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The future sure isn’t what it used to be. This year marked the 25th anniversary of Barlow’s audacious essay denouncing centralized authority on the blossoming internet. But modern tech strayed far from the utopia of individual freedom that 90s netizens envisioned. U.S. digital infrastructure lags behind much of the world, rural and other marginalized people are left behind, and a tiny handful of companies seem to control the internet. It sounds a lot like that old world of flesh and steel. So what went wrong and is it too late to fix it?
ABOUT EFF30 FIRESIDE CHATS: To commemorate the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s 30th anniversary, we present EFF30 Fireside Chats. This limited series of livestreamed conversations looks back at some of the biggest issues in internet history and their effects on the modern web. Past guests include renowned security technologist Bruce Schneier on the Crypto Wars, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden on Section 230 and free speech,
North Chicago Ald. Bob Runnels, 6th Ward, just retired at 86 for the fourth time, and from his fourth career spanning 64 years, most of it in public service.
By Eddie Day Pashinski and Maureen Madden
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown in numerous ways what many of us already knew: Pennsylvania is in desperate need of upgrading its broadband infrastructure.
This is about more than simply internet access. In today’s world, high-speed internet needs to be both accessible and affordable. As families chose to communicate more online due to the pandemic, many Pennsylvanians urban, suburban, and rural alike came to realize they didn’t have the access to the high-speed internet they needed.
This problem goes far beyond our need to stay in touch with friends and family. Students who were suddenly forced to learn from home couldn’t do so without high-speed internet. Unfortunately, disadvantaged students are disproportionately impacted by this lack of access. We’re seeing them fall even further behind without consistent access to the education they deserve.
Adapted from an editorial in The Los Angeles Times
When it unveiled its National Broadband Plan in 2010, the Federal Communications Commission declared that every American should have access to affordable and robust broadband service by 2020, along with âthe means and skills to subscribe.â It was the right goal; as the COVID-19 pandemic has made painfully obvious, broadband is key not just to economic growth and productivity, but also to equal access to education, jobs, healthcare and an array of opportunities.
Eleven years later, however, as many as 42 million Americans, most of them in rural or remote areas, have no broadband available. Roughly three times that number canât afford to hook into the lines running down their streets. Microsoft studied internet connection data last year and concluded that nearly half of the country wasnât connecting at broadband speed. That has to change.