Putin's Russia has many flaws, but it is not Stalin's Soviet Union.
Returning to cyber sabotage: it is not the only threat to the progressive internet. Privatization, counter-terrorism (e.g., the USA PATRIOT ACT), an end to the "open access" rules in place since the invention of the telephone -- all these devices and more could shut down internet dissent. I so argued in my September, 2003 essay, "After the Internet", an updated version of which follows below.
So how might a Trump "Ministry of Truth" and the corporate-GOP-media complex suppress dissenting progressive internet opinion? To begin, through,
Privatization:
There appears to be significant movement in this direction.
The primary obstacle to restriction via privatization is "the open access" or "common carrier rules." Not long after Alex Bell called for Mr. Watson, it was decided that there would be no restrictions on the use of the telephone system. Accordingly, the telephone network has always been open to all users, and the telephone companies have been forbidden to interfere with the message or to restrict its access to anyone.
Because the government is showing no interest (yet!) in abolishing common carrier rules for the phone system, all appears fine and dandy as far as the dial-up networking is concerned.
However, there are no such assurances for broadband internet access: DSL, cable and satellite. In 2003, FCC chairman Michael Powell along with a majority of FCC commissioners, with the enthusiastic endorsement of the cable industry, were eager to lift common carrier rules from cable and DSL transmission.
Accordingly, Karen Charman of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) wrote at the time:
If the Bush administration lets large media conglomerates and local telephone companies have their way, the Internet as we know it -- that free-flowing, democratic, uncensored information superhighway -- could soon be a thing of the past.
The internet itself is not going away. Rather, technological advances, changes to the rules governing its use and the continued consolidation of media empires are combining to turn it into a conduit of commerce, booby-trapped with barriers and incentives designed to keep users where dollars can be wrung from them. As a result, a lot of freely accessible information and websites may become difficult or impossible to access, hindering the efforts of those posting that information to reach others.
And Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy wrote:
The Internet's promise as a new medium -- where text, audio, video and data can be freely exchanged -- is under attack by the corporations that control the public's access to the net, as they see opportunities to monitor and charge for the content people seek and send. (c. 2003, link lost).
The motives for this transformation are not simply political -- not merely an attempt to "FOX-ify" the internet. Rather, the internet is seen by commercial interests as an underutilized money-machine, which means that the internet may soon suffer the fate of broadcast spectrum, which was originally designated, not as a commercial enterprise, but as a common "public resource." And so, Jeff Chester continues:
... This business model will erect high economic and technical barriers to entry for non-commercial and public interest uses of the high-speed internet, threatening civic discourse, artistic expression and non-profit communications. In moving to implement this highly centralized vision for broadband, the cable industry does not simply ignore the democratic and competitive history of the Internet -- it is actively hostile to it.
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