Senator Al Franken & The Guild's Felicia Day spearhead the SXSW battle cry

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Senator Al Franken & The Guild's Felicia Day spearhead the SXSW battle cry

By Fayza A. Elmostehi

03.15.11 | 11:38 am

There's an incredibly real, incredibly terrifying threat to the very being of geekdom as we know it.

It's worse than watching the last one percent of the battery life on your iPhone slip away at 11:30 a.m. at SXSW Interactive, with a full day of Gowalla check-ins and tweets ahead of you. It's worse than being defriended by social media superstar Gary Vaynerchuk, who you talked with for about 0.2961 seconds last year at the Engage party at SXSW (you were frankly surprised he remembered you well enough to accept your friend request in the first place).

It's even worse than getting the Fail Whale just as you hit send on the most brilliant tweet of your life.

What could be worse than that?

The lustful gaze and the talon-bearing tentacles of corporate greed — which are now squarely focused on our beloved, anything-goes Internet. That's what.

When you round up a bunch of Internet nerds under one roof, of course they're going to gossip about their shared digital mistress. And as to be expected, when facing the imminent death of the good ol' days, the techies go into hyperdrive.

Heard almost as much around the conference as "This room has reached capacity," net neutrality — the end of the fun and freedom we've come to expect from the Internet — is in danger now more than ever, and some high-profile webheads are throwing their weight behind making sure we're aware of it.

Famed funnyman-cum-politician, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) kicked off the Monday session schedule by getting straight to the point — rallying for the cause.

"The party may almost be over. There's nothing more motivated than a corporation that thinks it's leaving money on the table," he said during his core conversation, "An Open Internet: The Last, Best Hope for Independent Producers." Franken continued, "They're coming after our freedom and openness on the Internet. Net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time."

Of course, Franken is referring to the FCC's recent provisions, which created the concept of Internet "fast lanes." These Internet "toll roads," as they've been called, would be available for a price — a fee only those with the deepest pockets (ahem, corporations) would be able to afford.

This move gives the biggest players, like Comcast and Verizon, the effective ability to filter what information makes it to your computer first — or at all. Which is completely uncool.

The implications of "paid prioritization" — the number one item on corporate wish lists — are what cause most net neutrality crusaders to lose sleep at night. "It's about what content gets stuck in traffic, and what content gets in the high speed lane," Franken said.

When you actually think about it, it's a scary concept indeed. "Content should move over the Internet freely, no matter what it is or who owns it," Franken said. "We take it for granted, because that's how it's always been. The Internet has always been democratic — with a small D."

But while saving the web might be Franken's pet project, other heavy hitters have taken a swing at beating back these restrictions, too.

Later that afternoon, another webizen threw her hat into the ring. Webisode writer, producer, actress and "gamer chick" Felicia Day, best known for her wildly popular online series, The Guild, was neither mild nor meek when it came to discussing net neutrality during her keynote.

"I don't want one company regulating everything we do online," Day said. "I find it sad that they're trying to go backwards like that."

Day, who built her runaway hit series bit by bit on the backbone of the open web concept, has a lot to defend — for good reason.

"I believe strongly in being able to keep the Internet an open platform," she said. "The Internet is a beautiful place. We're living in the sundance of our time."

And she's right. The Internet has opened so many doors and so many worlds (virtual and real). Imagine that all being taken away at the drop of legislation. It's near — and it's real.

"It's an amazing gift that we have. To close it off and to make it harder for people who are entry level and don't have a lot of money to create or consume — well, I'd be involved on any level I need to be," Day vehemently stated.

Is the fight against censorship of the Internet, as Franken says, the battle of our generation? Advocates certainly won't be neutral when the net is compromised. Will you serve if called to action?

http://culturemap.com/newsdetail/03-15-11-the-guilds-felicia-day-and-senator-al-franken-spearhead-the-sxsw-battle-cry-of-net-neutrality/">link