Category: Digital Technology

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Who’s Behind the Push for Net Neutrality?

If “net neutrality” were a life form, it would be classified as a simple organism.  And that lack of complexity, as it happens, is its very appeal to certain “progressives,” garden-variety regulators, and large Internet companies, who see in government regulation of the Internet opportunities to cement and extend their franchises.

The brave and gifted Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Ajit Pai, and former commissioner Robert McDowell, are doing all they can to point out the many already identifiable problems, as well as potential pitfalls, that line the path of this regulatory nightmare.  Among those problems are higher user fees to consumers, a slowdown in the rate of investment in broadband infrastructure, regulatory creep, and the wrong kind of example to set before foreign dictators and tyrants.

Alas, none of this is likely to deter the three Democratic FCC commissioners, as instructed by the White House, from passing this regulation.

What has not been much discussed in all of this is the role in the promotion of net neutrality played by some of the actors: activist groups like Free Press, Public Knowledge, and Media Matters; huge grant-giving foundations like the Ford, Soros, and Knight foundations; and companies like Google.   >>Read More

Posted on By Patrick Maines

FCC’s Net Neutrality Plan Is Another Step in the Regulation of Speech

So the latest development on the speech regulation front is Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler’s rumored plan to create a “hybrid” regulatory structure in the name of “net neutrality,” the condition which, as it happens, has already been attained.

Under Wheeler’s plan, Internet regulation would be split between a highly regulated back end, where content providers deal with Internet service providers (ISPs), and a more lightly regulated front end, where consumers get their content from ISPs.  This, so it’s said, is a way to get around the decision of a federal appeals court that invalidated an earlier FCC attempt to institute net neutrality regulations.

So it is that net neutrality has gone from what Bob Kahn, the inventor of the Transmission Control Protocol, has called a “slogan,” to what Scott Cleland derides as an industrial policy benefiting Silicon Valley at the expense of consumers.

Those who have a sense of history, and a wider angle of vision on the policy process, may be struck by something else.  The FCC’s plan, coming at the very time that the Federal Election Commission is looking for ways to regulate political speech on the Internet, the Justice Department is spying on journalists, and the National Security Agency (NSA) is intercepting citizens’ phone calls and e-mail, would add yet another way in which government could insert itself into the speech business.  >> Read More

Posted on By Patrick Maines

The FCC’s Net Neutrality Vote

Not unlike the way that people present themselves as avatars in cyberspace, policymakers in Washington present themselves behind a veneer that is usually as predictable as it is tiresome. But not always!  Once or twice a decade some public official will do something that surprises, and in doing so leaves all the other players gobsmacked and reeling.

This is precisely what has happened at the FCC in recent days as the newly installed chairman, Tom Wheeler, acting in the wake of a court order, has proposed a reform of that agency’s so-called net neutrality regulations.  In a nutshell, the Wheeler proposal would allow ISPs to provide, for a fee, faster lanes to the consumer for content providers.

If you are one of those people who don’t find the idea of paying more for better things to be a deeply radical idea, your problem is that you’re unschooled in the ways of political posturing, rhetoric, and the lay of the land.  You don’t understand that, to Democrats especially, the “free and open Internet” cannot allow upgrades of the sort that would make any content provider (and that provider’s customers) happier than any other provider or its customers.  Distributive justice, you know.

In the grip of this construct, the Internet must remain a static and unchanging highway, never in need of pothole filling or additional traffic lanes.

Which is not to say that Republicans, too, don’t like Wheeler’s proposal.  Indeed, the confounding fact is that both of the Republicans on the Commission voted against the proposal while all three of the Democrats voted for it!  And in truth the Republicans are correctly concerned about the precedential effect of net neutrality on the formerly unregulated Internet.  In his statement opposing the measure, Republican Commissioner O’Rielly made this argument cogently, just as former commissioner McDowell had before him.

Still, there is the gnawing concern that, given the way the pieces are deployed on the board right now, it might have been better in the long run if the Republicans had given Wheeler some support for breaking from the Democratic ranks.

