some ranting & some food for thought.. ------- Forwarded Message Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 02:36:59 -0800 From: "J. Orlin Grabbe" <kalliste@aci.net> To: snetnews@world.std.com Subject: SNET: [Fwd: [OT] Information Highway: CLOSED?] - -> SearchNet's SNETNEWS Mailing List This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - --------------595A704A5EC1CF912EEA531B Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit - --------------595A704A5EC1CF912EEA531B Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Path: news.alt.net!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!newsadm From: Bill Nalty <CBasher@worldnet.att.net> Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater Subject: [OT] Information Highway: CLOSED? Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 13:59:27 -0600 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Message-ID: <67jsg3$bbb@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net> Reply-To: CBasher@worldnet.att.net NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.65.209.91 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0C-WorldNet (Win95; I) For education and discussion. Not for commercial use. tf mag January 1998 A Not So Hidden Agenda ... Closing the Information Highway By Richard K. Moore Domination of cyberspace is mission-critical for the masters of globalization By RICHARD K. MOORE Propaganda is an essential mechanism in democracy. It's the primary means by which the elite insure that their interests aren't overwhelmed by the "excesses of democracy" and "mob rule." In the see-saw struggle for power, ownership of media - to influence opinion and government policies - has always been used to advantage by economic elites. Popular movements also have effectively used the media, from time to time, but in today's concentrated media industry, elite control over public opinion is, essentially, total. So total that just as a fish isn't aware of water, it's easy to forget how constrained the scope of public debate has become. Even opposition to the status quo is channeled and deflected by media emphasis, as with the US militia movements, the Perot and Buchanan candidacies, and European nationalist movements. All these are used to "define" anti-globalist sentiment as reactionary, isolationist, Luddite, and racist. Demonization of government and politicians - in fact, blaming government for problems caused by globalism and excessive corporate influence - is perhaps the single most potent coup of mind-control media in undermining democratic institutions and promoting globalism. REVISION BY OMISSION Globalization itself exemplifies media propaganda's potency. The rhetoric of neoliberalism, with its "reforms," "market forces," and "smaller government," isn't just a "position" within public debate. It frames debate. Politicians rarely question whether to embrace globalization, but compete to espouse national policies accommodating it. As media is globalized and concentrated, it's no surprise that globalization propaganda is one of its primary products. Whether the vehicle is a feature film, network news, advertisement, panel discussion, or sit-com, the presumed inevitability of the market- forces system and the bankruptcy of existing political arrangements comes through - even when the future's dark side is portrayed. The barrage's success is especially amazing given the utter bankruptcy of the neoliberal philosophy. The experience of the robber-baron era is simply forgotten in public memory. In true Orwellian fashion, we're told that market forces and deregulation are "modern" efficiencies, the brilliant result of state-of-the-art economic genius. As a consequence of this historical revision by omission, we rarely hear that these policies have been tried before and found sorely wanting - that they prompted economic instability, monopolized markets, cyclical depressions, political corruption, worker exploitation, and social depravity. Nor do we hear about how generations of reform were required to re-introduce competition into markets, stabilize the financial system, and institute more equitable employer/employee relations. In fact, regulatory regimes created a generally reasonable accommodation between interests of the elite and the people. But, because of media propaganda, everyone now "knows" that regulations are just the counter-productive ego-trips of well- or ill-meaning politico-bureaucrats with nothing better to do than interfere in other people's business. Today's "reforms" dismantle reforms which moderated decades of market abuse. Yet, old wine can be presented in new vessels. As long as the message is repeated enough and facts