Net Neutrality: Why I’m More Concerned About Google And Facebook Than My Internet Provider
If you read the news articles around social media, we are being driven to the dark ages with the FCC’s decision to roll back an Obama-era decision to classify broadband providers as common carriers. The click-bait articles tend to make it sound like Internet Service Providers are rubbing their grubby little hands together to nickel-and-dime you for your daily Facebook and Netflix fix and are destroying the “free (as in freedom) Internet”. The thought is that if we don’t have a government agency telling ISPs what network traffic they can or can’t prioritize, they may or may not manipulate traffic on their network.
The true irony is that all of the griping over how the destruction of the Internet is occurring by the ISPs because they are censoring small voices, but where is a similar outrage against Google and Facebook when they announced that they will be the arbiters of truth? In this day and age when people try to be the first to break a story without all of the facts (verified or not), we have to be mindful consumers of information. The news cycle has gone from 24 hours to just mere seconds with social media. There are people out there who are trying to spread misinformation whether it be for nefarious reasons or more benign reasons (like satire).
People, unfortunately, will fall victim to it and pass it around as truth. That’s why sites like YourNewsWire continue to be around…they get people to pass their bogus click-bait-y stories around to sell ads (let’s be honest, that’s really what most of these sites are doing…getting ads in front of your eyeballs). Just remember, if an article sounds bogus, then it probably is. I believe I can remain skeptical on my own rather than having a private company, like Google, Facebook, or an ISP, or a government agency curating my web experience for me.
Realistically, the Tom Wheeler-led FCC took a light-handed approach towards net neutrality: there were no price caps, rate regulation, or network unbundling requirements (unbundling requires ISPs to lease their last mile runs to other providers to enhance competition) as a part of the net neutrality regulations from 2015. So, no, I don’t believe that the FCC will break the Internet when they reverse a two year old regulation. The Internet has been chugging right along before the FCC classified broadband providers as common carriers and will likely continue mostly unchanged after the reversal.
I’m sure you’re probably thinking “then what’s the big deal”? Well, for one thing, the Trump administration has been rolling back executive agency regulations, so it’s not surprising to see this one. For another thing, it rolls back administrative edict on how to handle our national Internet infrastructure, an edict that has been ruled in court as ineffective for enforcement against throttling or blocking of network traffic which tends to be a major tenant of net neutrality. If network neutrality is truly a national concern, then we need Congress open up a national conversation to review and revise the Communications Act of 1934 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
About Author
nsmith
Father. IT Geek. Former 14th District GOP Chairman (2015-2017). Former Walker GOP Chairman (2009-2013). Resident of Chamblee. American. Georgian. Conservative.
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One of the problems of free speech is people crying wolf. With all the prophets of doom and gloom, it is tough to tell when a real threat emerges. While I am concerned about having a free internet, I am also skeptical about all the net neutrality noise. It is tough to tell what is really going on.
You are missing a lot of history here, Nathan. Net Neutrality regulations do not go back to 2015, they go all the way back to 2005 when FCC Chairman Kevin Martin released the 4 internet principles:
– Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.
– Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.
– Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.
– Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.
These regulations were first codified under Title I of the Communications Act, the light touch regulatory framework everyone loves. Unfortunately, when Comcast started degrading content from the sharing site BitTorent and was subsequently fined by the FCC, it sued in federal court and won. The court ruled that the FCC failed to tie the Net Neutrality rules to any actual grant of authority from Congress. So the FCC went back to the drawing board.
The FCC tried again to offer light tough regulation under Title I of the Communications Act. This time, it grounded its rules in Sec. 706 of the Communications Act and required 3 things:
– Transparency (ISPs had to report their network management practices
– No Blocking (Cannot prohibit users from accessing a website of their choice)
– No unreasonable discrimination (cannot treat like traffic differently note: this only applied to wireline networks)
Before the ink was even dry on these rules, Verizon sued. Literally, they had to refile their case because the rules were not even printed in the federal register yet. In the Verizon case, the federal court ruled that the No Blocking and Non Discrimination proposals seemed like Common Carrier type regulations. Common carrier type regulations can only be applied by Title II of the Communications Act, not Title I.