Whatever the future may hold, one thing is clear: The final resolution of this matter is nowhere in sight.

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

 

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Nowhere To Hide

Because free speech aficionados like us are attracted to those subjects where even angels fear to tread, let’s talk about Donald Sterling.

The first thing one wants to say is that the guy is a slob.  Indeed, there’s evidence that he’s been a slob for quite some time.  Read, for instance (if you have the stomach for it) an account of the 2003 lawsuit filed against his former mistress–not his more recent one, V. Stiviano, but an earlier flower child named Alexandra Castro.

Indeed, one would be willing to wage a fair amount of money on the proposition that when Sterling passes away, he will do so unwept by anyone.  Whatever joys and beauties this life offers up, Sterling has had, and abused, all of them.

But the question that has been on my mind is this: Is Sterling a slob because of the statements he made, or did he make those statements because he’s a slob?  There is, it seems, a difference worth noting, especially at a time when, because of the growing lack of privacy, anything (including what one might consider the most intimate and confidential conversation) may find its way into widespread distribution.

Consider, for instance, Google glasses, or the even more worrisome prospect of video camera-embedded contact lenses!  What, then, would prevent the recording, editing, and uploading – to sites like Google’s YouTube – of conversations that were recorded and edited, in or out of context, of which the speakers were unaware?

Does there exist any person in the world who has not said something in confidence, or without reflection, or just for effect on the hearer, that he or she would not want bruited about?

As stressed at the beginning, none of this is said in defense of Donald Sterling.  He is of no interest or consequence, whatever becomes of him.  But as reported, on CNN, by First Amendment lawyer Mark Randazzo:

Isn’t it bad enough that the National Security Agency can spy on all of us? How can we complain when we condone giving our friends the ability to do worse – perhaps just to try to destroy us?

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Net Neutrality: Fast Lanes and the Usual Suspects

You can sometimes judge the quality of a thing by those who oppose it.  In the case of FCC Chairman Wheeler’s plan to allow the sale of “fast lanes” by Internet service providers, we have the usual suspects.

There is, for instance, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), about whom it’s impossible to say a single flattering thing, and organizations like Public Knowledge, Common Cause, and Free Press, whose role, these days, is to be the routinely embarrassing coiners of nonsensical slogans like “Net Neutrality: The First Amendment of the Internet.”

So these, and more, have been roused to high dudgeon by a plan that would allow ISPs to give Internet content providers the opportunity to pay more for a speedier route to consumers.  (Oh no, not that!)

The Media Institute has spent a lot of time with “net neutrality,” and we were pleased that under former FCC chairman Genachowski the FCC adopted a “lite” form of it.  But we also said it was a solution in search of a problem, and that the only lasting effect of it would be to set a precedent for regulation of the theretofore unregulated Internet.

Still, judging by the negative reaction to the modest plan offered by Wheeler – a plan that was in direct response to a court order, and that reportedly keeps in place restrictions against all the kinds of dastardly things ISPs were falsely accused of planning to do – there’s a core of people who can’t get away from the “cause.”

One of the more flamboyant of the bunch is former FCC commissioner Michael Copps, who, on the subject, is reported to have relieved himself of this nugget: “If the Commission subverts the Open Internet by creating a fast lane for the 1 percent and slow lanes for the 99 percent, it would be an insult to both citizens and to the promise of the Net.”

Time will tell whether more people think it’s Wheeler’s plan, or Copps’s statement, which is the greater insult.

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Orts and All

Facebook Buys the Oculus Rift.  As mentioned here a few months ago, the video game trade press has been wildly enthusiastic about the development of the VR headset called Oculus Rift.  And why not?  By all reports the OR headset is a significant leap forward in its immersive qualities, thereby providing a more life-like environment.

But there’s a difference between the creation of ever more realistic video games, on the one hand, and the kind of widespread societal change that VR’s enthusiasts predict.  Before VR can affect the way we live, work, and interact, many things will have to come together in addition to the perfection of the technology.

