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digital divide
What Has Happened to Our Grand Experiment, the Internet?
With AI threatening to diminish everything that’s been good and useful about online life while creating unprecedented levels of geopolitical chaos, Congress needs to reinstate the Office of Technology Policy.
Jan 07, 2025
By virtue of luck or just being in the right place at the right time, I was the first journalist to report on the advent of the public internet.
In the early 1990s, I was editor-in-chief of a trade magazine called Telecommunications. Vinton Cerf, widely considered to be “father of the internet,” was on our editorial advisory board. Once Sunday afternoon, Vint contacted me to let me know that the federal government was going to make its military communication system, ARPANET, available to the general public. After reading his email, I more or less shrugged it off. I didn’t think much of it until I started investigating what that would really mean. After weeks of research and further discussions, I finally realized the import of what Vint had told me with its deeper implications for politics, society, culture, and commerce.
As the internet grew in size and scope, I started having some serious concerns. And there was a cadre of other researchers and writers who, like myself, wrote books and articles offering warnings about how this powerful and incredible new tool for human communications might go off the rails. These included Sven Birkerts, Clifford Stoll, and others. My own book Digital Mythologies was dedicated to such explorations.
By default, and without due process of democratic participation or consent, these services are rapidly becoming a de facto necessity for participation in modern life.
While we all saw the tremendous potential that this new communications breakthrough had for academia, science, culture, and many other fields of endeavor, many of us were concerned about its future direction. One concern was how the internet could conceivably be used as a mechanism of social control—an issue closely tied to the possibility that corporate entities might actually come to “own” the internet, unable to resist the temptation to shape it for their own advantage.
The beginning of the “free service” model augured a long slow downward slide in personal privacy—a kind of Faustian bargain that involved yielding personal control and autonomy to Big Tech in exchange for these services. Over time, this model also opened the door to Big Tech sharing information with the NSA and many businesses mining and selling our very personal data. The temptation to use free services became the flypaper that would trap unsuspecting end users into a kind of lifelong dependency. But as the old adage goes: “There is no free lunch.”
Since that time, the internet and the related technology it spawned such as search engines, texting, and social media, have become all-pervasive, creeping into every corner of our lives. By default, and without due process of democratic participation or consent, these services are rapidly becoming a de facto necessity for participation in modern life. Smartphones have become essential tools that mediate these amazing capabilities and are now often essential tools for navigating both government services and commercial transactions.
Besides the giveaway of our personal privacy, the problems with technology dependence are now becoming all too apparent. Placing our financial assets and deeply personal information online creates significant stress and insecurity about being hacked or tricked. Tech-based problems then require more tech-based solutions in a kind of endless cycle. Clever scams are increasing and becoming more sophisticated. Further, given the global CrowdStrike outage, it sometimes seems like we’re building this new world of AI-driven digital-first infrastructure on a foundation of sand. And then there’s the internet’s role in aggravating income and social inequality. Unfortunately, this technology is inherently discriminatory, leaving seniors and many middle- and lower-income citizens in the dust. To offer a minor example, in some of the wealthier towns in Massachusetts, you can’t park your car in public lots without a smartphone.
Will AI Wreck the Internet?
Ironically, the Big Tech companies working on AI seem oblivious to the notion that this technology has the potential to be a wrecking ball. Conceivably, it could diminish everything that’s been good and useful about the internet while creating unprecedented levels of geopolitical chaos and destabilization. Recent trends with search engines offer a good example. Not terribly long ago, search results yielded a variety of opinions and useful content on any given topic. The searcher could then decide for her or himself what was true or not true by making an informed judgment.
With the advent of AI, this has now changed dramatically. Some widely used search engines are herding us toward specific “truths” as if every complex question had a simple multiple-choice answer. Google, for example, now offers an AI-assisted summary when a search is made. This becomes tempting to use because manual search now yields an annoying truckload of sponsored ad results. These items then need to be systematically ploughed through rendering the search process difficult and unpleasant.
We need to radically reassess the role of the internet and associated technologies going forward and not abandon this responsibility to the corporations that provide these services.
This shift in the search process appears to be by design in order to steer users towards habitually using AI for search. The implicit assumption that AI will provide the “correct” answer however nullifies the whole point of a having a user-empowered search experience. It also radically reverses the original proposition of the internet i.e. to become a freewheeling tool for inquiry and personal empowerment, threatening to turn the internet into little more than a high-level interactive online encyclopedia.