So the FCC was left with little choice, they had to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act and treat it like a monopoly service. Thats how we ended up under Title II in 2015.
Now, Currently FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to reclassify back to Title I. The problem is, the part of net neutrality that protect consumers: No Blocking and Non Discrimination cannot be enforced under Title I. Ajit Pai would like you to believe that there is so much internet competition, that simply telling consumers about how ISPs plan to treat traffic on their networks is sufficient to stop bad behavior.
Seriously? That is an insult to rural America. Even in metro Atlanta, I have exactly 2 providers of broadband internet service. Both of them happen to also provide video products. Under Pai’s rules, if they decide Netflix is taking too much away from their video business, they can block access to Netflix, just as long as they disclose it first.
So lets be clear about a couple things. ISPs had a chance at light touch regulation for 10 years prior to reclassification. In those 10 years, ISPs litigated every regulatory hook the FCC had to impose limited regulation on the Internet. The only tool left in the FCC tool box was the Title II regulatory hammer. To the FCC’s credit, and which you noted, it didn’t use the full brunt of that hammer (network unbundling, price regulation etc.) but it did get the job done.
Now I understand the threat of future FCC Chairman coming in and imposing price regulation etc. on the Internet. But there is a better solution than ping ponging back and forth between Title I and Title II every time a new Administration comes to Washington, that is for Congress to finally legislate some real rules of the road.
Thanks for the additional background. A lot of issues arise from local governments granting monopolies to cable companies. Of course, “some” have additional choices, but I know of at least one that doesn’t have a decent choice besides a major cable provider. This issue needs to be settled by Congress. I don’t believe a major overhaul of communications policy has been seriously discussed in over 20 years (the Telecommunications Act of 1996), and that was during the reign of dial-up and before the major dot-com boom. A lot has changed since then, and it’s going to require Congress drawing lines on the page on what and how the FCC can regulate. I would rather have it worked through the legislative branch rather than the tick-tock of regulatory changes of different administrations.
Completely agree. The reason we are in the problem we are in now is because the Communications Act (as amended by the Telecom Act) silos different technologies into different regulatory frameworks.
Telecommunication Services (e.g. Plain Old Telephone) is the most heavily regulated under Title II. Cable TV, is moderately regulated under Title VI, a completely different framework and of course the Internet has been back and forth between Title I as a “Communication Service” and Title II as a ‘Telecommunication Service” with almost no regulation under Title I. None of this makes any sense when the same 1’s and 0’s deliver all the content in a digital. Whether it is AT&T providing phone internet and video over fiber, or Comcast providing phone, video and Internet over Cable, its exactly the same and should be regulated exactly the same.
Ironically, it was the FCC’s attempt to create regulatory parity that lead to the whole Title I vs. Title II debate way back in 2003. Thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Baby Bells were forced to unbundle their networks. About the same time, a Supreme Court decision ruled that Cable companies didn’t have to unbundle their networks (Brand X decision). This created an enormous regulatory advantage for Cable. They could invest in internet infrastructure without fear of having to share that infrastructure with competitors. However, the Bells were in the completely opposite situation. There was no way they were going to invest in fiber, if they had to unbundle that fiber to competitors.
After Congress failed to pass the Tauzin Dingell Act (legislation designed to fix this regulatory disparity hint: Big Cable lobbied hard against), the FCC stepped in moved “the internet” from Title II of the Communications Act to Title I.
To avoid recreating this mess in 2015, Wheeler actually created new definition – “Broadband Internet Access Service” (conveniently shortened to BIAS) – and moved that under Title II. This meant that Cable Internet was also captured under Wheelers rules to ensure both were treated the same.
