Essay by ALAN PASCOE

From: Alan Pascoe <apascoe@patrol.i-way.co.uk>
Newsgroups: uk.politics.misc,uk.net,uk.misc,uk.media,pipex.dialup,demon.service
Subject: Government will control Net as much as we let them (Was: Why .. Usenet Comm.?)
Date: Sun, 09 Mar 97 18:05:24 GMT
Message-ID: <NEWTNews.857930839.14383.apascoe@apascoe.patrol.i-way.co.uk>

In Article<32F9B5BF.7476@mcc.ac.ukx>, <G.Budd@mcc.ac.ukx>writes:
| and there was me thinking it [the Net] was a communications medium,
| implicitly subject to whatever constraints the service providers
| and governments choose to put upon it, like any other
| communications medium.

(1)What motivates them?
(2)How do they control the media?
(3)How are the government controlling the Net?
(4)What may happen in the future?
(5)Can they be stopped?

Paraphrasing the above, "Communications media are subject to whatever 
constraints the service providers and governments choose to put on 
them" - very true, and it would be difficult to find a set of words to 
express this more clearly. Expressed in this way, the truth of it 
seems so obvious, yet it is not widely appreciated. All too often it 
is assumed that we have free press and broadcast media in this 
country; we do not, and the statement correctly identifies two agents 
of control working together, the government and the service providers 
themselves.

(1)What motivates them?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The government is full of people who believe it is their right to 
govern, to govern in the way they see fit, and to do so without the 
consent of the citizens of the country. The only obstacle in their 
way, is the need to be elected every five years or so. The opinion 
that the electorate have of them, depends upon the information the 
electorate are given. The electorate get their information about 
government from the media. Therefore the government is strongly 
motivated to control the media. The government cannot be seen to be 
controlling the media for political purposes, so they make up excuses 
for doing it. The common excuses for regulation of the media are, 
maintaining reception quality for the consumers, maintaining the 
quality of programme content, protecting children from material that 
might harm them, and finally, that last refuge of the scoundrel, 
patriotism, claiming in is the national interest.

The service providers are not by nature, motivated to control their 
output in a way that their customers would not like. They are, after 
all, businesses, and it is in their interests to provide whatever 
service their customers will pay for. This would happen in practice if 
there was free market, but the government has regulated the market by 
restricting the number of participants, thus reducing competition and 
increasing profits. The participants are better off in a regulated 
market, and therefore have a strong incentive to support regulation 
and no incentive to oppose it.

(2)How do they control the media?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The government controls the supposedly independent broadcast media 
companies with licensing. With licensing, the government is able to 
keep the number of stations to a minimum, specify in general terms 
what the stations broadcast, and keep broadcasting out of the hands of 
people that they consider to be unsuitable.

The media companies, and companies that aim to win franchises, have no 
complaints about this level of control over their business, because 
they are guaranteed success; an ITV franchise has been described as a 
licence to print money. Companies holding franchises will do what ever 
it takes to keep them, therefore annoying the government is something 
they will do their best to avoid. One can't blame them really; it is 
human nature for us to earn as much as we want, for the minimum of 
hassle and effort.

(3)How are the government controlling the Net?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The government was never going to be able to control the Net in the 
way it controls the broadcast media, because the providers of the 
service do not create the content of the medium; the users are both 
broadcasters and viewers. Nevertheless, the government will not give 
up easily; they will gain as much control as they can. In the absence 
of the option to license, they have resorted to bullying the service 
providers into self-regulation.

It began last year, when the Home Office summoned representatives of 
the main ISPs, and told them what they wanted them to do. The Home 
Office wanted regular contact with ISPs, but only through a 
representative body, so the ISPs were to set one up. The Home Office 
did not like some of the material that was available on the Net and 
had decided that the public should not see it. The Home Office did not 
have any solutions, but the ISPs were to formulate their own; if they 
did not, the government would legislate.

