Net Neutrality

“I think we should not control the Internet” –  Vladimir Putin

Net Neutrality proponents contend that this topic is technology-based, and therefore difficult for the layman to comprehend without their “expert” assistance. Every politician and news organization that has tried to give their version of a simplified technical definition of Net Neutrality has utterly failed. This article will not dive into a sea of computer lingo to try and explain Net Neutrality. That’s because the issue is purely political and not technical.

While its constituent parts were developed in the 1980’s, the Internet as we know it came into being in 1990. In the 25 years that followed, its reach and speed improved at a seemingly miraculous rate. It became a nursery for new companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon and many more whose entire business existed solely on the Internet. The way consumers interacted with these businesses drove continued innovation and improvements in the technology of the Internet. By any measure, the first 25 years of the Internet’s existence must be considered among the greatest technological achievements in history. And, apart from an initial research investment in the 1980’s, all of this was done in the competitive commercial world without any government influence or oversight. In essence, it epitomized capitalism working at its best.

So why then, in 2015, did the federal government step in and assert itself as the entity that would regulate and create rules for the Internet forever forward? What had gone wrong? The Internet was working just fine, and technological improvements were continuing at a blistering pace without a dime of taxpayer money being spent or any laws being violated. This seemed to be a classic case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. In fact, nothing was wrong at the time. However, government officials at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had conjured up several hypothetical scenarios whereby things could go wrong, and wanted to put a set of rules and regulations in place that would prevent these potential scenarios from ever happening. Was this really justified and necessary?

We recently wrote an article on Climate Change, and noted there was a critical point in time when climate scientists lost control of how the public was informed because the government began heavily influencing the narrative for their own purposes. In 2015, the same exact situation occurred with regard to the Internet. The government narrative was that the companies providing Internet services could not be trusted to police themselves and obey existing laws. To make more profit, they would steer higher-performing Internet services to those with deep pockets who paid more money and unfairly “starve” everyone else. This was all referencing a hypothetical future state, but being made to sound as though it was already occurring.

At the time, the FCC and the rest of the federal bureaucracy was under Democratic control. Oversight and regulatory control of the “unsupervised” Internet seemed a natural thing to take on for a federal government expanding in both size and scope. The specter of “unfairness”, a popular issue, was the perfect excuse for justifying such an action, even though there was no immediate problem. The cleverly devised term “Net Neutrality” was the benevolent title given to the federal government’s action to regulate and oversee the future evolution of the Internet. Market forces by themselves could not be trusted. Is this good government? Or is it the hubris of a government machine that feels capitalism really shouldn’t operate unfettered?

Significantly, “Net Neutrality” was never subject to legislative debate and signed into law by Congress.  It was all enacted with “regulations” which are reversible by subsequent Administrations. When the Republican administration arrived in 2017, opposition to the legitimacy and rationale for Net Neutrality came with it. The position of the new Administration was simple. if there is no problem, there is no reason for government involvement. The natural market forces of capitalism, driven principally by the needs of the Internet consumer, had successfully grown, governed and managed the Internet for 25 years. The companies providing Internet services will be “policed” by natural market forces that will impact their profits and change their behavior if consumers are unhappy. In effect, capitalism can be trusted to self-correct any problems. This is the embodiment of a fundamental difference in philosophy between the two major political parties.

This past week, as the now Republican-controlled FCC prepared to vote to overturn the 2015 Net Neutrality rules and regulations, the opposition launched into an hysteria reminiscent of climate change alarmists. None of these scaremongering claims¹ has any basis in fact or any precedent from which to draw. Their tortuous and obviously forced attempts to articulate the technological devastation they foresee are not easily understood and don’t come off as credible. It’s the familiar weakness of an argument in support of a contrived crisis. Much like climate change, the narrative for this topic was seized by politicians, activists and the media who then proceeded to illustrate and justify their cause with an embarrassingly-thin veneer of technical jargon. On Thursday, December 16, 2017 the vote took place, the Net Neutrality rules were overturned, and the sky did not fall. There was never any need for the media or politicians to “educate” us on the technical details of Internet operations. The push to retain Net Neutrality rules was all about ensuring that the government, not market forces, control the evolution of the Internet.

¹ In a brilliant display of scaremongering, Mignon Clyburn, one of two Democrats on the five-person FCC voting board, included this statement in the subject line of her dissenting opinion on the Net Neutrality vote this past Thursday: “I dissent from this fiercely-spun, legally-lightweight, consumer-harming, corporate-enabling, Destroying Internet Freedom Order”. And that’s just the subject line. Her entire opinion can be read at this link on the FCC’s website https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-348256A1.pdf.