that don't fit are never aired, the public can swallow it. IMAGE CONTROL The mass media is the front line of corporate globalist control. This adds extra urgency to the pace of global media concentration. The central importance of corporate-dominated mass media to the globalization process, and to elite control generally, must be remembered when predicting the Internet culture's fate once commercial cyberspace comes online. The mass media's treatment of cyberspace and the Internet to date lends some portending insights. Two quite different images are typically presented, one commercially-oriented and the other not. The first, frequently seen in fiction or futuristic documentaries, focuses on the excitement of cyber adventures, the thrill of virtual reality, and the promise of myriad online enterprises. This commercially- oriented image has a positive spin. Suddenly every product and organization on the block has a www.My.Logo.com, often with only symbolic utility. Madison Avenue is selling cyberspace, pre-establishing a mass-market demand for its future commercial version. The other image presents sinister hackers, wacko bomb conspirators, and luring pedophiles. Those who use the Net daily find such stories ludicrous and unrepresentative, but because we dismiss them, we may not realize that's about all the general population hears about today's Internet. The infamous Time article on cyberporn, for example, was pure demonization propaganda, and standard procedures were surreptitiously violated to get it printed. The effect wasn't undone by subsequent mild apologies. A recent US regulatory initiative (actually a censorship attempt), whose passage was assisted by that well-timed article, was fortunately rejected by the US Supreme Court. But the defamation campaign continues. The relationship between cyberspace and democracy is complex. Internet culture enables a renaissance of open public discussion - a peek at more open democratic process. But a tiny minority of the world's population experiences this phenomenon, which may not survive the commercial onslaught. On the contrary, as universal transport for mass media products, cyberspace may deliver even more sophisticated manipulation of public opinion. Rather than the realization of the democratic dream, cyberspace may become the ultimate Big Brother nightmare. When most significant events involve online transactions, and backdoors are built into encryption algorithms and communications switches, everyone's every move will be an open book to those holding the keys to the net's nervous system. From the accounting records alone, there would be a complete trail of activity, and the privacy of this information (from government, police, credit bureaus, advertisers, direct mailers, political strategists, etc.) is far from guaranteed. Systematic massive surveillance by government agencies would be easy. There's even the possibility of surreptitiously gathering audio and video signals from home sets presumed to be "off," and remote overriding of home security systems or automobile functions. Mandatory chip- based ID cards or implants may sound fanciful, but the number of initiatives in those directions worldwide is alarming. In short, cyberspace could become the ideal instrument of power for the globalist elite, giving precise scientific control over what gets distributed to whom, and full monitoring of everything everyone does. Some may insist, "It can't happen here." I would ask, "What is there to stop it?" Corporate domination of information flows is inherent to the globalization process. UTOPIA FOR THE FEW You can think of digitial cyberspace as an utopian realm, where all communication wishes can be granted. But who will run it? Net users tend to assume we'll use it for our creative purposes, just as with the Internet. But others have designs on it, too. We're willing to pay a few cents per hour, while complaining about usage charges, and our need for really high per-user bandwidth is unproven. The media industry, in contrast, can bring a huge existing traffic into cyberspace, with much higher value-per-transaction than e-mail, and bandwidth-gobbling web. We want to pay commodity prices, while the media industry willingly pays whatever it takes - passing on costs to consumers.
From a purely economic perspective, the media's interests could be expected to dominate the rules of the road. But economic considerations may not decide cyberspace rules. Continued mass media domination of information distribution is necessary for the media to play its accustomed role as shepherd of public opinion. This is mission-critical to the globalization process and elite societal control.
