A new discussion on Ars Technica about deregulation of the telecommunications industry.

OK, so those who desire network neutrality and the breaking up of regional telco monopolies through regulation are butting heads with those who loathe any government intervention into business affairs…again.

But then, taking into account the positions of any institution or institutional form in comparison to the next one, I wonder just how far “deregulation” should go to ensure the flourishing of stuff like free speech and free expression for media.

I tend to think that business corporations tend to take the flow and preservation of profit much more seriously than the flow and preservation of information, and they often turn inward to majority political, governmental institutions for the furtherance of laws and regulations that restrict the flow and preservation of information (anti-piracy, anti-spam, anti-IP-violation, anti-hacking etc.).

So they (in the public eye) don’t make for the best stewards of a freer internet. But should that automatically translate as “the government is the best preserver of a free, non-tiered internet”?

I doubt it, emphatically. I don’t think that the government is interested in the flow and preservation of information or the flow and preservation of profit as much as it is interested in the flow and preservation of defense, intelligence and public services. Profit and information are often the free radicals that governments want to harness or gain with a firm grip (ranging from motives for the “public good” to motives for the “crushing of traitorous anarchist elements”), whether it is through state-owned enterprises or state-owned broadcasting services.

Furthermore, governments may turn inward to majority religious, dogmatic or moralistic institutions for the furtherance of laws and regulations that restrict the flow and preservation of both profit and information (i.e., anti-pornography, anti-sodomy, anti-flag-burning, anti-game-violence, etc.). The religious institutions may also look to majority ethnocultural institutions for the furtherance of laws and regulations that restrict the flow and preservation of things that are beneficial to government, business and media all at once. Where does it end?

So I don’t think that governments are the best stewards for a freer internet through Net Neutrality measures. But neither are the business corporations. They both tend to look backward for the furtherance of their legitimacy, but otherwise don’t care much for their precedent institutions (secular governments, libertarian CEOs and so on).

I think the reason why the pro-media Net Neutrality fans are looking to the government to restrict the corporations from structuring the telecommunications infrastructures in a manner biased to those who have more money is because, well, the media is weak and has no teeth.

Yes. The media, like a baby, is still dependent upon the business corporation (and all types of corporate output, whether it is the computer that is used to process the information that is put into it by the user to be stored on a business-manufactured server or the advertising placements on the side and top of a web page that generate income for a website’s maintenance) for sustenance. Yet, the media’s users and drivers ultimately loathes the corporation for holding it back from access to information.

It’s alot like the situation for those who desire secular government and politics yet have to cater to majority religious sentiments to maintain the status quo, or those who desire maximum profit at the least cost to both the corporation and the customer but still have to ask the majority government or political sentiments to help maintain their own status quo.

So, in order to maintain the flow and preservation of information through the Internet and related resources, the Net Neutrality fandom wants to bypass the corporations and ask the government to take preventive action against the corporations?

What if that is self-defeating? What if the government may use Net Neutrality to stifle the flow of both profit and information for political or even moralistic purposes?

That’s what I fear. Corporations are not the best stewards of Net Neutrality, but the governments, by historical precedent, are worse at the maintenance of the flow and preservation of information.

Thus, maybe it becomes a matter of how far the media is willing to wean itself from the corporate teat.

Or, maybe it is the matter of how the media can support its own potential weight in terms of information preserved.

I’d say that the wiki offers a first look at a self-sustaining, continuously-expanding media, but its only a start. The wiki article, unlike the blog article or the newspaper article or the university thesis, doesn’t have to rely upon a catchy title or present anything “new” or “BREAKING” or otherwise edgy enough for the advertising dollars to roll in; it only needs to present relevant information on a subject, although it will need updating to be chronologically relevant (albeit in a chronological relevance that appeals to all times of existence for the subject).

But then, how is media self-sustenance and self-justification relevant to Net Neutrality?

In that Digg post about Net Neutrality in 2012, I came across several suggestions that a separate, non-profit version of the Internet should be set up in “preparation” for the oh-so-fabulous Maya doomsyear.

Still, despite my own cynicism towards the Digg post,  I did take a favorable notice of such suggestions while still rejecting the basis for the suggestions. Maybe it would be wise to work towards a distributed, non-single-sourced Internet infrastructure; the DIY information to accomplish such an endeavor will be put out there eventually.

But who would build the physical tools to apply such information into physical form and accommodate the users of that physical form? And where are we to obtain the resources that would be used to build that physical form, even if such materials are recycled from older materials? And (worse) who’s going to foot the bill?

Thus, we are back at the business corporation’s doorstep. Then how will we obtain laws that are favorable to, and not restrictive upon, the flow and preservation of information (in comparison to other countries that have less favorable laws concerning journalists and usage og the Internet)? Then we find ourselves back at the doorstep of the government, the same as the Net Neutrality proponents.

So maybe it is a matter of both the self-sustenance/propagation/justification of the media’s distribution of information and how much influence and clout that the media has in the precedent institutions such as business, government or even religion and culture.

In other words, the media needs to grow up and gain weight. It must be the 800-pound gorilla with which the business corporations and nation-state governments in any given region must reckon; it must become bigger than the multinational corporations, the supranational governments or the multicultural, multitribal religions. The media must have its own lobbies in the legislative assemblies, its own shareholders in the Boardrooms, its own preachers and priests in the pulpits, all pushing for the development of a media-friendly status-quo from the “grassroots” to the “ivory towers”.

But until that time comes, Net Neutrality remains as a double-edged sword that will hurt the media more than it will the business corporations. It is more favorable, or at least less damaging, to a robust, mature, powerful media than it is to the extremely profit-dependent media which we have at this moment.