On December 14, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission, led by Chairman Ajit Pai, voted to repeal Obama-era regulations that served as the basis for net neutrality. Media coverage for this repeal was astronomical. Internet sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Reddit were consistently exhausted with posts and petitions to stop or slow the progress of repealing the vote. There was certainly a sense of a doomsday scenario if the order was repealed. But how important is maintaining Net Neutrality?
What Is Net Neutrality?
The broad concept of Net Neutrality is relatively simple. Essentially, access to any website or web services should be equal to the end user. Comparatively, anyone starting their own website or web service have an equal opportunity as any other website. Essentially the system is in place to prevent Internet Service Providers (such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon) from speeding up, slowing down or blocking content, applications or websites – for their own monetary gain.
So without Net Neutrality, Comcast, for example, could reduce internet speeds for Netflix to force users into using its own platform (note – this actually happened in 2014). Additionally, many have claimed that in the absence of Net Netrality, ISPs would result to a package system, where users would have to purchase bundles to access online streaming or social media sites, for example.
Specifically, what the FCC recently voted on was in regards to reversing Title II regulations. Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 is a classification of “Common Carrier” (Wikipedia – A common carrier offers its services to the general public under license or authority provided by a regulatory body). Previously, the internet was classified under Title I which classified it as an “Informative Service”. So why is this so important? This reclassification allowed the internet to become a government-regulated service, and in turn provided the legal basis for the FCC to enforce Net Neutrality rules.
With the FCC’s changes in place, ISPs were forbidden from throttling data or prioritizing certain websites or services. Indeed, these regulations have worked. A notorious case was in 2012 with the release of Apple’s FaceTime. With the introduction of the video-calling feature, AT&T announced that customers would be required to upgrade their plan in order to access the service. Several public interest groups filed several formal complaints with the FCC which in turn led to the lifting of these rules.
The Title II regulations have been praised by many as a very consumer focused initiative, protecting internet users and online creators from unfair treatment from ISPs and an unbalanced playing field. However, there are people who believe that the concept of Net Neutrality tarnishes the concept of a free and open internet.
Several people believe (Ajit Pai included) that the concept of a government-regulated internet is stifling any real online innovation. If larger players such as Netflix, Facebook or Google were to be charged for their enormous bandwidth usage, infrastructure upgrades would permit much higher speeds and allow for a level playing field with new competitors. Additionally, arguments have been made which suggest that these major companies should pay their fair share to support infrastructure and development since they provide the greatest internet traffic. While these are certainly valid arguments, it is up to the consumer and website creators to decide between the notion of a government regulated internet or a capitalistic system controlled by ISPs. It should be noted that companies such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T have had astronomically high consumer rights violations and have been at the forefront of lobbying against Net Neutrality, clearly incentivized by profits.
This leads onto my last point of the recent Net Neutrality vote. Many people praised late-night talk show host John Oliver for really publicizing the issue of Net Neutrality and the potential dangers of its repeal in a 20 minute rant on the issue. He mentions that the FCC complaint system is overly complicated, so in an effort to educate and compel people to voice their complaints, he notoriously created the website gofccyouself.com which directed people straight to the specific hearing page which allowed consumers to leave their complaint in regards to the repeal. In the months following, over 22 million comments* were made in regards to the issue. Despite the major public backlash over the repeal, Ajit Pai announced that the vote would occur despite the public outcry. This really begs the question of how democratic this proceeding was. It could certainly be argued that since the electoral college led to Donald Trump’s presidential success, and he selected Ajit Pai as the FCC commissioner, that indeed this was a fair and democratic vote. But such major issues should certainly not be deaf to the voices of millions of Americans.
In 2016, the United Kingdom held a public referendum for its removal from the European Union. Although many disputed both sides of the referendum, the principle of the public directly voting on such a major issue was, in my opinion, a great show of a direct democracy. Such a major change in a publically used and maintained system should have certainly had an input from the millions of American consumers, companies and politicians from both parties and I felt that disallowing any real attention of these complaints was a harsh blow to our democratic system.
