Net Neutrality: Explained!
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Anyone who’s known me long enough has seen me ruin more than one party by saying the words “net neutrality.” These words are typically and immediately followed by the yawning and the daydreaming of all those unfortunate enough to be within earshot. I’ll bet you’re yawning right now! For those of you that have heard this spiel before, this will be the lucid and comprehensible version of my rant. For those who’ve never had the misfortune of hearing me rant about this, buckle the fuck up.
Net Neutrality is defined as the principle that Internet Service Providers (or ISPs) should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, without favouring or blocking particular services or websites. This means that Bell can’t block access to Netflix because it would prefer that you used its video-streaming service, CraveTV. Remember Shomi? I’m sure Rogers would have loved to have been able to force its customers to use that instead of Netflix, but because of stronger regulations put in place by the CRTC, Rogers had to let the market decide.
But wait, if Canadian companies can’t violate net neutrality, then why should I care? Take a look at your phone. What apps and services do you use most? Are these Canadian companies, or are they predominately American?
Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Uber, Netflix… the list goes on and on. These American companies routinely shape our daily digital activities. So whether we like it or not, we are heavily invested in this debate.
Back in 2015, the Democrat-led FCC classified ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. Now, if you’re a telecom policy nerd like yours truly, you’ll want to know more about what this means. I won’t get too in the weeds, but essentially it means that ISPs are not able to block, limit, or discriminate for or against any content flowing through their networks — in other words, net neutrality. After this decision, the internet rejoiced, telecom companies went on to earn record profits and their stock prices soared. Furthermore, they all routinely told investors that Title II classification did not cause a material change in their business. For those unfamiliar with SEC regulations, it is literally illegal for a company to lie to its shareholders! So now what?
On November 9th, 2016, Donald J. Trump was elected President of the United States. He appointed Republican FCC member Ajit Pai to be the Chairman of the Commission. Pai was appointed to the FCC by Obama back in 2012 and he is undoubtedly a qualified individual, but he is also vocally against net neutrality protections. (For what it’s worth, he also has some great ideas about spectrum allocation, which you can read more about HERE.)
Can you guess what he did nearly immediately after he was appointed Chaiman of the FCC? By May of this year, he issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, outlining the FCC’s goal of rolling back Title II protections, effectively eliminating net neutrality. This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is basically the FCC’s way of saying, “This is what we plan on doing. Here’s a text box that you can put your feelings in, and here’s the trash can we’ll be putting those feelings into!” So far, the FCC has been inundated with millions of comments that skew heavily in favour of formal net neutrality protections. In response to this outpouring of support, Chairman Pai asserted that “what matters most are the quality of the comments, not the quantity.” Feelings, meet the trash can. As the Verge’s EiC Nilay Patel put it, “it turns out that Verizon’s lawyers submit much more detailed telecom policy comments than the everyday Americans who are outraged by this decision.”
Pai has said that he believes in the substance of net neutrality, but not the form it currently takes. He believes that ISPs should simply put net neutrality promises into their Terms & Conditions, and then the FTC will force them to comply. So are Americans expected to read the shitty-looking Terms & Conditions when deciding who their broadband internet provider should be? Of course not, because over half of Americans only have access to a single broadband internet provider, so they have no choice! Roughly 38% of Americans have only two choices, one typically being much faster than the other, which creates a de facto monopoly. Add it all up and 9 out of every 10 Americans don’t really have a choice when it comes to who their broadband provider should be. So what if Comcast is your only choice, and they decide not to put a net neutrality pinky-promise in their T&C? The FTC, Chairman Pai’s solution to this problem, has no recourse, because you can’t violate your T&Cs if you just don’t include the thing you don’t want to do.
For now, nothing has been passed by the FCC, but before long this is going to become a clear and present danger (sorry, I couldn’t resist). On July 12th, over 50,000 websites held a Net Neutrality “Day of Action” to raise awareness. Now, I’m not typically one for the whole “torch and pitchfork” thing, but there’s something uniquely satisfying about Pornhub making its site load a lot slower just to prove a point.
Like I said, buckle up. This will undoubtedly go down as a game-changing decision, one that could meaningfully shape the future of the internet forever. It’s time to sit up and pay attention.
