Special Message - Neutrality
Discussion:
The cool thing about the internet today is that you can experience all kinds of things that are completely outside the world of mainstream media. This is actually a huge threat to mainstream media which is why they are so scared. So scared that they are trying to change the laws that maintain the internet as a neutral and democratic environment where everyone who wants a voice can have one. The new laws would allow companies who’s only interest is money to make the internet be what ever they want it to be. It seems they don’t care that this is how we research new things, this is how we meet people, and this is how we talk to each other. And it really knocks the wind out of our project because one of the reasons we are able to keep working on Four Eyed Monsters so relentlessly is that we like to think that we are moving towards an era where an individuals voice is only going to get stronger and stronger, but if it’s all just going to be taken away and phissle out, then we have to ask ourselves, what are we building here?
Call your local representatives, I mean literally call, as in pick up the phone right now and call, and explain to them your thoughts. We have till wednesday to derail what mainstream media is trying to do to declare war on independent media.
Call your representative at:
202-224-3121
What to say when you call. “The internet needs to stay neutral, a two tier internet system is a bad idea because the small guys will loose their voice. This will undo everything the internet is supposed to represent and in the long run could be really bad for the economy. Bottom line, I won’t vote for you ever again you if you don’t stand up for this issue.”
Which representatives to talk to, these are the twelve that are going into a meeting tomorrow morning (wednesday the 7th of June 2006)
So fill up their voice mails so that there assistants will tell them before they enter the meeting that this is important to the public.
Otherways to take action:
Sign the petition and send a message to Congress
Call your Representative and Senators
Write a letter to your hometown newspaper
Support SavetheInternet.com with your contribution
Promote SavetheInternet on your Blog or site
Tell five friends to join the fight for Internet freedom
Feel free to Contact Susan or I if you have any questions on the subject or want any more insights about our opinions on the matter.
Video Credits:
Music in video by: Golden Pastime
Appearance by Arin Crumley and voice of Hilary Clinton saying her name.
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33 Responses to “Special Message - Neutrality”
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Appearance by Arin Crumley and voice of Hilary Clinton saying her name. Comments RSS Feed
June 6th, 2006 at 8:30 am
I had heard about this two-internet plan. Can you believe that the way it was presented to me made it seem like a GOOD IDEA? I’m horrified to realize what this will mean for independent wonders like FEM. I just didn’t realize. Thank you guys for presenting another side to this perilous issue. How will we know if no one tells us, how will we be heard if we don’t know where to speak? The best part of this announcement was the single slide insisting that an individual can absolutely make a diference, that is what it took to really get my attention. Thank you. Thank you.
June 6th, 2006 at 8:37 am
Cant believe you actually believe that the internet will be down. Since it started, it hasn’t been able to be controlled, nothing bad will happen to the interenet as a whole. I really dont get what your saying and read all the stuff on the page, thats not ever gonna happen and i think just looking at the interenet now shows how obvious that is!
June 6th, 2006 at 8:52 am
Bless you both for what you do. Thank you so much for allowing the emotion of this important issue to come through and touch me… as I sit here crying with you. As an advocate of media literacy / education and true democracy, your reaching out to us all on this issue has given me hope that people are listening to whats happening in our capitalist media system. IF we continue to accept the media consolidation and selling off of our airwaves, there will be nothing left but the companies who own it all… and only the information they want to feed us… no diversity, no way for anyone to ever become their dream. Keep the dreams alive. Fight back now. FourEyedMonsters - thank you.
June 6th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Wow. I didn’t even know about this. I’ve signed the petition and I posted another bulletin about it.
June 6th, 2006 at 10:26 am
ive called (twice).
ive signed up.
ive sent emails to friends.
ive written the letters to the local papers..
theres no way this will ever happen.
June 6th, 2006 at 11:19 am
Mike Krumlauf sent us this video he put out to get the word out to more people about this issue. Him sending this video and the media based dialog around this issue is once again a perfect example of why the internet needs to stay neutral. If anyone else would like to post any audio or video comments, feel free to just upload them to a video hosting site and post the code into the comment field below. Check out our video comment tutorial for more detailed instructions.
June 6th, 2006 at 11:53 am
i got through to the receptionist. then i was sent to a full voice mail box. but i called back and told the receptionist to write down a “while you were out” message. i bet she didn’t write it down.
June 6th, 2006 at 11:58 am
that’s totally messed up!!! i put a notice on all my pages so people can do something.. that’s called a monopoly. So actually if someone presents it in that form, it may effect the way congress views it… mayb.
