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Web Thinkers Warn of Culture Clash

Posted by Hemos on from the battle-of-the-titans-like-see dept.

Passacaglia writes "The Washington Post is carrying an article describing some stimulating discussion from the Internet Society meeting this week, including comments from Vinton Cerf, Eric Schmidt, about the clash between freedom and commercial interests."

4 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. There's no clash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You want freedom, we want to sell it to you.

  2. Culture of openness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The medium which we affectionately refer to as "the internet" never had a culture of openness. It is a technocracy. Those who operate the communication lines say what goes over them. It has always been that way and those who have differing views of what the network should be used for have experienced how far from open that situation can be. The problem is not so much that "freedom of the press belongs to those who own the press", it is that very few own a press, metaphorically speaking.

  3. Bandwidth is the key by The+Cat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Companies are inhibiting innovation, Cerf said, by letting users receive information faster than they can send it.

    This is the most important statement in the article. Bandwidth is the main component of every Internet policy discussion. Upstream is probably at least as important as downstream. To seperate the two significantly is an attempt to confine people to the role of consumer: i.e. "stay on the couch."

    Upstream bandwidth allows people to become *producers* too, which is a good thing(tm).

  4. Organized Crime, and Interesting Links by peatbakke · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The article doesn't go into much detail about the discussions, and leaves a lot of questionable assertions dangling. For example, the claim that "Going too far one way would restrict freedom of choice, while the opposite could foster organized crime." The more you restrict freedom of choice, the more actions become criminal. And doesn't organize crime really take a foothold when undue restrictions are imposed upon the masses? The Prohibition in the United States is/was a pretty stark example.

    That aside, check out the conference website for a full list of the subjects they're covering. You might also be interested in reading an interesting report from the US National Research Council and Eric Schmidt (the CEO of Google) about how the Internet is growing up, so to speak.