Ordinary citizens and users of the internet will be powerless to resist the AI onslaught. The four largest internet and software companies Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Google are projected to invest well over $200 billion this year on AI development. Then there’s the possibility that AI might become a kind of “chaos agent” mucking around with our sense of what’s true and what’s not true—an inherently dangerous situation for any society to be in. Hannah Arendt, who wrote extensively about the dangers of authoritarian thinking, gave us this warning: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
Summing up, we need to radically reassess the role of the internet and associated technologies going forward and not abandon this responsibility to the corporations that provide these services. If not, we risk ending up with a world we won’t recognize—a landscape of dehumanizing interaction, even more isolated human relationships, and jobs that have been blithely handed over to AI and robotics with no democratic or regulatory oversight.
In 1961, then FCC Chairman Newton Minow spoke at a meeting of the National Association of Broadcasters. He observed that television had a lot of work to do to better uphold public interest and famously described it as a “vast wasteland.” While that description is hardly apt for the current status of the internet and social media, its future status may come to resemble a “black forest” of chaos, confusion, misinformation, and disinformation with AI only aggravating, not solving, this problem.
What then are some possible solutions? And what can our legislators do to ameliorate these problems and take control of the runaway freight train of technological dependence? One of the more obvious actions would be to reinstate funding for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. This agency was established in 1974 to provide Congress with reasonably objective analysis of complex technological trends. Inexplicably, the office was defunded in 1995 just as the internet was gaining strong momentum. Providing this kind of high-level research to educate and inform members of Congress about key technology issues has never been more important than it is now.
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The End of Affordable Internet
The federal funding contained in the Affordable Connectivity Program offered a vital lifeline for people in South Carolina and nationwide. Now we must fight to resurrect such a program so that everyone has digital access that enriches individual lives and communities.
Jun 11, 2024
Almost four years ago, Congress established a little-known program called the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Since it was created, the program provided millions of Americans with affordable, high-quality internet. It never got much attention, but it’s impact on communities across the country including in South Carolina was enormous.
Launched by the Federal Trade Commission, the program provided eligible households with a discount on internet service of up to $30 every month to bridge the digital divide. Just this year alone, 415,680 families in South Carolina relied on the program, which averaged to about one in five households in the state. In total, the program saved people in South Carolina over $12 million each month on internet service.
Despite widespread support for the program, its funding expired on June 1st. As elected officials representing Silicon Valley, the tech hub of the world, and Chester, Fairfield, and Richland, predominantly Black counties that have struggled with reliable internet, we are fighting to raise awareness about rising internet bills for families and extend the program for another four years.
The ACP is too important to just let it expire without a fight. When bills come due and 23 million American households are suddenly slapped with an additional cost, the people who will hurt the most are our seniors, young students, people in rural areas or food deserts, and those who rely on the internet for activity and a sense of community.
The ACP is too important to just let it expire without a fight.
For many older Americans, the internet is a lifeline. It lets them talk with loved ones, learn about essential services and benefits, and access healthcare information online. Without affordable internet access, seniors may feel lonelier and more disconnected, lowering their enjoyment and quality of life.
Young people will also be hit especially hard by the program ending. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of online educational resources and in an era where technology shapes every aspect of our lives, students need to prepare for jobs in a digital economy. Both of us believe we need to ensure that the next generation has access to good jobs and opportunities and a shot at the American Dream. But we can’t prepare these students for the high paying tech jobs and advanced manufacturing jobs of the future if they don’t have internet access. The internet allows individuals to take advantage of at home remote and virtual trainings.
Another impacted group includes those living in rural areas far away from doctors, hospitals, or pharmacies. The stories we heard about what people went through before this program was enacted were heartbreaking. People were driving for miles and miles just to pick up their medication. Telemedicine provides another, much easier way to receive medical care through remote consultations to prescription refills that can be delivered directly to their homes. People living in food deserts face a similar situation when it comes to ordering groceries and other necessities. Ripping this access away deepens already existing disparities in both healthcare and nutrition.
At any age and in any location, people turn to the internet to find community and make friends. It’s become an essential place particularly for people who may experience discrimination or bullying at school. People with specific hobbies like playing an instrument or running have been able to connect and form bands or running clubs. The ACP empowered people to find like-minded people and pursue their passions and interests online.
The ACP program has improved the lives of millions and opened a new world of social connections, health benefits, education opportunities, and good paying jobs in South Carolina and nationwide. All of us need to speak out now to raise awareness and explore new solutions to protect affordable internet access for all.
