Who gets to define the terms that are the focus of a debate? One might think that a phrase has an obvious meaning, but for reasons of self promotion or ambiguity this is not always of the way it works. Take “fair and balanced” as an example.
I have been commenting on the role of corporate interests in exerting control over your Internet for some time. How do I offer fair and unbalanced comments on this topic. I am by nature an idealist and I had hopes for free expression on the Internet as a way to take back public participation in all forms of policy and politics. Whatever claims made against the biases of media outlets, I had hoped that the opportunity for each of us to express our personal biases would be a remedy. Most probably have no idea why Web 2.0 was described as 2.0. The notion of a “participatory web” or a “read/write web” we could be more than consumers.
The leveling potential of the web in terms of equal expression and equal opportunity is being threatened by the companies that control your access to the Internet. Your cable or phone company wants to do more than offer you access. They want to influence what you access. This is how I think of net neutrality – does the provider exert control over how you use the bandwidth your purchase. Some might claim that is up to the provider as they are providing the service. I might agree should I have alternatives in the services I can access. This is not the case and given that monopolistic practices typically are allowed with some government oversight I encourage reasonable government control of price and neutrality.
Now, to what I mean by the definition of terms. Net neutrality is one of those “Rorchach”-like abstractions that individuals interpret according to their own beliefs. I would prefer we are clear on what we mean by “neutrality” in this case and I defer to Tim Wu on this matter. Wu coined the phrase and hence explains what it meant before it was corrupted by others.