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Is It Right to Consider the Internet as Little More Than a Broadcaster?

By DrewWilson

There is a growing trend to define the internet as little more than a "broadcaster", but isn't it a bad thing to start considering the internet little more than just another TV station? Many would argue that the internet has been one of mans greatest inventions, in part, because it gives citizens new-found freedoms and a medium for expression that can be experienced by many people around the world without having to spend billions of dollars to do so. It was all fun and games until legacy businesses and governments from around the world entered the picture. Since then, major corporate entities and governments have been grappling with many questions surrounding the internet including the question about how one controls the internet. Since there is no real central hub for the internet unless one counts the internet backbones as the internet's central office (which is still arguably a flawed argument to make in the first place), the idea of controlling the internet had major difficulties making the transition from sounding good on paper to putting it into actual practise. Recently, there have been a set of cases highlighting a new movement by various governments around the world to legally consider the internet as a "broadcaster" While it has been a rather subtle movement in many cases, the movement does have serious implications.

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on December 19, 2008 (boomark / email).