October 2013


NSA Spying Casts Open Internet Debate in New Light


Technology


BY JOSEPH TORRES AND MALKIA CYRIL


Our nation’s


Internet freedom is under attack — and the consequences for communities of color couldn’t be greater.


The revelations


that the NSA is spying on Americans — with the help of tech and broadband companies — should frighten anyone fighting for racial justice. After all, our nation has a long and shameful history of using surveillance to disrupt racial and social justice movements.


Just as scary are the moves from


profit-hungry broadband providers to interfere with and censor our Web traffic. This behavior is even more disturbing when you consider how critical the open Internet is for mobilizing dissent, closing the racial-wealth gap and providing a platform for our stories that can counter the racial stereotypes found in so much mainstream media.


A federal court heard oral


arguments on Monday in a lawsuit brought by Verizon that seeks to overturn the Open Internet order the Federal Communications Commission passed in 2010.


Open Internet advocates had


challenged the FCC to pass strong Net Neutrality protections that barred Internet service providers from blocking or discriminating against any online content. The Commission, however, attempted to placate the industry by approving watered-down rules. But Verizon wasn’t satisfied and wants to gut the Net Neutrality protections altogether.


In court filings, Verizon argued


it has the right to edit our online free speech and compared the function of broadband providers to the role of newspaper publishers. “Just as a newspaper is entitled to decide which content to publish and where,” Verizon wrote, “broadband providers may feature some content over others.”


What will happen if Verizon


prevails in overturning the Net Neutrality rules? Internet service providers — including those that have colluded with the government to spy on us — will have the power to silence dissident voices fighting injustice and inequality.


To protect the digital rights of


communities of color, Free Press and the Center for Media Justice, along with ColorOfChange and the National Hispanic Media Coalition, recently launched Voices for Internet Freedom.


Voices is a network of organizations


advocating for communities of color in the fight to protect Internet freedom from corporate and government discrimination. We’re fighting to ensure the Internet remains an open and non- discriminatory platform for free speech and assembly.


Protecting the open Internet is


essential to the struggle for racial justice. It allows us to tell our own stories and counter racist stereotypes promulgated in the media. It gives


us the opportunity to educate, defend and represent ourselves — in our own voices.


An open Internet is also essential to


building wealth in our communities — rather than having our labor exploited to create wealth for others.


Millions of small businesses owned


by people of color use the open Internet to compete against large corporations. But broadband companies want to implement a pay-for-play system that would give preferential treatment to those who can pay big bucks for speedy access to their websites and online services.


Meanwhile, sites for small


businesses — including those owned by people of color — would be stuck in the slow lane, unable to compete.


These predatory practices are


great for big companies — but create serious obstacles for everyone else. Our communities can’t afford another obstacle to opportunity.


And when there’s no longer a


level playing field online, it’s harder for dissident voices fighting for social justice to be heard.


Dissident voices revealed the


NSA was spying on us with the help of telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon, and tech companies like Facebook and Google. These revelations should alarm racial justice activists given how government surveillance has historically targeted communities of color.


The FBI’s counterintelligence


program, created in the 1950s, often wiretapped phones to discredit the civil rights and black power movements. And these strategies aren’t relics of the past: After the Sept. 11 attacks, the New York City Police Department created a secret surveillance program that targets the local Muslim community.


Our government’s decision to


work closely with ISPs to spy on U.S. residents is troubling, and underscores the need for rules that protect free speech online.


If Verizon wins in court, one has


to wonder how hard the government will fight to protect free speech online, given that the same companies lobbying to gut open Internet protections are essential to our nation’s domestic spying apparatus.


We launched Voices for Internet


Freedom to protect the digital rights of communities of color. We’re fighting to ensure the Internet remains an open and nondiscriminatory platform for free speech and assembly.


There’s simply too much at stake for our communities.


Will you join us?


www.hamptonroadsmessenger.com


The Hampton Roads Messenger 15


Apple’s New iPhones and the Race to Drive Smartphone Adoption


BY JAMILAH KING


release of its new iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S. It’s a significant moment, as most Apple product announcements are, because the company’s innovations have so often shaped the landscape of consumer products over the past decade. It’s also an important moment to take a look at how race colors that landscape.


lower cost device that Apple hopes will help them compete against its more affordable rivals, particularly Samsung. It features all the functionality of a traditional iPhone wrapped inside of a colorful plastic case, according to the Chicago Tribune. The device comes at a crucial time for the company as millions of people in the U.S. and abroad have adopted smartphones. “With smartphones surpassing 125 million U.S. consumers and tablets now owned by more than 50 million, we have crossed into the Brave New Digital World — a new paradigm of digital media fragmentation in which consumers are ways connected,” according to a report released earlier this year by comScore, an industry analytics company.


often has a lot to do with race. Another report released earlier this year by Pew noted that Latino 86 percent of Latinos own a cell phone, compared


But just how we’re connected The new iPhone 5C is a Apple has announced the


Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing at Phil Schiller speaks about the new iPhone 5S. Justin Sullivan/ Getty Images


with 84 percent of whites and 90 percent of blacks. And Latinos are just as likely as blacks and whites to own a smartphone: 49 percent.


out just how reliant Latino users are on their smartphones as their primary devices to get online. Latino users were more likely than whites to say that they use smartphones to go online, and equally likely to access the internet from a mobile device. That means that since smartphones are often easier and cheaper to use than high-speed home internet access, there are still lingering effects of the digital divide, primarily between those who can consume content and those who can create it.


But that same research pointed


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16