Bryan D. Brown

Ars Technica is reporting that a poll conducted by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation indicates that most Americans have no idea what network neutrality is, nor do they care. By the way, the chair of that committee is Ted “The internet is not a big truck!” Stevens (R-AK), who clearly has no clue, even on a simplistic level, as to what makes the internet work .

Then there’s this little gem, brought to us by the poor old folks at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, that is running in various television markets.

Are you google-eyed with confusion over net neutrality? No wonder, it’s all just clever mumbo jumbo. Net neutrality is nothing more than a scheme by the multi-billion dollar silicon valley tech companies, to get you, the consumer to pay more for their services. Forget all their mumbo jumbo, net neutrality simply means, you pay.

Of course, this is completely backwards. It’s the ISPs that want the consumer to pay more for access to the “billion dollar silicon valley tech companies”. It’s just wonderful hearing the multi-billion dollar cable industry critiquing corporations like Google for being billion dollar companies. These are the same ISPs that drove out or bought up all of the independent ISPs when the 1996 Telcommunications Act was passed. Of course, service providers have always delievered what they promised, especially when it was paid for with public money.

The good news is that, while folks like Ted Stevens and the multi-billion dollar cable industry might be shifting things in one direction, groups like the Christian Coalition and MoveOn.org are favoring network neutrality. Even the Gun Owners of America are against the tiered-internet proposal and in favor of keeping the internet neutral - or no less neutral then it is currently. It’s not often those three groups lie down in the same bed (I bet the Christian Coalition would love that analogy). Hopefully, the broad constituency of these groups is enough to get folks educated on the issue so that misleading ads, like the one above, don’t have as great of an impact.

More informaton is also available at SavetheInternet.com