Remember when doing away with “net neutrality” was going to kill the internet? It went away and nothing happened.
But now it’s back.
The Biden admin and its media lackeys are hyping this as a pro-consumer move. The reality is that the actual impact on consumers has been and likely will be nonexistent unless Team Socialism figures out a way to leverage it for some nefarious purpose. And that certainly should not be ruled out.
Net neutrality is about rewarding the biggest lobbyists and that means feeding the biggest censors.
We were told that not having net neutrality would endanger our internet access. The reality is that even in their worst case scenarios, it might mean Netflix or game streaming (some of the biggest bandwidth hogs) getting prioritized for certain services. And that’s not happening.And even if it did, it would be mostly meaningless.
But lobbyists for some Big Tech companies have pushed for “net neutrality” in a power struggle with cable and other internet providers. I have no love for Verizon, Comcast or Spectrum, but the companies pushing for “net neutrality” like Google and Facebook are by far the biggest source of censorship.
Why doesn’t “net neutrality” apply to them? Good question.
Here’s how I broke down the corrupt hypocrisy of “net neutrality” a few years ago.
A few years ago the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) was demanding government regulations that would force internet providers to carry the content of members like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Now it’s suing Florida to fight regulations that would force some of those same members to carry the content of ordinary Americans.
Net Neutrality, or forcing cable and DSL companies to carry all content without picking and choosing, “helps preserve free speech, access to information — and democracy,” former CCIA boss Ed Black argued two years ago.
But when Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law barring Big Tech monopolies from deplatforming candidates for public office and journalists, and forcing Big Tech to adopt clear and consistent standards for how they treat users, including deplatforming, as is the norm in every other industry, the CCIA went to war against free speech, access to information — and democracy.
“We are bringing this suit to safeguard the industry’s free speech,” current CCIA boss Matt Schruers claimed. “A digital service that declines to host harmful content is exercising its own First Amendment rights.”
It’s free speech when Facebook censors conservatives, but it’s an oppressive anti-consumer move if Comcast were to do the same to Netflix.
If Comcast’s control of 40% of the broadband market gives it so much power that it can’t be allowed to pick and choose what content it carries, what about Facebook’s 80% control?
And if Comcast potentially deciding not to carry Twitter is an assault on “free speech, access to information — and democracy”, then why isn’t Twitter’s decision not to carry President Trump and other conservatives an assault on “free speech, access to information — and democracy”?
The answer is that there’s a legal difference because a legion of lawyers and lobbyists have shaped the battlespace to favor certain industries at the expense of others.
Net neutrality won’t help you, but it will help the companies that censor you. Those companies demand that their content be carried while also demanding that they not have to carry your content.
If you like your freedom, well then you’d better be a massive woke Big Tech monopoly.
The tech activists cheering internet censorship were some of the loudest voices calling for net neutrality. Without net neutrality, they howled, the internet would no longer be free. But their idea of a free internet is a place that’s free for billion-dollar platforms to sell, but not for individuals to speak. It’s a world where Netflix can push its garbage original content at the expense of all internet users, but those users had better watch what they say or the plug on their speech will be pulled.
Was that anyone’s vision of a free internet? Did its pioneers envision the world wide web as a space where you can watch Fuller House or where people from around the world can share and debate ideas?
The internet can be little more than a content delivery system. An echo chamber in which Google and its rivals use AI to push content meant to manipulate you into buying, thinking and voting their way. Or it can be the public marketplace of ideas that is open to all voices, the good and the bad, as was intended.
