FC: Groups demand online "public spaces" at 5/9 event in DC

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[And a response at the end from our very own Lizard. --DBM]

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Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 13:24:43 -0400
To: declan () well com
From: Jeff Chester <jeff () cme org>
Subject: another do-gooder event

You may want to let your list know about.  Best and thanks


The Future of Noncommercial Broadband Communications at Risk

Preserving the Internet's Openness, Freedom, and Diversity

        Speakers include Rep. Ed Markey, FTC Commissioner Mozelle 
Thompson, Dave Farber, Lawrence Lessig, other experts

Dear Colleague:

The Center for Digital Democracy and the Center for Media Education 
cordially invites you to participate in a conference on the future of the 
Internet in the broadband era on Wednesday, 9 May 2001, at the Carnegie 
Endowment for International Peace (1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC).
The Net is at an important crossroads, and we may soon lose meaningful 
access to this new medium.   Such a development will negatively impact our 
civil liberties, limit diversity of information and ownership, harm our 
ability to inform and advocate online, and restrict competition. The public 
interest broadband conference will describe how the media industry giants 
are restructuring the digital media system, fashioning a system that 
extends their control over the media beyond television to the 
Internet.  Instead of an open network, media conglomerates are spending 
billions to create what they call "walled gardens," but which are really 
new forms of electronic enclosures designed to ensure that they will 
continue to dominate the media system.
Unless they act soon, nonprofit organizations will find it difficult to 
operate in an online environment that favors big business over small, 
e-commerce over e-democracy, and public relations over public service. 
That's why it's important to begin exploring new means of collective action 
in the online world, new ways of preserving space for noncommercial, 
public-interest programming, and for directing traffic to the sources of 
information and interactivity that will prove vital to our society in the 
twenty-first century.
Additional speakers will include: Dr. Patricia Aufderheide, American 
University,  Timothy Denton, attorney, Canadian Association of Internet 
Providers, Stewart Harris,  Public Webworks, Stephen Heins, Northnet, and 
Barry Steinheart, ACLU.
Please join us in discussing these important issues, and in exploring 
further collaboration in the broadband era:

9 May 2001
9:00 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington D.C. 20036-2103
RSVP: 202-232-2872
Agoldman () cme org
Seating is limited.
Lunch will be provided

The conference is made possible through the generous support of the Center 
for the Public Domain, the Albert A. List Foundation, and the J. Roderick 
MacArthur Foundation.

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Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 10:41:59 -0700
From: lizard <lizard () mrlizard com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

>The Future of Noncommercial Broadband Communications at Risk
>
>Preserving the Internet's Openness, Freedom, and Diversity
>
>         Speakers include Rep. Ed Markey, FTC Commissioner Mozelle
> Thompson, Dave Farber, Lawrence Lessig, other experts
>
>Dear Colleague:
>
>The Center for Digital Democracy and the Center for Media Education
>cordially invites you to participate in a conference on the future of the
>Internet in the broadband era on Wednesday, 9 May 2001, at the Carnegie
>Endowment for International Peace (1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington 
DC).

<deletia>

Since cyberspace is infinite -- add another hard disk, and you 'create
space', whence cometh the need to 'preserve space'?

Rather, it seems, the folks behind this want to preserve their OWN
'walled gardens' -- the internet equivalents of PBS and NPR, which exist
to serve the elite but which are funded by the masses. I assure you, the
'public spaces' they desire to build will not contain TRULY
non-mainstream content. They will not host the Nuremberg Files, NAMBLA,
Stormfront, Bonsaikittens, or the like. They will host the mainstream
non-mainstream, the sort of stuff acceptable to academics, rich
liberals, and corporate donors.

I challenge any of those speaking at this conference to say, directly,
"We wish to use public tax dollars to guarantee that Nazis and NAMBLA
will always have web space." Do any of them dare do this? I doubt it.

cc'ed to Mr/Ms Goldman.

*********




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