Mexico's plan to smash TV, phone monopolies spurs fears of censorship [View all]

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http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-communications-20140401,0,7733315.story



Mexico's telephone service, both land-line and cellular, is dominated by companies owned by Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, seen in 2013, one of the world’s richest men. Mexicans pay some of the world’s highest prices for some of the spottiest phone service.

Mexico's plan to smash TV, phone monopolies spurs fears of censorship
By Tracy Wilkinson
March 31, 2014, 6:47 p.m.

MEXICO CITY — The government of President Enrique Peña Nieto says a proposed new telecommunications law would finally break up Mexico's powerful and much-criticized TV and telephone monopolies.

The proposal and other reforms have generated considerable praise abroad for Peña Nieto and his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled the country for seven decades before a 12-year hiatus and a return to power in late 2012.

But a growing number of domestic critics are reading the fine print of the telecommunications plan and finding many things to worry about.

For one, the increasingly powerful Interior Ministry would be charged with monitoring the content of television and radio broadcasts to be sure they conform to fairness and other regulations. Some Mexicans fear that would open the door to the kind of censorship that existed when the PRI ruled before, unfettered by little or weak opposition.