The Patriot Post® · Revisiting Net Neutrality

The Internet has long been a marketplace for the exchange of information and services, but it doesn’t take long for politicians and government bureaucrats to get their hands on something they didn’t create in the first place.

The Federal Communications Commission has long believed that without government oversight, ISPs (Internet Service Providers) would willy-nilly block users from accessing certain content, raise prices beyond the affordability of many Americans, or speed up connections to the ISPs’ preferred partners.

Enter net neutrality, the deceptively named “solution” to a nonexistent Internet problem.

Roll Call reports that net neutrality “requires internet service providers to treat all users as equal, rather than treating a certain class of users who pay more differently from others paying less or using other criteria to discriminate between users.”

Imagine the federal government instituting restaurant neutrality, thereby forcing chain restaurants to offer the same food to all diners no matter how much they were paying. The person paying 50 bucks and the person paying five would both get the New York strip steak. Those with reservations would be treated the same as those dropping in. Then, imagine the owner restricting what you can say in the restaurant.

Of course, it’s all done in the name of fairness. In this case, net neutrality is a principle that claims to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

Nonetheless, the FCC voted 3-2 yesterday to classify Internet providers as common carriers under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act. This is not the first time the FCC has tried this.

In 2015, the Obama administration’s FCC implemented the Open Internet Order, which pledged to “enact strong, sustainable rules grounded in multiple sources of legal authority to protect the Open Internet and ensure that Americans reap the economic, social, and civic benefits of an Open Internet today and into the future.”

But Americans didn’t reap anything other than higher prices and slower Internet speeds.

When the Trump administration reversed the Open Internet Order in 2017, there were dire warnings about the consequences. But much like Al Gore’s unrealized gloom-and-doom climate predictions, the end of net neutrality didn’t bring disaster. Instead, it was a boon for American Internet users.

“In the years following the repeal and the creation of a more favorable regulatory environment, private broadband investment increased significantly,” reports the James Madison Institute. “In 2017, ISPs reported investing around $76 billion in their networks. By 2022, after the repeal of OIO regulations, that figure skyrocketed to over $102 billion. Comparatively, Congress could only provide $42.5 billion in infrastructure.”

As it turns out, customers could do more and do it faster, including streaming high-definition movies, receiving virtual healthcare, and learning remotely.

As with any government initiative, the proof is in the pudding. COVID-19 was a real test to see if the “lawless” Internet would hold up under the weight of increased usage.

As the Washington Policy Center’s Donald Kimball reports: “If the aim is to provide an accessible, essential service, one of the most important aspects of accessibility is a stable infrastructure during times of increased usage and duress. The U.S. was able to navigate such a time of extreme use during the Covid-19 pandemic with flying colors. When internet usage was at an all-time high, the broadband and network systems held without issue. The same cannot be said for our neighbors in Europe, whose net-neutrality rules depressed investment to the degree that regulatory bodies rationed and throttled network usage from companies such as Netflix and YouTube in order to prevent internet collapse.”

Things changed after Trump scrapped the Obama rule, observes the Wall Street Journal editorial board: “Investment and access to high-speed Internet surged. By the end of 2019, 94% of Americans had access to high-speed fixed and mobile broadband, up from 77% in 2015. In 2022 broadband builders laid more than 400,000 route miles of fiber, more than 50% more than in 2016. Prices fell with more competition.”

Imagine that: Freedom and competition worked.

Net neutrality will regulate rates charged by ISPs, control the management of their services, and prevent them from becoming too profitable. Of greater concern, though, is the power the government will have to regulate what it deems misinformation — which is another way of saying “speech that doesn’t comport with leftist ideology.” And let’s not forget how the Biden administration pressured social media companies in 2021 to control “misinformation” about the COVID-19 vaccine. Imagine what they would do if they had full control over ISPs.

“Again, focus on what they do, not what they say,” writes Timothy H. Lee of the Center for Individual Freedom. “Collectively, all of this reveals how the Biden administration seeks to create a political environment in which speech from those with whom the administration disagrees politically is suppressed or censored, even if that is accomplished via third parties in the private sector.”

Lee adds, “As another example of gross regulatory misconduct, the FCC, under the guise of ‘digital equity,’ continues to move forward with unworkable and legally questionable racial discrimination rules that measure any unequal outcomes as evidence of intentional discrimination.”

Government regulation is always sold as the solution, but it invariably results in lower quality, greater inefficiency, a bigger bureaucracy, and more power for politicians and busybodies.

If we want free speech and an uninhibited flow of information on high-quality, affordable, and accessible Internet services, then let’s stop all this nonsense about net neutrality, which is nothing more than a cleverly packaged assault on our freedom.