Are Powers-That-Be (Whoever They Be) Trying to Kill the Internet?

If you pay attention, you get the idea that powerful forces out there are trying to undermine the Internet as most everyone who knows and loves it has come to, well, know and love it.

Among today's evidence:
• Content control? The No. 29 top link from BoingBoing is a piece about a United Nations movement to undo content-sharing by extending copyright protections to the Web. The blogger at Generalized Nonsense sums up many bloggers'/Internet user's feelings: any attempt to regulate Internet content "will harm innovation and free speech on the Internet." It's an issue generating international concern as well, because such a move would affect everything from podcasting to YouTube to Google images and videos. And it might mean that watching my all-time favorite Sesame Street bit (the Martians!) wouldn't be possible over the Internet. (For whatever reason, it's today's 36th most-cited link).

• Net Neutrality And at Nos. 26 and 27 among today's most-cited news stories comes word that Democrat Ed Markey of Massachusetts has introduced the Network Neutrality Act, a bill intended to protect the Internet's open nature and prevent large communications companies from creating a two-tier Internet system - higher-priced broadband width for those who pay and less-functional access for everyone else. Tim Wu's analysis at Slate intones "the future of the Internet depends on it!" A BlogPulse search for the keywords "net neutrality" produces 4,100 results, meaning someone's paying attention. The issue has also produced a Save the Internet movement. Even Tim Berners Lee, one of the inventors of the Internet, is chiming in in support of Net Neutrality. And a BlogPulse trend graph shows interest on the rise:



Passings...or the power of one-liners?
"Luuuu-cy....you've got some 'splainin' to do!" Why does the late Desi Arnaz show up at No. 25 among today's burstiest people when he died in 1986? Here's why...a testament to the Internet power of one-liners. During Stephen Colbert's highly-blogged speech at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner last Saturday, he made a one-line reference to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson as the most famous U.S. husband since Desi Arnaz (context: Wilson is married to outed CIA operative Valerie Plame; Arnaz was the hubby of comedienne Lucille Ball).