Net Neutrality. Not to be confused with Net Openness.
And certainly not with Right to Be Forgotten.
And clearly not to be mixed up with entitlement to dump on anyone anonymously or otherwise.
And without a doubt has nothing to do with the proliferation of hate sites and terrorist-create-your-own-apocalypse postings.
Although, many are confusing Net Neutrality with whatever "digital rights" soapbox they are preaching from -- further confusing the issue and possibly obfuscating the real dangers we should be concerned with.
In fact, Net Neutrality, as it has come to mean, is actually a rather boring subject and seems downright DUH when you understand it -- certainly in light of so many of the other issues swirling around what has become an axiom of our age -- full and unfettered access to the digital highway.
My dear friend Shelly Palmer, in his Sunday blog of November 16, provides the best and most articulate/understandable discussion of US President Obama's recent Net Neutrality pronouncement. Read it -- worth the time.
I also suggest that you check out whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality to read the full intent of the US president -- although I believe that the title "Plan for a Free and Open Internet" is both misleading and self-serving... and feeds my case in point.
I will let you battle out the implications, but thanks to my friend Robert Kissel for sharing one:
When you boil it all down, one has to ask: In a time of human development where 2-year-olds are using the same tool as 80-plus-year-olds; where free software can accomplish in seconds, in your hand, what a world full of hardware couldn't do in weeks only 30 or so years ago; where apps give us direct access and functionality to digital services and information that once required click after Internet click -- WHY WOULD I WANT A GOVERNMENT THAT HAD TROUBLE DEVELOPING A SIMPLE, OLD-FASHIONED WEBSITE TO WEIGH IN ON ANYTHING THAT AFFECTED MY USAGE...
So there is that as well.
However, I would posit that the most important Internet/digital communication event of the century -- the one that was meant to break it all -- possibly sums up all the issues and makes the case better than anything any of us could ever write or say: You know of course that I am referring to the full and open and unfettered unveiling of Kim Kardashian's rather ample derrière.
Think about the issues it champions like freedom of speech; think of the subjects it raises like privacy; think about the problems it creates for parents and those worried about the proliferation of religiously inappropriate content.
For more, follow the link.
However, also think about how core it could be to voicing the government's argument. Imagine the amount of data that was required to transmit that image and how so many people around the world were slowed down in their shopping pursuits as Kim's keister digitally mooned us around the globe.
At the end of the day, "hats off" -- or maybe pants off -- to KK for her, dare I say, "tongue in cheek" parody of us all.
And let's make sure that we reduce Net Neutrality to a simple -- or maybe not-so-simple...
Bottom...
Line...
We need to make sure that in pursuit of a greater good we don't get lost in other issues that might seem related and important but will only cloud and deflect.
Listen:
When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remind yourself your initial objective was to drain the swamp. - Unknown
I don't think that quote needs any more comments.
What do you think?