FC: Groups demand online "public spaces" at 5/9 event in DC

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Mon May 07 2001 - 10:58:04 PDT

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "FC: Timothy McVeigh, muzzled by U.S. government, speaks via the Net"

    [And a response at the end from our very own Lizard. --DBM]
    
    ********
    
    Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 13:24:43 -0400
    To: declanat_private
    From: Jeff Chester <jeffat_private>
    Subject: another do-gooder event
    
    You may want to let your list know about.  Best and thanks
    
    
    The Future of Noncommercial Broadband Communications at Risk
    
    Preserving the Internet's Openness, Freedom, and Diversity
    
             Speakers include Rep. Ed Markey, FTC Commissioner Mozelle 
    Thompson, Dave Farber, Lawrence Lessig, other experts
    
    Dear Colleague:
    
    The Center for Digital Democracy and the Center for Media Education 
    cordially invites you to participate in a conference on the future of the 
    Internet in the broadband era on Wednesday, 9 May 2001, at the Carnegie 
    Endowment for International Peace (1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC).
    The Net is at an important crossroads, and we may soon lose meaningful 
    access to this new medium.   Such a development will negatively impact our 
    civil liberties, limit diversity of information and ownership, harm our 
    ability to inform and advocate online, and restrict competition. The public 
    interest broadband conference will describe how the media industry giants 
    are restructuring the digital media system, fashioning a system that 
    extends their control over the media beyond television to the 
    Internet.  Instead of an open network, media conglomerates are spending 
    billions to create what they call "walled gardens," but which are really 
    new forms of electronic enclosures designed to ensure that they will 
    continue to dominate the media system.
    Unless they act soon, nonprofit organizations will find it difficult to 
    operate in an online environment that favors big business over small, 
    e-commerce over e-democracy, and public relations over public service. 
    That's why it's important to begin exploring new means of collective action 
    in the online world, new ways of preserving space for noncommercial, 
    public-interest programming, and for directing traffic to the sources of 
    information and interactivity that will prove vital to our society in the 
    twenty-first century.
    Additional speakers will include: Dr. Patricia Aufderheide, American 
    University,  Timothy Denton, attorney, Canadian Association of Internet 
    Providers, Stewart Harris,  Public Webworks, Stephen Heins, Northnet, and 
    Barry Steinheart, ACLU.
    Please join us in discussing these important issues, and in exploring 
    further collaboration in the broadband era:
    
    9 May 2001
    9:00 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
    Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
    1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW
    Washington D.C. 20036-2103
    RSVP: 202-232-2872
    Agoldmanat_private
    Seating is limited.
    Lunch will be provided
    
    The conference is made possible through the generous support of the Center 
    for the Public Domain, the Albert A. List Foundation, and the J. Roderick 
    MacArthur Foundation.
    
    *********
    
    Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 10:41:59 -0700
    From: lizard <lizardat_private>
    To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private>
    
     >The Future of Noncommercial Broadband Communications at Risk
     >
     >Preserving the Internet's Openness, Freedom, and Diversity
     >
     >         Speakers include Rep. Ed Markey, FTC Commissioner Mozelle
     > Thompson, Dave Farber, Lawrence Lessig, other experts
     >
     >Dear Colleague:
     >
     >The Center for Digital Democracy and the Center for Media Education
     >cordially invites you to participate in a conference on the future of the
     >Internet in the broadband era on Wednesday, 9 May 2001, at the Carnegie
     >Endowment for International Peace (1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington 
    DC).
    
    <deletia>
    
    Since cyberspace is infinite -- add another hard disk, and you 'create
    space', whence cometh the need to 'preserve space'?
    
    Rather, it seems, the folks behind this want to preserve their OWN
    'walled gardens' -- the internet equivalents of PBS and NPR, which exist
    to serve the elite but which are funded by the masses. I assure you, the
    'public spaces' they desire to build will not contain TRULY
    non-mainstream content. They will not host the Nuremberg Files, NAMBLA,
    Stormfront, Bonsaikittens, or the like. They will host the mainstream
    non-mainstream, the sort of stuff acceptable to academics, rich
    liberals, and corporate donors.
    
    I challenge any of those speaking at this conference to say, directly,
    "We wish to use public tax dollars to guarantee that Nazis and NAMBLA
    will always have web space." Do any of them dare do this? I doubt it.
    
    cc'ed to Mr/Ms Goldman.
    
    *********
    
    
    
    
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