Facts in MCLU press release?
I saw an article about a net neutrality law being proposed in Maine, I came across a press release by the Maine Civil Liberties Union. I came across two whoppers that deserve to be pointed out:
Computer professionals, free speech advocates and Maine business representatives have joined forces to call on the Maine State Legislature to restore Network Neutrality principles in this state.
Restore? If there is a “principle” to be found behind net neutrality, it’s “government regulation.” Net neutrality advocates are not just arguing for a neutral internet, they are arguing for the government force to enforce a neutral internet. Federal and state government have yet to pass a net neutrality law, so how can they restore something that never existed?
Already, Network providers have begun to engage in content and user discrimination Last year, BellSouth denied access to Myspace.com in Tennessee and Florida. That same year, Cox Cable blocked its customers from accessing the online classified site Craigslist.com.
I hadn’t heard of these examples of ISP’s blocking content, especially because of a business conflict with the content providers, so I looked into it. And sure enough, these weren’t examples of ISP’s blocking content for any reason other than incompetence and incorrect filtering settings (try reading here, here, here, and here). Technically, the MCLU isn’t lying when they say that content was blocked by an ISP in those cases, but they don’t explain why and just leave it to the reader to assume it was for some nefarious reason.
But would net neutrality even stop problems like the examples the MCLU gave? No. With or without net neutrality, companies are still run by people and people are still capable of error.
Update 5/14/2007:
To their credit, the MCLU has contacted me to let me know they are looking into some of the questions I raised about their post.
Update 6/20/2007:
Nevermind! I haven’t read any word related to the facs they said they were looking into, or any edits to the release.
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