Why the FCC should prevent ISPs from micromanaging our lives

Author(s): 
Publication Type: 
Other Writing
Publication Date: 
December 12, 2017

by Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger

Network neutrality prevents broadband Internet service providers from micromanaging our lives online. Constraining the networks this way enables and even empowers Internet users to be active and productive human beings rather than passive consumers. Unfortunately, the network neutrality debate is so polarized that neither side sees the full picture.

On one side, opponents of net neutrality view the Federal Communication Commission’s 2015 Open Internet order as “heavy-handed government regulation” that excessively meddles with broadband Internet Service Providers like Verizon and Comcast. Opponents are looking at a fun house mirror. Despite their repeated false claims that the government will micromanage the Internet through burdensome price regulation, the Open Internet Order only constrains micromanagement by broadband Internet Service Providers. Opponents ignore—if not intentionally distort—the concentrated private power of ISPs, while grossly exaggerating the scope and impact of the FCC’s actual rules.

On the other side, net neutrality advocates see the FCC’s intervention as light regulation that levels the playing field for edge providers—big content companies like Google and Netflix that deliver services to consumers from the edge of the network. Advocates worry that such providers can be squeezed out if ISPs discriminate in favor of their own programming or affiliates—think about on-demand television versus streaming television services, for example. While net neutrality proponents push for the right policy, they aren’t making the strongest case possible and often concede too much ground. In their rush to protect content providers, they shoot themselves in the foot by perpetuating the mythical division between edge providers and ordinary end-users, thus seeming to forget that everyone online is exchanging content.

We’re all content providers. Everything that occurs on the Internet is an exchange of data between end-users. That’s the beauty of the Internet. It opens the door widely for all of us to create, socialize, innovate, and possibly become the next Google or Wikipedia. Unfortunately, advocate distortion diminishes who we are, who we can be, and the social goods we can create by reductively portraying most of us as passive content consumers. What they don’t get or sufficiently highlight is that the infrastructure of the Internet profoundly impacts what we believe is important, true, and worth pursuing throughout all aspects of our lives.

Net Neutrality is a reflection of how society answers three fundamental political questions: Who decides what you do? Who decides who you communicate, transact, and collaborate with? Who decides how you should live your life?

Read the full post at Freedom to Tinker