Things like price, availability, the regulatory environment, and widespread consumer interest in spending large amounts of time in the medium would all have to be successfully negotiated before VR could become profoundly life altering, and even then there might arise serious societal problems in consequence.

These caveats aside, however, there’s nothing more promising on the technological horizon than Virtual Reality, a fact that has gained immense corroboration by the news that Facebook has just paid $2 billion in cash and stock to acquire Oculus!

Time will tell whether VR, with or without an Oculus headset, can grow beyond the video game industry, but it’s a telling measure of Facebook’s futuristic thinking, and willingness to take risks, that it has made this investment.

David Brock Does Politico.  If, like millions, you’re unfamiliar with the person, or the even more bizarre life story, of one David Brock, founder of the malevolent outfit called Media Matters for America, you must not be reading Politico.  This, because Politico reporters fall all over themselves chronicling the gentleman’s every move.

Witness, for instance, Politico’s online reportage on March 25, featuring not one but two pieces.  From journalist Maggie Haberman comes an article breathlessly telling us about the “long journey” Brock has heroically taken from being a paid Hillary Clinton nemesis to an ally.

And on the same day, Politico reporter Katie Glueck penned an (unwittingly) hilarious piece in which she reports that Brock urged the end of “political smutmongers,” singling out by example Rand Paul for his criticism of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

David Brock’s Media Matters exists solely to try to silence, by whatever means necessary, conservative media outlets and individuals.  In an earlier age such as this might have earned Brock labels like “jackboot” or “book burner,” but not today, and certainly not in Politico.  So thanks a lot Maggie and Katie.

Sen. Cornyn Opposes Shield Law.  From Breitbart comes word that Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) plans to whip the Republican Caucus in opposition to the Free Flow of Information Act, aka the federal shield law.  Sen. Cornyn argues, as he did last fall, that passage of this legislation would amount to a “licensing” of journalism, and work against the interests of bloggers and conservatives.

Sen. Cornyn is wrong about this, but rather than rehash all the errors in his argument, better just to read the piece (Five Myths About the Federal Shield Law) written by communications lawyer Kurt Wimmer, and published here in October.

                                   

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Keeping It Real: The Oculus Rift and Virtual Reality

In January of this year came news, to excited reviews in gaming publications, of the imminent release of a new Virtual Reality headset called Oculus Rift.  As a headline in a British newspaper put it: “Virtual reality just got real: Could the Oculus Rift change the way we play, work and learn?

The short answer to that question is no.  The Oculus Rift will not, by itself, have that impact, but Virtual Reality, writ large, perhaps could.  The point is that it’s going to take a lot more than sophisticated display gear to do the trick.

In the terrific book Infinite Reality, published just a few years ago, authors Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson assert that Virtual Reality has in recent years “accelerated at an astounding pace,” such that “in a few decades the norms of social interaction, war, education, sex, and relationships will change drastically.”

But if VR is ever to achieve the kind of cultural revolution that its enthusiasts predict, it will have to be marked by a number of things that are not here now, and by conditions that may not obtain even if and when the technology is perfected.

First and foremost, though, is the technological necessity that VR be fully immersive and received by the senses as indistinguishable from real life.  People experience reality through their senses of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste; for VR to be fully immersive it will have to provide at least the first three of these.

This means that people entering virtual reality will need gear (like 3D stereoscopic headsets, and full body, or its equivalent, data suits) that provide (through avatars) representations of themselves and other people that look exactly like real people rather than cartoon characters.  This gear will also have to provide sounds and movement that are perfectly reproduced and, crucially, the ability to feel those things their avatars touch.

One of the more difficult technological problems is called latency, which is the lag time when a person turns his head in VR before the new scene is rendered.  If it happens too slowly the effect is unreal and causes motion sickness.  Indeed, according to an account in the Guardian, some gamers report that even the Oculus Rift induced nausea within 10 minutes of use.

But a dramatic cultural shift would require more than perfect technology: The requisite hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment would have to be widely available and affordable.  If availability or price had the effect of limiting VR just to those places where it’s mostly found now – university labs and certain government facilities, like the Pentagon – VR would fall far short of being a cultural tsunami.

