Net Neutrality and the FCC
"The Internet is the most powerful and pervasive platform on the planet. It is simply too important to be left without rules and without a referee on the field. Think about it. The Internet has replaced the functions of the telephone and the post office. The Internet has redefined commerce, and as the outpouring from four million Americans has demonstrated, the Internet is the ultimate vehicle for free expression. The Internet is simply too important to allow broadband providers to be the ones making the rules.
This proposal has been described by one opponent as "a secret plan to regulate the Internet." Nonsense. This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech. They both stand for the same concepts: openness, expression, and an absence of gate keepers telling people what they can do, where they can go, and what they can think." -Tom Wheeler, Chairman of the FCC
I confess that when it comes to the minutae of internet workings I am a bit of a doofus. I can manage my own computer well enough that I don't have to scramble around and call a tech every single time a glitch happens, but when it comes to technology as it pertains to the world, I am more vulnerable.
That said, I have listened to the arguments for both sides on this and I guess the best I can come up with is that the supporters are supporters of a general concept and buzzwords and detractors tend to be full of armageddon speak. Not a lot that's very edifying all-around, frankly.
I did however take notice of the above quote from the regulatory body that made the move. It doesn't speak to or address any abuses that the move to enact net neutrality was made in response to. In fact, as much as I googled, I could find nothing that had happened that seemed to warrant such a move in respone. The above quote only seems to confirm that this move was one based almost entirely on what might happen someday. Maybe. Can anyone who meanders from message board to message board either here on LJ or elsewhere say that their free speech has been squelched by telecom companies? I'm not talking about forum moderation, but trying to impose a standard of what people can say, where they can go, and what they can think, as the quote above so eloquently put it?
So while I am not necessarily of the idea that there would never, ever be a situation in which some company decided to enact far-reaching, speech threatening action, I would feel much better if one could point to the actual beast being claimed we're fighting before a fight gets started or is deemed necessary. We're all surfers on the internet by the fact that we're here at all talking to each other. Has anyone experienced this kind of suppression in a material way?
In addition, the whole comment, if it truly sums up the FCC's rationale, smacks more of the kind of rhetoric one promises before completely undermining everything it claims it was trying to do. It's vague and doesn't even reference the main issue people were citing as a possibility that got them to supposedly act in the first place. I won't go so far as to join the chorus and cries of 'armageddon', but this to me is at the very least, troubling.
I see little difference between the idea of a pre-emptive war and pre-emptive legislation/regulation, and no purpose to support either, and for pretty much the same reason. Fighting invisible monsters in real ways generates chaos, and has a greater chance to cause problems that might otherwise never have happened if the pot remained un-stirred so to speak. And the unseen future is so very, very, invisible.
Thoughts from the gallery?