The major downside of municipal operated wireless networks


Culver City filtering objectionable content
Is the price of "free internet" worth it? Good question. Emphasis added.

Culver City, Calif., is the first operator of a municipal wireless network to filter legal content and applications that the city finds objectionable.

The city has installed filtering software that blocks access to legal adult sites and, more significantly, prevents peer-to-peer file sharing. Ironically, municipal networks are often touted by activists who say commercial service providers are more likely to interfere with free access to Web content. Let the record show that the first U.S. ISP to censor Internet access was a muni network.

Plus, the guidelines for filtering are purely arbitrary. It is not as if they are blocking illegal sites. Instead, the city says it seeks to block “problematic content.” That could just as well as include sites like www.reason.org, which routinely criticize municipal broadband.

The decision to block porn sites might score a few points with the “family values” set, but Culver City’s decision to blcok P2P sites, which include Bitorrent, LimeWire and KaZaa, just to name three, is indefensible and more than likely, politically motivated. We can’t help but notice that Culver City is home to three major movie studios, who, in typical Hollywood fashion, have been railing against P2P while seeking ways to commercially exploit it. The Motion Picture Association of America and Culver City even collaborated on a press release praising the filtering decision.

Combine this with the prospect that politicians have the power to control free speech in the name of "campaign finance reform" and we have a truly scary situation.

As the article points out, government run operations edge out private alternatives. It's a version of Gresham's Law. "Free" government services are never free, this is just one example of the hidden costs that no one wants to acknowledge.

Hat tip Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of...

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