Comments on: No Motrin Moms effect on CRTC’s decision on net neutrality

By: robcottingham

robcottingham — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:25:19 +0000

There’s also the relative immediacy of the issues. In one case, you had mothers who felt personally insulted by an ad — and over something very profound (the integrity of their mothering). In the other, you had a complex issue that still hasn’t really penetrated the public consciousness, and still feels abstract to a lot of the people we need to reach.

Making net neutrality more immediate and more personally relevant is a big challenge. But it’s a hurdle we have to jump if we’re ever going to have a movement bigger than that great handful of policy wonks and activists currently advancing the cause.

By the way, I’m not sure if 10th was making this point, but there’s a challenge for anyone involved in social change: it can be easier to mobilize people around an issue you might not think has great significance than one that can be enormously important but feels distant and impersonal. It took decades to get a movement built around climate change, and you can still get a crowd out against the seal hunt faster than you can around, say, plankton die-off.

Frustrating? Maybe. But there’s a big silver lining in that cloud. Social capital is finally making a comeback, and to the extent that people are mobilizing around ANY issue, we’re building up the muscles we need for an engaged civil society.

By: Karilyn

Karilyn — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:23:35 +0000

I think it might be a matter just not much exposure, sadly. Most of the hits on this story are all coming from Canadian outlets, and a lot of people south of the border just might not know about it.
The FCC went through a similar case in August, but ruled against the telecom giant – maybe a lot of people feel like they already fought their battle and won it.

By: Raul

Raul — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:53:28 +0000

@ Brian – Agreed – we need to educate ourselves more on what the issues are at stake.

@ Rebecca – I was the one who posed the hypotheses, and I only a few, not all of them. I posed them as they came to my mind. Another hypothesis (that you must mentioned now) is that while things are happening AND bloggers are writing about them, exposure DOES need to be ramped up.

By: miss604

miss604 — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:44:23 +0000

I’m pretty offended that people are saying bloggers don’t care.

I get at least one message a week on Facebook about Fair Copyright Canada’s news, updates and events. (See also National Digital Media Day where I did a 18-hour crusade across the Lower Mainland in the name of digital media in Canada).

I think people may not be aware about all of these activities (or they’re just looking in the wrong place online for the info).

Things are happening, yes. People are blogging about them, yes. However, does the exposure need to be ramped up? Definitely.

By: Brian LeRoux

Brian LeRoux — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:42:17 +0000

I think the deeper issue is one of ignorance on the part of our more visible representatives. People don’t fully recognize what Net Neutrality is.

Throttling bandwidth means the telcos are monitoring the nature of that bandwidth: which protocols you are using to transfer data.

In other words, they are spying on our traffic.

If lose of privacy doesn’t bother you then consider that the ability to throttle is only a small step from creating a tiered system. Pay more money to get a faster connection. Even worse models have been experimented with such as injected advertising (Rogers did this).

Manufactured scarcity.

We need to stop viewing the internet as a service and start viewing it as the public resource that it is.