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'300,000 and Counting': Diverse Coalition Condemns Mega Cable Merger
Attempt by Charter Communications to purchase Time Warner Cable and Bright House has been met with fierce opposition, as a coalition of public interest groups delivers 300,000 comments to the FCC
Feb 18, 2016
As Charter Communications, the fourth largest cable company in the U.S. continues to pursue its $80 billion takeover of fellow cable giants Time Warner Cable and Bright House, on Thursday, a coalition of media justice, Internet rights, and public interest groups delivered to the FCC over 300,000 comments in opposition to the merger.
If the merger succeeds, the new entity would be second in size only to Comcast and, together with Comcast, would control nearly two-thirds of the nation's highspeed internet subscriptions. Critics of such a scenario argue that this would give the media behemoths too much power in the already relatively noncompetitive broadband and cable markets and would disproportionately hurt poor communities and people of color.
"This merger should be rejected -- we need more options for affordable and open access to communications, not fewer." -- Michael Scurato, National Hispanic Media Coalition
Charter Communications is "already swimming in debt," writes Dana Floberg of Free Press in an op-ed at The Hill. If the merger goes through, it will take on $27 billion in new debt, saddling the new company "with a whopping $66 billion in debt," Floberg adds. Critics contend that this massive debt would be shouldered not by investors or the executives behind the merger but by individual cable customers. The debt will add up to about $1,142 per customer, says Michael Copps, a former commissioner and acting chairman of the FCC who now serves as an advisor to Free Press.
"Charter has told investors it would exercise its expanded market power to pay off massive merger-related debt, which means substantial price increases are likely," Free Press argues in its petition for the FCC to reject the merger. While costs are likely to increase to cover that debt, critics say that with such a large share of the market -- in many places, the new company would be the only option for broadband service -- the company would have little incentive to provide good, fast and efficient service to customers.
"The proposed Charter-Time Warner Cable merger represents the kind of noxious corporate takeover Demand Progress members and the public have continually spoken out against. It's a deal between powerful, entrenched interests that would lead to bigger profits for 'New Charter' and higher prices for customers while diminishing competition and consumer choice," says David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress.
Free Press also argues that the merger would exacerbate the digital divide -- further limiting internet access in impoverished communities.
"A merger between Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable is a bad deal for diverse communities in America," says Michael Scurato, vice president of policy at the National Hispanic Media Coalition. "Charter has not demonstrated that it is committed to hiring a workforce that reflects the communities they seek to serve, carrying culturally relevant programming for their diverse audience or fully participating in existing programs, like Lifeline, that could soon help bring communities of color online. This merger should be rejected -- we need more options for affordable and open access to communications, not fewer."
"Allowing a corporation like Charter to become one of the few gatekeepers to the Internet will undoubtedly harm how those voices are heard, if they're heard at all." -- Steven Renderos, Center for Media Justice
Critics also argue that one company holding such an enormous market share would inevitably stifle innovations in cable programming and streaming services. The New York Timeswrites that U.S. antitrust officials have been analyzing "whether bigger cable firms -- with strong bargaining power with programmers and fast-growing broadband Internet businesses -- could harm their newest threat: streaming video providers like Netflix and Hulu."
As Floberg explains, "With monopoly-style market power, it could raise prices on captive customers and protect its existing cable-TV model by thwarting competition from online video services. There's hardly any competition in the broadband market as it is. Many customers won't have the option to take their business elsewhere should Charter start hiking rates and abusing its gatekeeper power."
Another coalition of media and telecommunications businesses and labor and public interest groups, including Dish Network, Fairpoint Communications, and the Rural Broadband Association, among others, have formed to oppose the merger, and central to their opposition is the potential for the merger to threaten independent programming. The Stop Mega Cable coalition warns of the new company's power to "[f]orce independent and diverse voices to accept below-market terms, thus jeopardizing their viability."
Copps has noted that it is already difficult for independent programs and new, diverse voices to gain a foothold in a market controlled by only a handful of large cable companies. If only two corporations were to dominate two-thirds of the nation's access to cable TV, it would be that much more difficult for those voices to make their way to the national stage.
Such a merger also has the potential to inhibit the size and presence of independent voices online, notes Center for Media Justice senior campaign manager Steven Renderos. "The Internet has been a space for unique and diverse voices to be heard," argues Renderos. "Allowing a corporation like Charter to become one of the few gatekeepers to the Internet will undoubtedly harm how those voices are heard if they're heard at all."
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