Despite the recent 3-2 vote to repeal Net Neutrality, the proceedings are still ongoing. Voicing your opinion, contacting your local or state representative and researching the issue is an important step in continuing the fight to restore Article II. I hope that my blogs and research will help inform you and prompt you to voice your opinion on the ongoing matter.
*It should be noted that the FCC has claimed that at least 7.5 million of these comments were spam.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_States
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-net-neutrality-debate-in-2-minutes-or-less/
https://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now
https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/internet-speech/what-net-neutrality
I’d like to start off by saying that this article was a great source of information on net neutrality as someone who previously knew very little about the topic. I knew about the repeal and some of the effects it could have on current internet use, but I was ignorant to the actual process of repeal and how such a small governmental body could be permitted to control such an important aspect of today’s society.
This brings me to my major concern with the issue. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the vote that was made, if it were to be made in a democratic manor. If a majority of the United States population had voted to repeal Net Neutrality, then, of course I would have to accept it. The nation as a whole chose to make this change and everyone in the country had the opportunity to voice their opinion through a vote. After all, the repeal of Net Neutrality falls under a capitalistic mindset which is a commonly supported idea in America.
However, this decision was declared in no such way. There was no collective vote, there was no consensus. Five people decided the overall fate of the nation and, quite frankly, that isn’t fair. Yes, Trump was elected and proceeded to appoint the FCC, but indirect democracy such as this doesn’t always represent the views of the majority of the population. And honestly, the procedural aspect of the Net Neutrality repeal was beyond undemocratic.
On the other side of this issue is the concept of capitalism – the essence of free enterprise. It is interesting that the internet was ever a regulated governmental entity. I never even knew this was the way it was. In the United States, so many industries are privately owned and operated and I guess I just assumed that the internet was the same. It would make sense. But in the end, I’m obviously in support of Net Neutrality.. I mean who wants to pay more for internet just to be manipulated by providers?
These are some really great points. I completely agree on the issue of the notion of a democratic vote when it comes to such major things like this. In essence, the system as it stands can be seen as an indirect voting/democratic system, but it then says that over half of the nation who didn’t vote for the winning candidate has no say (even if it is indirect) for 4 years which to me seems like a really dangerous affair.
The issue in regards to a capitalistic internet system is something that is a lot more complex than it seems and I will definitely be going into it further in my next post. Essentially, many ISPs have a monopolies in regional areas across the country. I know where I live personally Comcast is our only option. This means that if we were to give Internet providers such power as to not only regulate their prices, but also the things mentioned above, many consumers really wouldn’t have much but to deal with it. (This explains the reason of local monopolies pretty well: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-American-ISPs-cable-companies-allowed-regional-monopolies-What-is-the-benefit-of-this-and-why-doesn’t-the-FTC-dismantle-them-since-they-result-in-a-lack-of-competition-for-consumers).
As someone who has been following the Net Neutrality debate closely, I think you did a great job of giving an overview of the issue. This really is an issue that impacts everyone in ways they may not yet realize. I think the issue of having bandwidth-hogging websites like Netflix and YouTube pay their fair share is incredibly nuanced. While I agree on the surface that this is a good idea, allowing ISPs to throttle websites based on bandwidth use would give them too much power, power which they would most certainly abuse. It would begin with charging Netflix and YouTube more for their bandwidth users, but it could turn into any and every website being charged for “fast” (aka not painfully slow) speeds. ISPs have been known to break rules for the purposes of profit (see Comcast blocking BitTorrent traffic in the mid-to-late 2000s [1]), so giving them this power would only make it easier for them. In the future, websites like Netflix and YouTube would have to charge large sums of money to users to offset the bandwidth costs, new websites wouldn’t be able to attract a critical mass because they would load too slowly, and websites owned by or affiliated with ISPs (like Hulu, of which Comcast is a majority stakeholder) would get preferential treatment. We are already seeing this last point in carriers’ zero-rating systems, where carriers exclude certain data from your monthly cap (like free music streaming on Sprint) [2]. While this seems like a consumer-friendly move, it would ultimately lead to less competition, which is bad for the consumer: the same outcome as the pay-for-bandwidth plan.
[1] https://www.cnet.com/g00/news/comcast-really-does-block-bittorrent-traffic-after-all/
[2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/zero-rating-what-it-is-why-you-should-care