The Griffon News

By Tim Person

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Campaign Director of savetheinternet.com Timothy Karr spoke on Wednesday to a lecture hall full of students at Rutgers University, warning them about the dangers that the Internet is facing. He described how Congress was considering passing laws — backed by billions of corporate dollars — that would abandon “net neutrality.”

He spoke about his organization, savetheinternet.com, which was engaged in a fight to prevent the change from occurring, and showed students how they could help.

Karr explained how the organization is a subdivision of the broader freepress.net. Since 2002, a coalition of individuals from freepress.net has been working to save the Internet.

They work to spread awareness about what they believe are serious threats to the Internet’s survival as a tool for communication and democracy.

Karr narrated a PowerPoint presentation that covered some of the history of mass communication and then centered the discussion on the Internet. Net neutrality — which he referred to as “the first amendment of the Internet” - - is the way the Web is currently configured. It is a free and open playing field where the Web sites of large, powerful companies must compete for the public’s attention with bloggers and YouTube.

This atmosphere — which, according to savetheinternet.com, is good for small business and is an unprecedented platform for free speech — is also fertile ground for innovation. Upstarts with great ideas — like Google, eBay and MySpace — have grown into business giants on the strength of public support. This could all go away over time if net neutrality is removed, Karr said.

Internet service providers and other corporate giants have expressed the desire to remove neutrality from the Internet, and have spent fortunes on Capitol Hill trying to get the obstacles removed.

They want to be able to charge Web sites for providing service to them.

In other words, the Web sites that load the fastest will be the ones that can pay the most. In an interview with Business Week Online, Ed Whitacre, CEO of SBC Communications, said, “Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can’t be free in that sense.”

ISPs such as Verizon would also begin to favor themselves if neutrality were to be removed.

“Verizon could block or slow access to iTunes, so you will have to use their music store instead of Apple’s,” Karr said.

So what has savetheinternet.com done to stem the landslide of money and influence? The stated purpose of freepress.net is to “engage the public in media policy debates.” They have been trying to keep the interests of mass media conglomerates from influencing policy makers in Washington to the point where the Internet is no longer neutral.

In an effort to spread the word, the activists for the issue inundated MySpace, Facebook, the streets outside senators’ offices and the mailboxes of those senators with protest. Karr estimated elected officials have received 1.5 million letters on the topic from concerned citizens.

The 2006 Congress came to a close without any legislation in favor of removing neutrality from the Internet.

“They (corporations) didn’t count on the public understanding the issue and getting mad,” Karr said.

Karr described to the students in Scott Hall on Rutgers’ College Avenue campus how the mass media is a vital tool to a healthy democracy.