Yet another obvious condition would be whether a sufficient number of people wanted to spend real time in “cyberspace,” the name for VR coined by the brilliant science fiction writer William Gibson.  For widespread cultural effects, large numbers of people would have to spend lots of time in VR.  Otherwise the whole thing might amount to something no more culture- or life-altering than an occasional real-life bungee jump, or white-water rafting trip.

There’s another condition that would have to obtain for VR to be all it could be.  But this one, judging by the literature available, is not so obvious even to the experts.  This condition lies in the nature of the restraints and imperatives, in law and regulation, which governments in the real world will inevitably seek to impose on Virtual Reality.

Whether premised on an asserted need to “protect the children,” or help close the “income inequality” gap, or promote “healthy lifestyles,” there is no chance that governmental bodies will leave VR alone.

Even today, for instance, the national debate over privacy – brought to a head by the overreach of the NSA, and negative effects of social media – is reaching a point where Congress, the courts, and/or agencies like the FCC may soon act.

Assume for a minute, however, that all of the technological, economic, and regulatory issues can be overcome, and that software programmers create worlds that are sufficiently complex and attractive. In that case, one can see how any number of things might take place in Virtual Reality.

Things, for instance, like commerce.  Of course there would need to be a wide variety of services offered and some kind of widely accepted digital currency, with a relatively stable exchange rate in the real world, into dollars, pounds, euros, etc.  Early prototypes of this might be Bitcoins, or the so-called Linden dollars that are used as currency in Second Life.

Other obvious attractions in Virtual Reality would be education, medicine, tourism, and games.  Imagine the growth in the already substantial industry of online gambling.  In a fully immersive VR environment, one’s avatar could look around the table at the other players in search of what gamblers call “tells.”

And then, of course, there is sex.  According to Blascovich and Bailenson there’s a lot of sex going on even today in Second Life, though there’s no sense there of touch, and the environment is just observed on a computer screen.

Imagine what would happen in a deeply immersive virtual world where everyone was beautiful, and where there was a sensation of feeling, through some kind of data suits, in the users’ entire bodies.  As reported in Infinite Reality: “As virtual reality becomes more immersive, virtual sex will become more and more … satisfying.  Indeed, “teledildonics” is an emerging field that incorporates haptic devices, those capable of transmitting virtual touch, into virtual sexual experiences.”

For certain people, and certain applications, Virtual Reality would be overwhelmingly attractive.  Consider, for instance, the handicapped.  In VR a quadriplegic confined in real life to a wheelchair would be able to present himself, through his avatar, as fit and healthy, and in addition be able to experience the sensation of walking and running!

People who will never have the money to travel the actual world could travel virtually not only to places they’ve never been, but also to places that nobody has visited, like the bottom of the sea, or a realistic reconstruction of a long-since destroyed city like Pompeii.

The benefits of VR are vastly – one could say infinitely – more numerous than have been described here. Indeed, one could write hundreds of pages just about the educational benefits alone.  But there would definitely be prospective downsides as would impact individuals and society alike.

This can be inferred by reading the literature, especially the academic books.  In many cases these books read as though they were as much about psychology (social psychology especially), or even philosophy, as about technology.  What is the brain?  How does the brain observe reality?  What is reality?

It’s a short distance from those kinds of questions to the development of ideas about some of the downsides of Virtual Reality.  What happens, for instance, to individuals and/or society if people decide that cyberspace is more attractive than the real world?  When, through their avatars in VR, they are more successful, more beautiful, and more socially connected than they are in the real world?

What happens to their interest in real-life issues like politics and the environment, or in their neighbors and family, when people spend most of their life in cyberspace?

As with most things in life, the actual impact of VR will likely come to rest somewhere in the middle of the range of hypothetical benefits and liabilities.  And for this reason, and also because of the digital handwriting on the wall (as with the extraordinary growth of cell phones, social media, and the Internet), it would be folly to try to stand in the way.  For better or worse, Virtual Reality of some advanced sort is coming our way.

