New documentary exposes media consolidation and government collusion (opens in new tab)

In a publicly traded company it's practically illegal not to seek out any unfair or immoral advantage that may increase your share value. Being moral is not often in the best interest of your investors, at least not in the short term.

If you accept this as truth, then it kind of makes sense that large corporations lobby various governments to pass bills that directly or indirectly increase their share value regardless of the consequences. This is so profitable that over time this leads to massive deregulation and government corruption as companies try anything and everything to influence government leaders (or put their own people in these influencial positions). It's pretty blatent and not uncommon for a regulator later taking a job with a large corporation they were in charge of overseeing. In some fields it's an accepted and commonly known career path.

So I wouldn't say it's us against them or anything crazy. It just so happens that the interests of most corporations do not align with society in general's long term interests.

The problem with regulation is that it's subject to corruption than can produce fairly large consequences for society. It usually takes a while before a government body has been properly infiltrated (say 15 years or so?).

The problem with deregulation is it assumes corporation interests are often aligned with societies interests. That's simply not true the majority of the time.

Thanks very much for your contribution to the production of #killswitch the documentary.

You're right, there is a lot corruption and sometimes it's difficult to make sense of it all.

In my opinion the most alarming part of all is the unprecedented corruption and concentration of the traditional media.

You can really get a sense of how corrupt and concentrated the media industry is when you check out these ownership charts on FreePress.com... You'd be amazed at how many television stations, Film Production Studios, Magazines, Online, holdings, etc. a company like General Electric or Walt Disney owns.

Here's the charts: http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main

Once you realize how much control over knowledge and information these six companies have and how few people in the US get their news outside of these six sources you realize we've got a major problem for a functioning democracy.

Now that these companies are threatening the integrity of the Internet (NBC-Comcast Merger)... Wait to see which major media conglomerate will be the next to merge with a major ISP... it's quite possible that in the not so distant future the Internet will look like super-charged cable T.V.

"The Master Switch" goes through the history of radio, where an initial period of experimentation was stifled by regulation, with big business (the large networks) being the major beneficiary; the two weren't necessarily opposed.

On the other hand, the former will show you that eliminating regulation doesn't necessarily eliminate the problem. In the absence of effective regulation in the 19th century, Western Union seized an effective monopoly on telegraphy. Having done that, they then made a deal for cut rates with the Associated Press whereby AP-affiliated newspapers (effectively, any paper that wanted to cover national stories) were forbidden to editorialize against the monopoly.

On the other hand, modern technology has done much to erode privacy for the common people and since information is power, some of the lost power has been returned to the rulers.

What is really exciting is the future - I am not at all convinced that the current nation states can survive in their present form when they loose the ability to tax their most productive citizens (since more and more work can be done overseas) as much as they have done and when something like bitcoin can and will be used to do transactions between people.

Tim Wu's book is excellent and was one of the many books that have influenced me in the writing of this doc. He's on our list of future interviewees.

His explanation of the "Separations Principle" is essential reading for any one that wants to protect the integrity of the Internet as we know it.

Have you read Evgeny Morozov's book, "The Net Delusion"...? Interesting book -- He looks at the future of the Internet and of democratic government from an interesting perspective. His central premise is that totalitarian governments in the 21st century will look increasingly more like Huxley's, "Brave New World" than Orwell's "1984"...

We plan on interviewing him as well...

The earliest modems didn't use phone jacks at all:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Acoustic_coup...

Our central premise in #killswitch - the documentary, is that decentralization of knowledge is essential for democracy.

The Printing Press gave society this during the enlightenment period, halting centuries of oppression in the Western World. And the Internet is doing this today by revitalizing democracies in the Western world and helping ignite revolution in the Middle East.

We advocate a Constitutional framework that protects the integrity of the Internet. i.e. a separations principle, whereby content providers should not be ISP's and vice versa. (Detailed account of this in Tim Wu's, "Master Switch").

We are averse to any "Big Brother" Regulation by the Government or "Brave New World" Corporate take-over of the Internet.

The only way to combat oppression is to have accountable governance is to have decentralization of info/knowledge.

One of a demcocracy's central purposes is to protect this decentralized and accountable framework (by protecting the decentralized integrity of the Internet).

One way the gov. can do this by enforcing the 1st Amendment, i.e. Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech. But the gov. won't do this with out an aware and educated citizenry. Which is why we're making the documentary.

Check out our trailer on kickstarter when you get a chance: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/akorn/killswitch-a-docum...

  (for a detailed account of how our founding father's expressed the difference between Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech, check out Robert McChesney's  "The Death and Life of American Journalism")