Net neutrality is a recurring topic on this blog. The latest attack on the ideas behind net neutrality comes from Speaker John Boehner in a speech given to a group called the “National Religious Broadcasters.” The speech is a master piece of propaganda – it profoundly appeals to people’s emotional sense of freedom in America and brazenly states the opposite of reality as truth. Here is a particularly galling passage:
‘Network neutrality,’ they call it. It’s a series of regulations that empower the federal bureaucracy to regulate Internet content and viewpoint discrimination. The rules are written vaguely, of course, to allow the FCC free reign.
The last thing we need, in my view, is the FCC serving as Internet traffic controller, and potentially running roughshod over local broadcasters who have been serving their communities with free content for decades.
Net neutrality is mostly about the exact opposite. It is about trying to ensure that small independent “broadcasters” (which will likely include a whole range of religious sites and services) can not be discriminated against by those who provide internet access. It has nothing to do with content or viewpoint discrimination on the Internet itself and most certainly has no implications on what individual sites can and cannot say.
So here is yet another appeal: if you care about preserving innovation and freedom of access to the Internet, please support people like Senator Ron Wyden who will hopefully put up a fight. Otherwise you may find yourself in a situation where Verizon, TimeWarner, Comcast or others determine with impunity which web sites and services work well or at all when accessed from your home.
