ART 80F - WEEK 9 LECTURE CONTENT
Net neutrality - the issues
FCC (5 person commission) votes to decide whether or not to allow internet service providers to adjust consumer connection speeds based on which content they are accessing. Link to FCC Website
net neutrality breakdown
Some Arguments for Keeping Net Neutrality
- Less access and/or higher costs pushed onto the consumer
- Impact abilities to disperse / communicate independently produced content - limits on free speech
- Economic impacts - harder for small + medium sized business to reach customers
- Censorship - state / privatized
- Consolidation of power
- Capitalism doesn't work
Some Arguments for Repealing Net Neutrality
- Net Neutrality is already a myth - small tech cannot compete with big tech
- Wasn't an issue prior to the 2015 imposed limits
- Capitalism works - ISP's are dependent on customers and therefore wouldn't risk losing business by throttling some sites over others
From Recode post about FCC Chairman response to tech company pushback
He didn’t spare tech companies from that criticism, either. Companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter — speaking through their main Washington, D.C.-based trade group, the Internet Association — have urged Pai to stand down. In response, Pai sought to make an example of Twitter. He specifically raised the fact that the company at one point prevented a Republican congresswoman from promoting a tweet about abortion, only to change its mind amid a public backlash.
“Now look: I love Twitter,” Pai began. “But let’s not kid ourselves; when it comes to a free and open Internet, Twitter is a part of the problem. The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate.”
“And unfortunately, Twitter is not an outlier,” Pai continued. “Indeed, despite all the talk, and all the fear, that broadband providers could decide what internet content consumers can see, recent experience shows that so-called edge providers are in fact deciding what content they see. These providers routinely block or discriminate against content they don’t like.”
FCC Proposal for Restoring Internet Freedom
What the Declaratory Ruling Would Do:
- Restore the classification of broadband Internet access service as an “information service”—the classification affirmed by the Supreme Court in the Brand X case.
- Reinstate the private mobile service classification of mobile broadband Internet access service.
- Clarify the effects of the return to an information service classification on other regulatory frameworks, including the need for a uniform federal regulatory approach to apply to interstate information services like broadband Internet access service.
What the Report and Order Would Do:
- Adopt transparency requirements that ISPs disclose information about their practices to consumers, entrepreneurs, and the Commission.
- Restore the Federal Trade Commission’s ability to protect consumers online from any unfair, deceptive, and anticompetitive practices without burdensome regulations, achieving comparable benefits at lower cost.
- Eliminate the vague and expansive Internet Conduct Standard, under which the FCC micromanaged innovative business models, along with the bright-line rules.
What the Order Would Do:
- Find that the public interest is not served by adding to the already-voluminous record in this proceeding additional materials, including confidential materials submitted in other proceedings.