                                               

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

 

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Facebook Jumps Into the Political Fray

The resolution of the flap over campaign ads paid for by a group (Fwd.us) funded by some leading tech barons, most notably Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, is going to be revealing of many things.

Perhaps for the first time the tech industry is giving financial and intellectual support to political campaigns that are bound to attract the enmity of many of the most fanatical people and organizations in the country: nativists, the public education lobby, and environmentalists among them.

The goals of Fwd.us are few but clear.  They want immigration reform, education reform, and support for scientific research.  It doesn’t sound all that radical, but in fact it puts the political neophytes from Silicon Valley directly in the crosshairs of a number of groups, evidence of which has come already via an organized campaign mounted by the Sierra Club in opposition to the campaign ads at issue.

The ads support two U.S. senators, a Republican (Graham) and a Democrat (Begich), both of whom favor immigration reform but who represent deep Red states whose citizens are believed to be hostile to the idea.  So the thrust of the ads is not about immigration, but about the senators’ views on environmental issues.  Graham favors the Keystone pipeline and Begich favors drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

In feverish opposition to this, the Sierra Club and like-minded “progressives” have organized “Dislike” campaigns against Zuckerberg, and held demonstrations outside of Facebook’s headquarters.  Given the cachet that environmentalists enjoy with the press, it’s clear that this campaign is going to create some ripples within Fwd.us, and among some of that organization’s tech industry backers.

So the question is, what will they do?  Will they buckle under the pressure and bad press, or will they dig in and move on?  It is, of course, ironic that the first of the organization’s kerfuffles is with environmentalists, since neither environmentalism (nor anti-environmentalism) is part of the group’s mission statement.

Not so in the case of their stance on public education.  The thrust of the spare language in the Fwd.us statement of principles is unmistakable.  It says they favor “Education reforms that produce more graduates in the science, technology and math fields and ensure all children receive a high quality education from effective teachers and accountable schools” (emphases added).

How, as a practical matter, this will sit with a public education lobby that resists any and all attempts at such reform, even as evidence of its manifest failure is everywhere apparent, is predictable and certain to embroil Fwd.us in other fractious debates.

Finally, there is the issue of immigration reform.  The two most prominent fears associated with the concept are (1) that it amounts to a kind of political power grab, or as Jay Leno quipped, that the new immigrants would go from being illegal aliens to “undocumented Democrats,” and (2) that there would be a huge rise in the social welfare cost of massive new immigration.

These are not irrational fears, but they could be ameliorated by legislative language. Meanwhile, the need for the USA to attract and retain large numbers of immigrants is clear if we are to stay competitive around the world, especially in the area of technology, and if we are to enlarge the work force that will soon be needed to pay for the retirement of millions of baby boomers.

For many years now, the tech industry has operated above and beyond the kind of messy and rancorous issues that the rest of us live with, and that Fwd.us has now engaged. It is a welcome development, but time will tell whether they are up to the challenge.

                                            

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Internet Freedom in Peril

Not for the first time, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell has issued a clarion call to all those interested in maintaining a free and open Internet.

In testimony before the House last week, Comm. McDowell made the following points:

(1)  Proponents of multilateral intergovernmental control of the Internet are patient and persistent incrementalists who will never relent until their ends are achieved;

(2)  The recently concluded World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) ended the era of an international consensus to keep intergovernmental hands off of the Internet in dramatic fashion, thus radically twisting the one-way ratchet of even more governmental regulation in this space;

(3)  Those who cherish Internet freedom must immediately redouble their efforts to prevent further expansions of government control of the Internet as the pivotal 2014 Plenipotentiary meeting of the International Telecommunications Union quickly draws near;

(4)  Merely saying “no” to any changes is – quite obviously – a losing proposition; therefore, we should work to offer alternate proposals such as improving the long-standing and highly successful, non-governmental multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance to include those who may feel disenfranchised; and

(5)  Last year’s bipartisan and unanimous congressional resolutions clearly opposing expansions of international powers over the Internet reverberated throughout the world and had a positive and constructive effect.

