Net Neutrality and the FCC: Deja Vu All Over Again
We have come to the end of the comments period set by the Trump Federal Communications Commission (FCC), during which the public could respond to the FCC’s efforts to deregulate high-speed Internet service and roll back net neutrality rules that designate the Internet a utility. There have been over 22 million comments to the FCC’s proposed rule making, or ‘rule unmaking’ — surely a testament to the Internet’s potential to encourage participation — and it appears the huge majority of those comments have spoken against the FCC’s proposal to deregulate.
The public now understands, just as the courts have always understood, the the Internet is an incredible information transmission utility that has fallen into the hands of monopolists and should be regulated in the public’s interest. But the Trump FCC has only free market solutions to problems we don’t have in 2017, so it is most likely that this 2017 FCC will indeed do away with the Net Neutrality rules set forth by the FCC in 2015.
Of course there will be court battles, but for now the FCC will not be hearing the public, they will be hearing pings and echoes of regulatory nostalgia from 2002, when — just as now in 2017 — a Republican administration (the Bush FCC) came to power despite losing the popular vote and declared the internet a private information service and not a utility. All the while ignoring the obvious fact then, as now, that the internet is arguably the most powerful and potentially democratic mass system of telecommunications the world has known and should be regulated in the public’s interest. But by now we know the Republicans have their traditions.
I won’t bother to deconstruct the ludicrous arguments the Trump FCC has dreamed up to justify their intentions to keep the Internet under the control of private interests rather that the public’s interest. There is plenty of great analysis online, just have a look. But I am really not sure you should bother. Better to listen to Susan Crawford, author of Captive Audience — the best book written on U.S. communications policy in decades, well, ever — explain why we need to have the Internet regulated as a utility.
