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Free Press fires back over net neutrality op-ed
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01/25/10 01:49 PM ET
Free Press, the public interest group that has been one of the most ardent supporters of net neutrality, lashed out against the Art + Labs coalition today in response to an op-ed published Friday in which the coalition's adviser called Free Press "radical" and "neo-Marxist."
It all started on Thursday when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Internet freedom has become a top diplomatic priority in the protection of free speech. Free Press executive director Josh Silver said in a statement that enacting net neutrality rules would be a good first step to achieving Internet freedom.
Art + Labs adviser Andrew Keen wrote in an op-ed that comparing repressive regimes in China to the network management practices of cable and phone companies was inappropriate.
Free Press fired back this morning with its own op-ed, calling Art + Labs a "thinly veiled front group for AT&T, Verizon and handful of big media companies that has hired a crew of flacks and shills to attack anyone who dares to question the wisdom and benevolence of Ma Bell."
Silver and Craig Aaron, Free Press Project Director, called Keen "incendiary."
"What’s remarkable is that AT&T and the other funders of the innocuous-sounding 'Arts + Labs' would hire this mercenary to deploy his arsenal of taunts and poisonous innuendo -- and then try to accuse Free Press and our allies of taking this debate into the gutter."
Free Press continues: "To be clear, no one is saying that AT&T and China are exactly the same or have the same motivations. But that doesn’t excuse the big phone and cable companies using the same kinds of technology to control Internet content for commercial ends in ways that don’t benefit Internet users."
Read the full op-ed here.
It all started on Thursday when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Internet freedom has become a top diplomatic priority in the protection of free speech. Free Press executive director Josh Silver said in a statement that enacting net neutrality rules would be a good first step to achieving Internet freedom.
Art + Labs adviser Andrew Keen wrote in an op-ed that comparing repressive regimes in China to the network management practices of cable and phone companies was inappropriate.
Free Press fired back this morning with its own op-ed, calling Art + Labs a "thinly veiled front group for AT&T, Verizon and handful of big media companies that has hired a crew of flacks and shills to attack anyone who dares to question the wisdom and benevolence of Ma Bell."
Silver and Craig Aaron, Free Press Project Director, called Keen "incendiary."
"What’s remarkable is that AT&T and the other funders of the innocuous-sounding 'Arts + Labs' would hire this mercenary to deploy his arsenal of taunts and poisonous innuendo -- and then try to accuse Free Press and our allies of taking this debate into the gutter."
Read the full op-ed here.
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