June 6th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
I’ll call… def., I can’t even belive this. . . I never even heard of this until now =/
I’ll get a bunch of my friends to call.
this is gay.
June 6th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
wow… i really dont know what to say to that. shows how corperate america controls the peoples lives. thats really really really wrong. thats so fucked up. i cant even…
the fact that people even think about doing something so… against what the country is supposedly about is just rediculous. goes to prove how wrong this world is. and to think anyone thinks the us is better than other countries is just stupid. point proven with that.
will this affect the world or just the US? i guess ill go read the website. send lots of mail.
if they pass this bullshit the system will get hackd and they’ll explode. i hope.
a hand written letter is always best to send to your reps.
June 6th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
thats complete bull…are they even alowed to do this!!AAAGGGGHHHH this makes me so mad!!!
June 6th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Please do not shut down the internet, it is needed to function in our society today.
June 6th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
OMG! The Internet has cancer!
June 6th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
i agree that if we dont
do something they will fuck us over.
i’ll do what i can to get the message out.
June 6th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
I feel like politicians only really listen to two things
money
and their voters
well, I work for a non-profit lobby group
we generate power of the people minus corperate and government grants
what helps us lobby the most is letters
each (ideally) hand-written letter is said to count for 40 voters
what’s great about the house and senate process is; it takes forever
so don’t worry
you’ll letters will get their before this issue is over with
anyway
3 keys
-include the bill number
-look online to make sure you have the correct discrict reps and sen.
-make sure to include this sentence, “please reply to - your said address”
I know snail-mail is so passe, for you interenet savvy folk
but it’s the most effective way
good luck
June 6th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
I just saw this video and this is the first I have heard of this issue. I feel sick, it is a terrifying concept that an ISP could gain so much control over an individual. What’s worse is that I’m Canadian and therefore can’t sign the petition or lobby a member of congress. I feel like my hands are tied and I desperately want to help.
All I can do is hope that enough people had their voices heard and this decision will not come about in favour of mainstream media.
June 6th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Nicole Deponte regularly posts videos as comments on our myspace profile, she posted this on the myspace blog entry for the video above. She is a fine artist who is beginning to experiment more video as a way to express herself and a message like this might some day cost money for each person she would send it to sent to, that is the vision that tel-com companies have, users communicating this way would be charged for just like sending text messages.
Get the embed code for this video from MySpace
June 7th, 2006 at 12:12 am
Arin,
Wow I had absolutely NO IDEA that this two tier system is gonna take place or that the internet’s neutrality is being threatened!!! Thank you so much for sharing this information! I will definitely pass it on!
P.S. never apologize for what you’re passionate about!
Cheers,
Mani
June 7th, 2006 at 12:24 am
Dear Arin and Susan,
It’s been sent out. But I wanted to tell you I’m out here and still love you both. You can have my bed anytime. Cometo NYC anytime my home is yours. Obviously we all miss the park kitchen. Karen called we are having a dinner in a few weeks please come, especially if you need to. shit is fucked up it’s cool cause it ain’t fucked up between us, right. love you…
Love,
anthony countey
June 7th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
I wanted to say, not that Arin is blowing this out of proportion, because this is an enormous issue that needs to be addressed. I was listening to NPR recently and heard some good news, The Sensenbrenner-Conyers Net Neutrality Bill was passed by the House Judiciary Committe. Which means it moves to the house floor.
So the issue of net neutrality isnt out of hot water but all isnt lost. And i applaud FEM’s effort to bring this issue to light. We have to fight for this right.
Your Fan
Alex Paris
June 10th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Simple Coats Phone Efforts Video
June 10th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
What bothers me the most about this is how passive people can be, I sent e-mails to many of my friends, made posts on my space and told many in person. Many have this attitude ” oh that will never happen, oh thats impossible” but people how can it be not possible, if they own the lines, if they own the servers that send you to the sites that you want to go to. They can block slow or shut down anything if we are not protected from them. NET NEUTRALITY needs to be enforced, I will not give up my freedom to CORPORATE FAT CATS!!!!!!! awaken and fight……….
June 10th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Oh yeah for for those who have not heard, the house voted against NET NEUTRALITY on Thursday night, but the fight is not over.
The fight now moves to the Senate, where there is stronger bi-partisan support for a bill — put forth by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) — that would protect our Internet freedom from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.