The mechanisms of domination include concentrated infrastructure ownership, licensing bureaucracies, information property rights, libel laws, pricing structures, creation of artificial distribution scarcity, and "public interest" censorship rules. These tactics have been refined throughout the life of electronic media technology, starting with radio, and their use can be expected as part of cyberspace commercialization. Signs of these tactics are already evident. The US Internet backbone has been privatized; consolidation of ownership is beginning in Telecom and in ISP services; WIPO (World Information Property Organization) is setting down overly-restrictive global copyright rules, which the US is embellishing with draconian criminal penalties; content restrictions are cropping up, boosted by anti-Internet propaganda; pricing is being turned over increasingly to "market forces" (where traditional predatory practices can operate); chilling libel precedents are being set; and moves are afoot to centralize domain-name registration, beginning what appears to be a slippery slide toward ISP licensing. And these are still early days in commercialization. Consider the US Telecom Reform Bill of 1996. Theoretically, it encourages "increased competition." But consolidation is permitted both horizontally and vertically: A telco can expand its territory, and be sold/merged with content (media) companies. Prices and the definition of services are determined by "the market." There's also a transition period, during which it must be determined that "competition is occurring." After that, it becomes a more or less laissez-faire ball game, in a climate of deregulation and lack of anti-trust enforcement. There's no going back, no guarantee that if competition fades, regulation will return. Just as the media industry is vertically integrated (owning its own distribution infrastructure), so it will seek telecom acquisitions as the digital network nears implementation. Following awesome merger wars among huge conglomerates, a single media-communications mega-industry, dominated by a clique of vertically-integrated majors, is likely to emerge. Regulation will indeed govern cyberspace but - in accordance with the globalist paradigm - it will be regulation by and for the cartel. CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTION Monopolization is about creating an all-the-traffic- will-bear marketplace. This operates today, for example, in cinemas and video rentals. Films compete on the basis of consumer interest, not price. So, cyberspace majors will compete, but in content acquisition - seeking the most successful offerings and coverage - and in extending market territories. This competition may bring consumers ever more titillating entertainment, but the scope and "message" of their entertainment (and information) will be molded by corporations. International regulations being created for libel, copyright, and pornography combine to make Internet culture ultimately untenable. A bulletin board, for example, would not be run in open mode; in essence, staff would have to filter submissions to avoid prosecution liability. List owners would be forced to become censors, verifying contributor's statements like newspaper editors. The open universe of today's Internet seems destined for marginalization, just like CB-radio or public-interest broadcasting, thus completing the commercial domination of cyberspace and corporate domination of society. The ability to distribute media products at reasonable rates to large audiences translates into the ability to start up a competing media company, with production costs as the only major capitalization required. This is exactly what media cartels wish to avoid; discouraging start-ups is what "control over distribution" is all about. In the case of TV, scarce bandwidth translated into expensive licenses, and the cartel was easily maintained. In cyberspace, the cartel can maintain distribution control by defining services and setting prices, so that media distribution is artificially expensive and cost-effective only on a massive scale, requiring massive capitalization. What will it cost to send a message to one person in commercial cyberspace? My guess is that the "traffic will bear" about as much for a one-page message as a first-class letter. This may seem over-priced, but so what? I consider my voice phone service (and CDs) over-priced - c'est la vie under monopoly market forces. The advertising brochure will boast, "Get your message instantly to anyone in the world - for one flat rate less than a domestic postage stamp." At 25 cents per recipient, a 500-person Internet mailing-list carries a $125 posting fee direct from the poster to the telco. You can play with the numbers, talk about receiver-pays, and note that corporate users will insist on affordable networking, but monopoly-controlled pricing could totally change Internet usage patterns. The media-com industry will make plenty of money from 1-1 e-mail messaging, and plenty more from their own commercial products. Whether they want to encourage widespread citizen networking is entirely up to them, according to their own sovereign cost/benefit analysis. If they don't favor it, it won't happen - except in the same marginalized way of HAM radio. There likely will be some kind of commercial chat- room/discussion-group industry, but monopolized by online versions of talk radio, presided over by an Oprah Winfrey and Larry King - with inset screens for "randomly selected" guests. "Online discussion" will thus be a new kind of media product, its distribution economics structured to favor the cartel. The prospects surely seem dim for both democracy and cyberspace, and cyberspace itself may be more a part of the problem than a part of the solution. Following a career in computer software with Xerox, PARC, Apple, and others, RICHARD K. MOORE moved to Ireland, where he is developing a book, a documentary, and a grant-funded website. - --------------------------------- A Not So Hidden Agenda ... Date: Sun, 21 Dec 97 19:07:24 +0000 From: Brenda Jinkins <bjinkins@wspice.com> From: [www.FreeRepublic.com] Posted by: Boyd () * 12/21/97 10:37:09 PST - --------------595A704A5EC1CF912EEA531B-- - -> Send "subscribe snetnews " to majordomo@world.std.com - -> Posted by: "J. Orlin Grabbe" <kalliste@aci.net> ------- End of Forwarded Message