In a penultimate battle over political might and cultural correctness, the soon-to-be former United States of America chose its first female president. She was the daughter of a reality TV star, himself a former president. She represented the Inner Party against another woman candidate of the Outer Party.
Her victory was widely ascribed to the amassed powers of the Minitrue Network, formerly known as the internet and now controlled by the former Newscorp and Comcast/Alphabet. Her name was Ivanka Trump. She was eventually elevated from the presidential office by the Minitrue Ministry and appointed to the ceremonious ministry chair of Love and Plenty. With that, the United States of America became Cloudware One.
Far-fetched? Silly political science fiction? How about deadly serious? Who wants to say it couldn’t happen here? We’re living closer to these settings from George Orwell’s futuristic novel “1984” than ever before.
If any plot close to the one outlined above ever takes place, its beginnings could be traced to right here and now, in the year of 2017, when the citizens of this country allowed the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to strip away “net neutrality” from the internet.
A Trump Administration proposal to eliminate public control over the internet is currently being fought by free speech advocates, independent internet companies like our own Sonic.net and 2.5 million citizens who last week wrote letters of protest to the FCC.
If protections of net neutrality go away, then access, cost and control of the internet would be left in the hands of a few very large companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T. Minority or contrary voices and more independent media competitors could be charged special access fees or even denied access. The loss of net neutrality would also put privacy protections at risk.
This is a genuine Big Brother scenario. The worst enemies of democracy and personal freedoms are the concentration of power, money and information in the hands of a few (oligarchy) or a single force as in Russia, China or in Orwell’s Oceania.
Think about it. Comcast, Verizon, Direct TV and AT&T now control almost all of Sonoma County’s resident and business access to the internet, including wireless. Consumers (that’s us) already have no control over what information flows into our homes by cable, WiFi or satellite feed. That’s how we get 366 channels with almost nothing worth watching.
And to think it all started with Reality TV shows like Survivor and The Apprentice. When just five corporations own 90 percent of all of America’s news and media companies, a lot of the information and programming we get is what Orwell coined as Newspeak and Doublethink.
Independent or contrary programming will be under threat if corporate internet control is unleashed. We already know the undemocratic impacts from the saturation of media ownership by Disney, Fox, Viacom and GE/Comcast. This monopoly of America’s media and news connections is exactly how a reality TV star got elected president in the first place.
All the recent fallout over fake news, alternative facts and labeling journalists as “enemies of the people” would be worsened by the loss of a neutral internet. Once again, public interest would lose to private profits and unfair and unbalanced corporate foxes.
In Orwell’s “1984” there was no physical Big Brother. (He was an outsized image cast on big screens.) There were Thought Police and two-way telescreens in all public places, buildings and private residences. Citizens imagined they were being watched at all hours. They were manipulated to report one another to the state for any disobedient or rebel behavior. Citizens were bombarded with manipulated news and facts (2+2=5.) They were conditioned to doubt their own reality in favor of the one broadcast on their monitors.
So we ask, are you ready for more “Reality TV?”
