Net Neutrality

[Lizzie]

[dukealien]

As I understand it (poorly, no doubt) what was done under the title "Net Neutrality" consisted of seizing the kind of control the FCC once exercized over telephone and telegraph, but over the Internet.  This was accompanied by promises that most of those powers - which are extremely broad - wouldn't ever be used, and promulgating some popular regulations under them which were advertised as securing unimpeded service for "the little guy."

This was, IIRC, the second or third time this seizure was attempted; both that time and the previous, the courts threw it out (which was, therefore, the status of "Net Neutrality" before the most recent change).  That is, courts have consistently held that the Internet is not the 1960 phone company and can't be regulated the same way.

I tend to agree with the courts on this:  the sweeping powers seized under the phone company analogy could have done by fiat everything opponents fear from dumping "Net Neutrality" and more... with no new legislation, only a declaration that, since circumstances have changed, the promise not to use those powers is no longer operative for the present emergency.  Those powers *could* be used for a full-house, mainland-Chinese style lockdown of the Internet in the US for any reason asserted in public or in secret (e.g. "national security" or "eliminating privilege and racism").

FWIW, I'm also opposed to anti-trust (which is what would be required to regulate near-monopoly entities such as Google, Facebook, etc.) on principle.  The important reason for this is that most bad consequences of such concentrations (which were once called "trusts") are due to government corruptly favoring them... not inherent effects of size, which in itself merely sets them up as targets for competition.  This, at least, is my ideology in the matter - like Communism, Captialism *without* such cronyism has seldom been tried in the real world, but more often approached and with better results.

And so, I disagree with the panic over "Net Neutrality's" demise, but am happy to see that those who participate are at least looking in the right direction, i.e. at the future of the Internet and government's relation to it.

Cheers.