Of course people are concerned about Google and Facebook filtering content. That doesn’t mean they can’t also be concerned about net neutrality. You can choose not to use Facebook or Google if you don’t want to endure their content filtering. You can’t choose not to use the single vertically-integrated monopolist ISP that serves you, which is the case for 10+% of Americans. As you have stated before (https://www.georgiapol.com/2016/08/12/appellate-court-squashes-fcc-municipal-broadband-ruling/), “affordable, reliable high-speed Internet access is becoming more and more of a necessity rather than a luxury.”
Net neutrality doesn’t actually cover such topics as price caps, rate regulation, or network unbundling. Those would have been pro-consumer regulations that could have taken a swing at the vertically-integrated monopolist ISPs and would have been great to have. However, taking a light approach made the common carrier ruling more likely to withstand a legal challenge. Sure, we can revisit the two telecomms acts, as has been attempted over half a dozen times, but any revisions won’t have 90 years of legal precedent behind them. As Comcast’s VP stated in the article you linked, “Title II is a source of authority to impose enforceable net neutrality rules. Title II is not net neutrality.” A legal concept with no power to enforce it is useless, and Title II is the strongest regulation we have now or will have given its decades of enforcement. This isn’t just a conceptual idea…it’s a fact. The Title II designation is the only pro-NN regulation that has fully withstood a federal appeals court decision (US Telecom Association v. FCC and USA – 2016), whereas all previous regulations have been struck down.
This situation is unique from all previous because the FCC has given no indication that they will put other pro-NN regulations in place if the Title II designation is overturned, and even if they did, history has shown new regulations will likely not withstand a legal challenge. The ISP industry is the most consolidated and integrated it has ever been. We’re coming up on the end of Comcast’s requirement to abide by NN from their Time Warner merger stipulations. ISPs have already demonstrated their willingness to block, throttle, and put content behind a paywall in the past, despite these things being illegal at the time. We have no evidence that they won’t continue to do so with weak regulations or no regulations. Title II was the correct choice. It’s a conservative dream…protecting and empowering families and individuals, promoting freedom of speech and information, providing a level playing field so that small businesses and individuals can thrive, and it does it all without excessive regulation (which likely would come if the previous laws were revisited).
As I clearly stated in my blog post (that it seems like you didn’t actually read and rudely cited as click-bait), dropping the Title II designation and losing net neutrality isn’t the end of the world, but is very anti-competitive and harmful to consumers.
There are a couple more points that need to be made here. Without net neutrality, your ISP can block certain content, and only make it available at a higher cost. One plan could be 10 dollars a month that only allows you to go to Facebook, which FB would subsidize heavily (they’ve tried doing that in India). Twenty dollars FB and Google. Thirty dollars you get Netflix too. The ISPs will demand to be heavily subsidized by these companies to allow their content on any plan. You might end up paying a huge price for “unlimited internet”. When you have monopoly ISPs , I only have one choice of unlimited broadband…Comcast, you have to have a heavier regulatory hand to play. Wireless is capped at unrealistic levels to use as your main source of BB, and way too expensive.
The second point is interconnection. ISPs like Comcast who control the “last mile” were purposely allowing interconnect points with backbone providers to bottleneck which in turn would slow down any content not originating on the Comcast network (which is a very low amount). This was causing measurable slowdowns for almost any streaming site. ISPs were pushing to see how far they could go, but when the FCC actually started regulating…these bottlenecks “magically” disappeared. Sometimes the fear of additional regulation keeps the players in line. Pai is going to throw that right out the window and introduce us to slower, walled off internet. The ISP’s would love nothing more than the “Cable TVization” of the internet which effectively kills it.
Net Neutrality aside, the Internet remains an exceedingly dangerous place–widely-used and poorly understood, with an out-sized economic, moral and societal impact that we won’t fully comprehend for another generation or more.
It is not safe to allow your child or teenager to access the internet without direct parental supervision. And it’s a minefield for a lot of adults, too.
Google and Facebook are not appropriately regulated nor trustworthy. Neither is Amazon nor Netflix nor Twitter nor LinkedIn. (I’m cool with georgiapol.com … most of the time)