Open Media has missed out on leading a discussion of digital strategy issues in the current election. Instead, its tactics and failure to develop serious discussion papers have relegated their participation to serve as scorekeepers on the sidelines.
It is somewhat disappointing that the organization has been unable to graduate from tactics better suited to school pep rallies. If Open Media really represents a constituency of nearly a half million Canadians, it seems that it is squandering its political capital, failing to move past slogans to a more serious level, setting out greater details for the specific changes it seeks for the competitive marketplace.
Open Media has prodded politicians to sign its so-called “pro-internet” pledge, getting most to gloss over the line in the pledge that calls for government regulation of retail pricing. It is fascinating that Open Media appears to be comfortable with the idea that the term “pro-internet” can be applied to political parties who advocate a greater level of government control of the internet than we would accept for autocratic dictatorships, let alone a democracy.
Take the NDP for example, who call for government regulating Canadian content and plan to ban usage based billing. It is a remarkable level of government intervention in the internet, unprecedented in western countries. And yet Open Media characterizes the NDP as being pro-Internet.
Are we forgetting that it was precisely the imposition of a specific business model by government fiat that started the furor in the first place. I have written in the past [such as here on my blog and in the National Post] that usage tiers enable flexible low price plans at higher speeds.
Open Media and their supporters have ignored the evidence that the vast majority of Canadians don’t run up against the volume thresholds for their pricing tiers. No economic evidence has been produced to demonstrate how these users’ interests will be protected when the government regulates their service delivery.
As far as regulating Canadian content, Open Media can’t seem to make up its mind. It has blogged about the potential destructive impact of Canadian content regulations on an open internet, yet it appears unwilling to challenge the NDP’s digital platform. Were such inconsistencies and lack of depth the reason that digital economy issues were left out of the leadership debates in both official languages? Not just internet pricing, but skills development, intellectual property, government and business adoption of ICTs. Serious issues with significant divides between the various political parties.
Open Media has to raise its game to be a credible voice for consumer advocacy in shaping the evolution of new media and digital policy in Canada. Open Media sent a survey of digital issues two weeks ago, promising to release the results “later in the election.” It was supposed to have been “releasing its own set of digital policy recommendations [last] week.” Time is short; voting has begun. Where are their recommendations, the questionaire and its results?
In many ways, Canada and Canadian communications stakeholders would be well served by increased diversity in the development and implementation of our national digital strategy. Will Open Media be able to step up to fill that role?
Mark, it is interesting to note which parties are, or are not, using digital/social media to get their words out. For my brief analysis, it seems like NDP is using paid ads on popular sites like YouTube, etc. the most. I watched our local all candidates debate via internet video feed a few days after the local Chamber event, and there were over 200 people had viewed the event. Not bad for a dispersed near urban city of 22,000 people spread over a large land mass, and of which only approx. 75% have high speed available.
Of the five candidates who were on the panel, only 3 mentioned technology or innovation at all with comments made by the NDP, Green Party and CPH. So much for digital elections too? We miss the ease of participating from our former Markham days. Too bad more elections couldn’t be done electronically?