The threats from the Home Office were largely bravado, because, as 
they themselves admitted, they had no idea how to control the Net in 
practice. Furthermore, the government had neither the parliamentary 
time nor the will to legislate; there were no votes it it. 
Nevertheless, the ISPs capitulated, simply because they had nothing to 
gain by fighting. The ISPs duly formed the representative body that 
the Home Office asked for, the ISPA. ISPs duly began exercising 
control over "unsuitable" material, by dropping certain newsgroups. 
All this happened, not as result of pressure from consumers, but 
because of pressure from the Home Office. This is the reality of 
self-regulation; the government gets what it whats, and gets in handed 
to them on a plate. The Home Office has achieved a major victory, by 
setting a precedent; it has exercised control over the Net, and has 
established the right to do so in the future.

(4)What may happen in the future?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Home Office has won a battle, but it has not yet won the war. 
Their long-term aim is to establish a symbiotic relationship with 
ISPs, similar to the one they have with independent media companies. 
Now, about half of the ISPs have joined the ISPA, and the number is 
steadily rising. When all of them are in it, the government will have 
the ISP business in the state that it wants; ordered and controlled. 
The government will then exercise control over the Net, by exercising 
control over the single body that will be running it.

I forsee that the government's main target, will continue to be 
Usenet. The government sees Usenet as a threat, because it is a medium 
that allows "ordinary" individuals to communicate to potentially large 
numbers of people, i.e., it allows individuals to broadcast, and 
broadcasting can influence opinions. Therefore the government will 
want to reduce the coverage of Usenet postings, by allowing access 
only to non-public groups for example. The government will also want 
to prevent postings of an "unsuitable" nature; either the articles, by 
permitting only moderated groups for example, or the posters, by 
"blacklisting", thus denying individuals Net access. Ideally, the 
government would like to see ISPs drop access to Usenet altogether.

The ISPs are not going to be motivated to challenge any of this, 
because when they have all joined the ISPA, the ISP business will be 
run by a cartel; the ISPs may not be planning to do this now, but if 
they will be better off by following this course of action, they 
inevitably will follow it; it's human nature. In this environment of 
low competition, profits will be high. ISPs will not be inclined to 
displease the government, because the government might act to 
re-introduce competition. The government will then have been 
responsible for creating the conditions leading to the formation of a 
cartel, then when the members of the cartel have got used to the 
benefits, they will use the threat of the break-up of the cartel, to 
exercise control over it. When this situation has been reached, the 
government will have strong control over the Net.

(5)Can they be stopped?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Home Office cannot be prevented from exercising _any_ control over 
the Net, but the extent of their control can be limited, if the 
pressure they apply to ISPs, is countered by pressure applied to ISPs 
by customers. The effectiveness of this pressure, depends upon the 
degree to which the customers of ISPs, are prepared to act together 
rather than individually. If, in the event of an ISP dropping a 
newsgroup, only those interested in the group complain, customer 
pressure will not be very effective, because the level of complaint 
will never be high enough to make an impact. If, on the other hand, 
all customers see the dropping of any newsgroup, as a potential threat 
to all newgruops and complain, customer pressure will produce results.

The way customers can apply pressure, is of course, the threat of 
withdrawal of their custom, if the service they receive does not meet 
their expectations. ISPs are businesses, and like all businesses they 
need a certain level of income from customers just to survive. What 
proportion of customers can a business afford to lose before it starts 
to make a loss? In the case of ISPs, probably not very much; ISPs are 
not large companies with a diversity of interests, and so they cannot 
sustain losses for very long. This is especially true in the rapidly 
growing ISP market, because investment is being made in the 
expectation of future growth. Consumers can also exercise more power, 
by taking the option, when available, to pay monthly rather than 
annually. Clearly, ISPs with a high proportion of their income coming 
in on a monthly basis, are going to be much more responsive to 
customer demands, than ISPs with little or no monthly income, because 
potentially, they could lose all their customers within one month.

The Home Office has no counter to this pressure, because the bottom 
line is, the ISPs need income from customers to survive; the Home 
Office is not able to make up any short fall, therefore ISPs will have 
to give priority to customer demands. Therefore, the degree of control 
the government can exercise over the Net, is whatever the users of the 
Net allow it to be.


Alan
~~
''I think we have to very seriously consider the enormous disadvantages 
of having a vast army of people who can communicate with each other 
very easily.'' - quote from a Home Office official.
http://www.gn.apc.org:80/charter88