Posted by: Noël Jones
This is a must-see video on net neutrality and how it is already over. Our key word searches are no longer freely accessing information for us--Google and others are deciding what you get to find when you search. Identical searches by two people in different locations render completely different results now. This is a major change that directly affects our freedom to access information, and information is power.
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4 comments:
i seriously hope people are watching this video, because this is a major issue affecting all of the lives of those who own computers and use them to do internet searches--your information is being tailored to you when you search now--trying to anticipate what analog formulas think you'll WANT to see rather than giving you access to ALL info. this is a major problem for anyone trying to do any serious research on ANYTHING.
Another example of the corporate state (aka corporate person-hood) deciding what is best for real human individuals without their explicit consent. More alarming is the government regulatory complicity in deciding that corporations are more "equal" than we are and can get away with anything.
Another domino in the collapse of a free, self-governing American society.
DRL
On further examination of this TED speech I would point out the diminishing returns of technology are revealing themselves quicker and in more ways than the tech lovers want to admit.
The more they try to take the human factor out of these devices and processes the less truly helpful they become - in fact, in many cases (especially as related to corporate entities) they are actually externalizing their negative outcomes to the public in exchange for making their own lives easier and/or cheaper.
DRL
what concerns me the most is that an internet that offered free and equal access to information for all, has, as of this year, become something that corporations have the right/ability to limit access to--cable providers have the right/ability to choke bandwidth, and only provide fast speeds to those that can afford to pay the most, and corporations like Google have the right/ability now to decide for you what information you do and don't need to see when you do a keyword search.
so for instance, if someone in PA and someone else in NM decide to Google "fracking for natural gas" Google can decide that the person in PA doesn't need to know that they're having water contamination issues in NM from natural gas drilling, and vice versa. imagine what this does in terms of research--for school, for journalism, for self-education.
this is called the Information Age for a reason. it's because information is our most valuable resource/commodity and therefore the basis of power today. when you restrict citizens' access to information, you strip them of their power--their power to self-educate, to research, to organize.
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