by the European Union–is demanding that control of the Internet be surrendered to the United Nations. These and other thug-nations restrict their own citizens’ ability to receive and broadcast news and grievances from inside their blood-soaked walls. China, for instance, currently has many individuals [...]