So on the 21st of December, as we were all at home, happily baking Christmas cookies, taking part in some family bonding, or making some last minute shopping trips, a little branch of a branch of the government, known as the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) released noticed to the press of some “action” they decided to take. By action, they meant new rules that they passed, “to preserve the Internet as an open network enabling consumer choice, freedom of expression, user control, competition and the freedom to innovate” (SOURCE) The rules to be enforced by the FCC include one of transparency for broadband companies, one of the prevention of blocking, and one of the prevention of unreasonable discrimination. (See the above source for a longer explanation of all three).
The general consensus, even by the majority of the FCC, agrees that the openness and free operation of the Internet has largely contributed to the success of the internet as a market. A market responsible for attracting billions of dollars of investments, and creating jobs for thousands of Americans just within the past year. The World Bank recently reported that a 10% increase in high-speed Internet connections is correlated to an increase in economic growth by 1-1.3%. (SOURCE)
My question becomes, then, why must we accept the extension of federal government regulation in the name of “preserving” the Internet? Doesn’t “preservation” have to do with the continuation of the essence of how something once was or once came into being? I’m pretty sure the Internet did not explode as such an economic and societal contributor because of any sorts of government rules that surrounded its origination. I’m also pretty sure that the micromanagement of the operations of broadband companies is not precedented within the history of the growth and prosperity of the internet.
Furthermore, there has been no such threat or market failure that I’m aware of that mandates such a move from the Federal Communications Commission. This concept of “preservation” directly alludes to the potential harms that the FCC paints as coming from the potential biases of broadband companies. My first point, is that there is no such proven harm that has actually ever been incurred by the Internet’s operation. One of the dissenting commissioners, Meredith Baker, stated, “The majority is unable to identify a single ongoing practice of a single broadband provider that it finds problematic upon which to base this action” (SOURCE). My second point is that not only is this unprecedented, but it’s an outright usurpation of the powers of Congress. The FCC is NOT a legislative body, but a regulatory one. The only piece of legislation cited by the FCC in giving them authority to take such action is Title II of the Communications Act, which as far as I have read, only relates to the regulation of television broadcast services. (read it! SOURCE). Okay, this blog is used to the government taking the entirety of the Constitution lightly. But it seems undue and unnecessary that a governmental entity will also take its own liberties in reinterpreting specific paragraphs within a specific title within a specific single piece of legislation passed in 1996.
Oh, but wait, my third point is the best. And it has nothing to do with the end of all that is internet and holy by next year because of these silly attempts by the FCC. What I love and hate most about this situation is how entirely mundane it is in the confluence of governmental and political matters today. Should not we be used to the government telling us what kind of insurance we should have, what kind of TV we should buy, and what kind of rules our companies should follow? My third, and final concern, is how and when did the government start preempting potential harms and hypothetical bad decisions by the People, rather than the People preempting the potential harms of the government. Do we have a balance of powers, termed elections, division of states and federal rights because we always believed in the goodness and perfections of the government? Or because we were aware of the risks that come with powerful government? ... Thanks for your efforts, FCC, but I’d rather someone start regulating YOU.
-E.C.Mignanelli
See Judge Napolitano on the subject...
Posts
Net Neutrality is a good thing!!
ReplyDeleteWhat you're arguing -- that we should preserve the openness and ingenuity of the Internet -- is exactly what Net Neutrality is setting out to do.
Right now there is a lot of pressure from big media giants to let them control how information is accessed. For example, let's say your internet service provider -- Comcast for example -- strikes a deal with Big Rich Media Company. Big Rich Media Company pays Comcast a certain fee each year to ensure that their content is delivered over Comcast's wires at a very high price. Other websites, like independent blogs and rival news services, take a back seat to Big Rich Media Company's websites. Thanks to the sheer speed and ease-of-access, Comcast's users all flock to Big Rich Media Company and stop using the other companies' news services, blogs, etc.
Later, during a political campaign perhaps, Big Rich Media company decides that it wants to support Candidate X. Big Rich Media Company can use its profitable relationship with Comcast to effectively silence rival political views, by hogging up Comcast's data stream. Or if Comcast had a particular political point of view, they could intentionally slow access to Candidate Y's website, or even outright block any media sources connected to Candidate Y, so that Comcast users will ONLY be able to access Candidate X's information. This is exactly how China's government controls information and censors the internet.
Why do you think that Big Media, like Fox News, Google, et al. are all against Net Neutrality?? It's not because they want to protect your freedoms -- it's because they want to protect THEIR freedom to show you only what they want you to see. Instead of an open internet where all information is equally accessible, they want to show you a tightly controlled internet that acts more like TV, where they control your ads, your programming, and your access. Google wants to ensure Youtube gets favorable speeds over other video sites. Politically biased news companies, of course, have very obvious goals. And all of these corporations have the deep pockets to strongly influence the internet service providers. And in many areas, where Comcast is the only ISP available, that means that internet users might have access ONLY to sites and services that Big Rich Media Company wants Comcast to show them.
