[opendtv] Re: FCC Republican claims municipal broadband is threat to First Amendment
- From: "Craig Birkmaier" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "brewmastercraig" for DMARC)
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2018 08:26:30 -0400
MR. Brodkin does it again, this time trying to equate the terms of service of
these municipal broadband systems with the terms of service of Comcast and
AT&T.
The Article tells us:
Comcast, whose Acceptable Use Policy bars "posting, storing, transmitting or
disseminating information, data or material which is libelous, obscene,
unlawful, threatening or defamatory."
But compare this to what Commissioner O’Reilly stated:
As Professor Enrique Armijo of the Elon University School of Law has shown in
his research, municipalities such as Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson,
North Carolina, have been notorious for their use of speech codes in the
terms of service of state-owned networks, prohibiting users from transmitting
content that falls into amorphous categories like "hateful" or "threatening."
Obviously “threatening” appears in both, as it should; Threatening someone is
usually illegal. But hateful is not illegal - it is entirely subjective, as we
see routinely now, when Facebook, Google and Twitter take down legal content.
AT&T includes hateful, but not threatening.
To be completely fair, it does not appear that any municipal system is taking
down anyone’s traffic, as is the case for Comcast and AT&T. Perhaps O’Reilly is
worrying about something that is insignificant. But the municipal systems
discussed in this report are in rather conservative neighborhoods; it is fair
to ask whether such policies could be abused in systems operated is very
liberal markets.
More important, IMHO, is the impact on competition when municipalities take
advantage of their existing infrastructure to offer broadband at prices that
commercial systems cannot match. This is the case today both here in
Gainesville, and in Ocala, where I work.
As we move to 5G infrastructure, the costs for pole attachment and connection
to fiber networks can be significant - municipal broadband systems will have a
huge competitive advantage if they can avoid these costs and drive up the costs
for competitors.
The history of municipal utilities is rather checkered - especially here in
Gainesville, where the City just paid $750 million for a pollution emitting
biomass plant, to avoid paying the billions it committed to in a 30 year
contract for power from this misguided venture.
Regards
Craig
On Oct 31, 2018, at 11:32 PM, Monty Solomon <monty@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/fcc-republican-claims-municipal-broadband-is-threat-to-first-amendment/
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