01.16.14

Cable/Media Companies’ Conflict in Reporting (and Rupert Murdoch Really Hates Net Neutrality!)

Posted in America at 10:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: How the large cable companies, which also control the corporate (mainstream) media in many cases (or receive funds from the same sources), deceive the public on net neutrality

COVERAGE THAT we have found about net neutrality in the corporate media (media which is also in the business of cable, e.g. Comcast/CBS) has been superficial and deceiving, but almost nobody was as biased as Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, as we already noted yesterday. Propagators of “trickle-down” and “free market” nonsense are truly happy this week, but they try to at least appear as though they’re sympathetic with the public and they cannot just ignore the news (it would harm their perceived legitimacy). A lot of good coverage from bloggers and online rights groups is virtually being drowned out by disinformation from the corporate media. This is very bad. It may also affect a similar crossroad in Europe [1], which also debates net neutrality these days.

Consider decent coverage like [2-7] and then consider the corporate media doing its coverup [8-11] (ranging in strategy from defeatism to misinformation). The whole episode shows that by moving from the analogue world to digital we are actually losing our freedom [12] because corporations take over (e.g. MPAA in W3C).

The most disgusting coverage continues to come from Murdoch’s biggest publications. He continues his assault net neutrality with biased coverage [13], having recently acquired yet more news sources [14], and even used his propaganda channel, Fox ‘news’, to beam out endorsement of Obama assassination [15]. How can anyone get away with this? It seems like nothing, even crime like cracking a dead girl’s phone, can put such oligarchs in jail, ever. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. EU Parliament Committee on “Civil Liberties” Must Address Free Expression in Anti-Net Neutrality Proposal

   A few weeks before a crucial vote on the future European Regulation on the Single Market of telecommunication in Civil Liberties (LIBE) committee, La Quadrature du Net just sent the following email to all the members of this committee, inviting them to propose strong amendments in favour of fundamental rights to the lead committee on this dossier, the Industry (ITRE) committee.

2. Will Net Neutrality Ruling Doom Education to Second-Class Status?

   The ruling this week by a federal court on the Open Internet (Net Neutrality) Order may turn out to be, as one commenter called it, “a terrible idea,” or, as another observer put it, a source of “a lot of overheated rhetoric.” Education, for its part, could well see major changes to how it’s able to deliver learning content to students online while at the same time positioning itself to become a major alternative supplier of broadband in this country.

3. Net neutrality: We need a hero, from the unlikeliest of places

4. As Expected, Court Strikes Down FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules: Now What?

   Almost everyone I’ve spoken to (on both sides of the net neutrality debate) more or less expected the ruling that came down this morning in the DC circuit, in which the appeals court struck down the FCC’s net neutrality rules because the the FCC had no mandate under the rules it used to issue that ruling. Basically, this is exactly what lots of us said at the start of this whole process. I’ve seen a bunch of reports overreacting to this today, from people saying that it’s “the death of the internet.” It’s not. There are problems on both sides here. The telcos absolutely do want to abuse things to effectively double charge both sides. And that could clearly create significant issues with the basic end-to-end nature of the internet.

5. Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

6. US kills net neutrality, will it curb innovation?

7. Wolverton: Say goodbye to the Internet we’ve known

8. The Internet As We Know It Is In Peril. The FCC Can (And Must) Save It

   When the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order Tuesday—dealing what is being broadly interpreted as a fatal blow to net neutrality— it highlighted the urgent need for the FCC to develop a smarter and more assertive approach to protecting citizens and consumers in the digital age.

9. Net neutrality is dead. Bow to Comcast and Verizon, your overlords

   The court did leave it up to the FCC or Congress to refashion a net neutrality regime. The new FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, has made noises favoring net neutrality, but he also sounds like someone who’s not so committed to the principle.

10. Why you should care about Net neutrality (FAQ)

11. Net Neutrality Quashed: New Pricing Schemes, Throttling, and Business Models to Follow

    A court loss for “net neutrality” could mean either a new era of innovation or preferential treatment and higher costs.

12. Study: Internet erodes democratic protections

    Claims that the internet will “democratize” the global village are not supported by research published in the International Journal of Electronic Governance. Instead, non-democratic governments simply exploit the networks to spy on and control their citizens more effectively and efficiently than they did before.

13. A Victory for an Unfettered Internet

14. Storyful social media firm bought by Rupert Murdoch

    Rupert Murdoch’s media company NewsCorp has bought Storyful, an Irish “social media news agency”.

    The Dublin-based firm has been acquired for $25 million (£15.3m).

    Storyful specialises in licensing and distributing social media content to major news organisations such as the Wall Street Journal and BBC.

15. Fox’s Benghazi Expert Endorsed Assassinating Obama Last Week

    Days after he wrote a column endorsing the assassination of President Obama, Fox hosted Michael Scheuer to accuse Hillary Clinton of effectively murdering the Americans who died during the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

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