June 11th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
hey arin,
i appreciate your passion, but what you are saying will never happen. if it wasn’t for apple, a large corporation, there would be no itunes. without itunes, i would probably have never heard of you. the internet is too large to be controlled. people will find you and spread the word if you are good. four eyed monsters is good, and i will continue spreading the word about you and susan. that is the beauty of indie, it reaches a loyal audience on it’s own, by word of mouth and self promotion. once in a while, it goes mainstream…which i think is awesome! but if everyone had the opportunity to go mainstream, the indie concept ceases. the good bad gauge, broken.
June 20th, 2006 at 9:58 am
Hey arin,
Im joinning the fight, hope im not to late. But really I dont think this will happen, its only 3 companies that want this when there are other big businesses that will hurt from this. For example you said myspace would be effected but myspace is owned by FOX and Fox is the governments hand puppet. Ironic, if we have to fight these big businesses to stop this, we have to include other big businesses to the fight.
Stay independent.
June 21st, 2006 at 6:47 am
Cory I am goign to say what I told my best friend, lets say years down the road, the At&t and them do controll the internet. How would you like to say, oh yeah I remeber when that was happening but, I tought that it would never happen so I never did anything about it. Or lets say it doesn’t happen, they never get to controll the internet. Would you not rather say, Oh yeah I remeber when that was happening, I tought it would never happen and it didn’t, I was part of the fight for Net Neutrality. I sugest you do some research on this matter, I don’t think you are getting the concept of how easy the internet can be controlled. If it was not possible then why do the telcom companies are so afraid of Net Neutrality, why have they spent millions of dollars lobying in congress. I don’t mean to be rude, I just want people to understand this matter, its important.
July 3rd, 2006 at 1:19 pm
hands his knee…
Cool….
July 9th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
OMG! It’s just like the matrix. You can’t control everyone and there will always be a hacker who will find a way through. There will always be people who will find another medium for self expression that will be just as big. I will voice my fight…but I just can’t see it happening. I just really can’t. When Taco bell wins the fast food wars and becomes a four star restaurant then I will believe that we have all become sheep and our right to speak our minds is screwed. Amen.
August 31st, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Quite posssibley one of the best videos supporting net nuetrality I’ve scene. Not only is the emotional outburst needed, but entirely understandable. If Net nuetrality is taken, I know myself, and several other frequent internet users will not only boycott the internet, but follow along with cancelling my cable subscription with Comcast etc. It’s completely assinine to think that the government can take away freedom of speech like that. It not only angers me as an American, but completely furiates me as an independant artist and internet addict.
Hackers finding a way through? You do realize that Sysco, who basically provides 90& of the hardware for the internet supports the COPE bill. Hackers can’t do shit against this, maybe vandalize a couple pages. Granted, your urge to fight is refreshing.
For the nay sayers of this actually happening. Well, it’s threw the house of represenatives (HoP) and in the Senate now. What does that tell you? President Bush placed the FCC in charge of the internet, which has already stunted several aspects. Lets also keep in mind that google search criteria (and other search engines) are being reported to the government by law? The government IS and at this rate WILL take over OUR internet. Stop being a god damn nay sayer, and do something, Cause when you don’t, and THEY win. Where will you be?…Your second job, Just so you can use mapquest to find directions somewhere.
January 16th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
[…] Four Eyed Monsters has the best video on Net Neutrality I’ve ever seen. If you aren’t sure what Net Neutrality is I highly suggest that you check out this video. Watch the WHOLE THING. It’s not only informative, but it’s a subject that will hit close to home with just about anyone that frequents the Internet. […]
January 31st, 2007 at 3:39 pm
[…] The duo is about more than making movies that entertain — their work exemplifies an empowered approach to media and policy. Arin has made two popular online videos advocating what is called “network neutrality,” contributing to the recent chorus of citizen-produced media that raised awareness around the issue and helped win victories in congress and the FCC. Says Arin, “This is a language that we should all be literate in. Not only should we be able to understand the moving picture, but we should also be able to author in it. […] Have you ever felt like you had something to say but nobody was around to listen? Well this is your opportunity. What do you want to say? Get your camera out and say it.” […]
May 31st, 2007 at 11:48 am
I don’t want to wait till the end of Summer
, I want it now. Who with me?
save your time and join me.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:47 am
Freedom of the internet is the last frontier and it’s the last free space we have to bring all people of the world together. There-for any measure to control that freedom will never receive support from me and I will do my best to get the word out. Remember when there was an attempt to charge us for internet usage via phone companies and or cable companies. I believe we will always see attempts’ to control the internet by government or big business which dictates the type of society we live in.