Net Neutrality is a bill designed to level this playing field and ensure that NO corporation can control the internet this way. It is NOT, absolutely NOT, big brother government control of the internet. It is exactly the opposite of that -- it is big brother government doing what big brothers are supposed to do: protect the little guys from bullies, who in this case are the unbelievably rich corporations with bankrolls larger than some countries. Net Neutrality does NOT mean FCC control of the internet. But eliminating Net Neutrality DOES mean granting control of the internet to one or two rich media corporations.
There is a very obvious reason that the people speaking out against Net Neutrality are the big corporations and politicians owned by Big Media, and NOT civil rights watchdog groups.
Don't fall for Fox New's paper-thin arguments. If you do, you're handing all of your freedoms over to them -- giving them the same powers of the Great Firewall of China -- in the name of "protecting" yourself from a strawman called "Big Government."
Thanks for your comment!
ReplyDelete1. It's dangerous when we have to depend on an independent Commission to legislate "fairness" and micromanage what broadband companies are and are not allowed to do. THIS is closer to how China's government control of information operates, NOT our status quo. The FCC's biases become more of a potential harm than the potential harms scenario we have with companies and their currently limited powers.
2. Again, I hear you citing HYPOTHETICAL scenarios about "Big Rich Media Companies" and nothing about an ACTUAL practice by an ACTUAL company that you find threatening to us. Thank you for confirming that point.
3. If you're concerned about powerful Big Rich Media Companies' powers, why not question Google or Verizon's questionably well aligned relations with the FCC. On the 21st, the Commission mentioned Verizon's Android as doing enough protection of it's own for wireless broadband (http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1221/DOC-303745A1.pdf). The FCC also refused to follow Congress' orders in 2006 to investigate leading phone companies for having wiretapped consumers' calls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission)... The FCC also would not have had the willpower to call for the switch to DTV without the billions of dollars of Analog products bought off by Google... As much as we might hope Big Companies would be outraged with the FCC, that doesn't seem to be the case...
4. You're right. Neutrality is Great!... I think we just disagree on who is the proper referee of this entire concept...
5. Fox News isn't cited as a source in any of my above stated arguments, or in my article...
the FCC is the adversary to all free speech as well as free market internet.I hate to bring up julian assange and wikileaks...but his domains were shut down recently..is this going to be a precursor to what the FCC does to the internet?
ReplyDeleteE.C. -- your video is from Fox news. Isn't that citing them? ;-)
ReplyDeleteI agree the FCC has the potential to harm the balance of things, but not as much potential as big rich corporations do. Regulations are absolutely necessary, and so is the FCC; even though it may sometimes make the wrong choices, it is doing them for fairness rather than for personal profit, and that is a very important distinction. It is like a referee in any sport. You may disagree with their rulings, and they may even make wrong rulings at times, but without some regulatory body, chaos will ensue.
There are no precedents for the hypotheticals I cited because the internet is still in its infancy. The reason this legislation is so important is because the internet is growing at an accelerating pace and it will soon reach a very critical juncture. The big media companies are already pushing at the FCC and ISPs to let them do the things mentioned above. There isn't precedent because it hasn't been possible -- do to bandwidth, infrastructure, and user presence levels -- up until now. But the laws they are trying to pass are laws that will precisely allow them to do that!
The goal of Net Neutrality -- which was proposed many years ago before the implications were "real" -- is to ensure that the level playing ground that has existed so far remains level. What the corporations are trying to do is use their economic weight to gain advantages over other companies, thereby stifling the very innovation that has allowed startups like Amazon and Google et al to explode into global megacorps in just a decade. Net Neutrality aims to protect that dynamic so that innovation like that can continue.
The sickest thing is that media companies are rallying behind legislation that would give them an unfair advantage, and they are doing this under the name of freedom and neutrality. It is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing.
You're right to cite corruption in the FCC, like with Wikileaks, and Google and Verizon pushing them for unfair advantages. The worst part, though, is that while your heart is in the right place, you're throwing your support behind the corporations -- the very people who would do EXACTLY what you are fearing from the FCC -- instead of behind the organization that should be charged with maintaining the balance. By all means, get harsh on the FCC for corruption and non-neutrality, but don't use that as a basis to cut them out of the picture altogether and give the reigns to organizations to whom neutrality has absolutely no value whatsoever.
In the name of free speech, you are giving the corporations the "freedom" to silence anyone they want. You are rightfully cautious of the government becoming too oversightful, like in China, that you are overlooking the fact that corporations already have that power -- and you are arguing to give them even more.
Infringement of our freedoms can come from more than one direction. Despite the GOP rallying cry that the government is always the problem, that is just not true. More often than not it is the exact opposite. This is one of those cases. Don't sell your freedoms to for-profit organizations in order to keep them "safe" from government-by-the-people. That's just ridiculous.
Point well taken. But if we still prioritized around maintaining a "government by the people", then the FCC would not have the legislative power it just usurped as mentioned in the blog post above, and I would have never had reason to start this conversation.
ReplyDelete