Over at Public Knowledge, they have a petition going to extend neutrality to text messages. A while back, Verizon blocked NARAL, an abortion rights group, from sending text messages on its network. After a public outcry, Verizon relented.

The issue got people thinking, what right does a company have to block political text messages it does not agree with? Consumers need to be assured that the communication tools they rely on and pay for will actually be good for communicating with people. And not just the people the companies controlling things approve of. Honestly, this is common sense, folks.

PBS’s Moyers on America has some really good resources on net neutrality, breaking down the issue. Also check out the video. It may be the only time you see a representative of the Christian Coalition and MoveOn.org sit side-by-side in total agreement.

To check out the Christian Coalition’s stance on net neutrality, head here. And to see what MoveOn.org has to say on the topic, check out this link.

From some of the people who brought you Don’t Stay a Virgin, here’s a video explaining what Virgin Media is doing in Europe to reshape the internet there.

A few weeks ago, Virgin Media’s boss call net neutrality “a load of bollocks.” The company is actively working to force content providers to cough up extra money if they want their content to move quickly on Virgin’s network, a stance that no US or Canadian company has embraced publicly yet. However, if ISPs on this side of the pond see that Virgin can get away with it, it is only a matter of time before they start trying the same thing here.

Over at Save the Internet a contributor explains the evolution of AT&T’s net neutrality position. In the old days, before the internet and cheap long distance calls, a few phone companies controlled all the nations telephone wires. They could charge you $2 a minute to call your sister in Bakersfield, Calif., or your Aunt in Maine. But then Congress said, no more. From now on phone companies will have to share their wires with third party long distance carriers. Companies like AT&T seized on this, dramatically driving down the cost of long distance by using Bell’s network to offer cheap long distance calls.

Now, however, after their merger with Bell, AT&T owns the wires that bring you telephone service and the internet and suddenly they are not so keen about having to share them with other service providers. They don’t want to be told what to do with them.

The House of Representatives is holding a hearing on Tuesday to consider a net neutrality bill titled the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (HR 5353).

Up in Canada, Industry critic Scott Brison has begun to hold meetings on net neutrality “in order to deepen his understanding of the issue,” according to the CBC.  Here’s hoping these meetings will finally get the Liberal Party to take a stance on an issue that has long needed addressing in Canada.

The internet wars continue to escalate in Canada, where the Canadian Association of Internet Providers has brought a complaint against Bell, the country’s largest DSL provider.

As the National Post Reports:

The legal brief, released Friday, is part of an escalating dispute before the federal regulator over Bell’s unilateral move to downgrade the Internet services of targeted Internet users, including customers of its competitors.

The CAIP isn’t the only group getting involved in the issue. The National Union for Public and General Employees today issued a call for the Liberal Party to join the campaign for net neutrality. The NDP, the Liberals main rival to the left, have been at the forefront on this issue. But the Liberal Party has been dragging their feet while the Conservative minority government let’s business have free reign to run the internet as they see fit.

My friend Brian Boyer has a great post about net neutrality on his blog, The Sixth W. He explains why journalists should care about net neutrality. What it comes down it, he says, is:

The Internet is amazing because it lets all voices be heard. If this bozo [Neil Berkett,  head of Virgin Media and net neutrality opponent] gets his way, new media will become a tool of corporations. Citizen journalism and non-profit media are toast. No money? No speech.

This is as simple, elegant and urgent an explanation as to why anyone concerned about free speech should care.

This site does a good job of distorting the net neutrality debate. According to the group, it is really evil Google who wants to stick consumers with a bigger bill, not the ISPs, who they claim, are only looking out for the people’s best interests. And the criticism that ISPs are blocking sites they don’t like or agree with? Well, this group says, that only happened in Canada, so it doesn’t really matter. I’d say that matters a great deal.

The CBC looked into the groups claims. In 2005, Canadian telecom giant Telus blocked a pro-union website supporting striking Telus workers. And the cable company Shaw blocked the VoIP service Vonage in an attempt to get consumers to cough up an extra $10 a month. The CBC also found a few other claims, including one of AOL blocking email critical of the company.

Of course, when groups like this say there have “only” been a few instances, they want to lull the public into a false sense of security. No one is going to try to reshape the internet overnight. If they did, there owuld be a massive public outcry. Instead, the strategy is to try to push a liitle at a time and hope no one notices or is too bothered. Well, even one instance of a website being blocked for political reasons bothers me.

Some people are willing to go to great lengths to protect the internet. Over at Don’t Stay a Virgin, Tania Derveaux has offered to make love to any virgin who defends net neutrality. Well, that’s one way to get the message out.

Personally, the site looks like a joke to me, so don’t get too excited, lads. She’s made similarly outlandish offers in the past. But it looks serious enough to MSNBC, who have written a piece about Ms. Derveaux’s offer.

Either way, people are starting to pay attention to net neutrality. And all it took was a little nudity. Who would’ve figured?

Some people have asked me, “What exactly is this net neutrality thing? What does ‘a series of tubes’ mean? Is there some way you can explain it so my four-year-old child can understand?” No, I cannot. But John Stewart and John Hodgman can. Check out the video and have all your net neutrality questions answered.