Once again, a cogent and persuasive presentation by the FCC’s MFC (Most Favored Commissioner). Read the whole of his testimony here.

                                               

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

 

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Google, the FTC, and ‘Plausible’ Justifiability

Though it was surely not its intention, the Federal Trade Commission’s conclusion last week of its investigation of Google invites the question: What useful function does the FTC serve?

Not content, after two years of investigation on the taxpayers’ dime, to largely look past the mountain of evidence of marketplace harm caused by Google’s search and advertising practices, the Commission compounded that error by declining to issue a formal consent order, leaving it in the hands of Google itself, without the prospect of penalty, to change some of its business practices.

As even Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch said in his statement of concurrence and dissent, the FTC’s “settlement” with Google “creates very bad precedent and may lead to the impression that well-heeled firms such as Google will receive special treatment at the Commission.”

In elaboration of his dissent from the settlement procedure, Comm. Rosch added this:

Instead of following standard Commission procedure and entering into a binding consent agreement to resolve the majority’s concerns, Google has instead made non-binding commitments with respect to its search practices….

Our settlement with Google is not in the form of a binding consent order and, as a result, the Commission cannot enforce it by initiating contempt proceedings.  The inability to enforce Google’s commitments through contempt proceedings is particularly problematic given that the Commission has charged Google with violating a prior consent agreement.

What Comm. Rosch delicately calls “special treatment,” the more cynical of us would recognize as political influence peddling, a practice that Google has become quite adept at employing.  First it bankrolled the codification, at the Federal Communications Commission, of “net neutrality” regulations, thereby providing a solution to a nonexistent problem; then it led the successful opposition to the PIPA and SOPA copyright bills, the better to protect its investment in YouTube; now it has neutered the FTC, with the consequence being that it can continue to game its search results in ways that favor companies it controls.

So how has Google managed such political feats?  Well, would you believe that money has played a role?  In the FTC investigation alone Google reportedly spent some $25 million lobbying the matter.  To give an idea of the magnitude of this kind of spending, it equals 10 percent of the FTC’s total annual budget of $250 million.

But in addition to its FTC-specific lobbying, it’s well known that Google has cast its lot, through munificent campaign contributions and public policy support, with the current administration. Though it failed to come to pass, there was undoubtedly substance to the rumor that Google’s Eric Schmidt was being considered for a cabinet post in the Obama Administration.

Even so, there is evidence that the FTC commissioners know what they have done.  Their concluding statement about Google’s search practices, for instance, displays an almost comical defensiveness as they contend that, even if Google’s search practices favor its own companies, that is arguably okay:

In sum, we find that the evidence presented at this time does not support the allegation that Google’s display of its own vertical content at or near the top of its search results page was a product design change undertaken without a legitimate business justification.  Rather, we conclude that Google’s display of its own content could plausibly (emphases added) be viewed as an improvement in the overall quality of Google’s search product….  Although at points in time various vertical websites have experienced demotions, we find that this was a consequence of algorithm changes that also could plausibly be viewed as an improvement in the overall quality of Google’s search results….

Although our careful review of the evidence in this matter supports our decision to close this investigation, we will remain vigilant and continue to monitor Google for conduct that may harm competition and consumers.

Such limp-wristed rhetoric aside, there is a chance that Google will be brought to heel, just not by American authorities.  As it happens, the European Commission has also been investigating Google’s misdeeds, and the odds are good that, lacking the kind of political clout in Europe that it has in the USA, the company may actually receive from the Europeans something more than just a slap on the wrist.  On Dec. 18 the Commission gave the company 30 days to provide it with proposals to settle its complaints, something that could cost Google billions if it fails to do so.

Whatever the Europeans do, however, there remains the FTC’s foozled play, well put in a Bloomberg News editorial:

The FTC missed an opportunity to explore publicly one of the paramount issues of our day: Is Google abusing its role as gatekeeper to the digital economy?  Lawmakers, economists, other regulators, and consumers should all be in on this important debate over whether Google is leveraging its overwhelming dominance of search into unassailable market power in other areas. 

                                               

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.