Why Net Neutrality is Fundamental

Since the FCC voted to end net neutrality, it has become a major issue again.  The first time around, net neutrality was all about fair business practices, and that is still part of the discussion.  The original discussion was triggered when Comcast used its position as the communication medium to make Netflix look like an inferior service to its own streaming service.  This harmed Comcast customers, Netflix, and was a violation of laws against monopolies (though I don't think anyone realized this last point).  This time, the discussion is much more broad.

Net neutrality is not just about business, as the right suggests it is.  The Republican Party has framed net neutrality as purely a business issue.  The justification for ending net neutrality was that ISPs have a moral right to control their networks, including the right to charge some business users more for their use than others.  This even seems to make sense.  By this reasoning, Comcast was still in violation of the law.  Using this power to give another product they own an advantage over competing products is a violation of the law.  Comcast would still be within its rights to charge content providers more, however, without this serious conflict of interest.  The problem with this reasoning is that this is not purely a business issue, and treating it like one results in the violation of rights far beyond businesses.

Imagine what would happen if the U.S. Postal Service was not client neutral.  For example, what if the U.S. Postal Service prioritized its own advertisements and delayed advertisements for FedEx and DHL?  Obviously, the other companies would be bothered by this.  Now, what if they complained, and the USPS told them they could have the same priority, but they would have to pay a million dollars a year for it?  This is essentially exactly what Comcast and some other ISPs are doing, except instead of using it to advertise the service being used, they are doing it to diminish the quality of service of other companies to push their customers into using a totally different service they are offering.

Now imagine something else.  What if the U.S. Postal Service decides that it is opposed to Catholicism and wants to promote Protestantism.  So, it treats bulk advertisements from Protestant groups as first class mail, and it treats mail from Catholic organizations as the lowest priority mail.  And maybe it also supports opening the borders to free immigration, so it delays Republican mail while putting anything Democratic or apparently supporting open borders in the fast lane.  Of course, we are talking about a government agency here.  That would be totally illegal.  With the dismantling of net neutrality, it would not be illegal for ISPs to do this though.

The fact is, the internet is a communication medium, and it is currently the most important one we have.  Net neutrality was not just about fair business practices.  It was also about the ethical moderation of communication lines.  Without net neutrality, ISPs get to decide what we communicate and how we do it.  They get to control what internet services we choose to use.  They get to choose what kind of advertisements we are exposed to, and they get to choose what web sites we can use.  They even get to choose what political platforms we are exposed to.  If Comcast wants its customers to vote for a particular political candidate, it can dramatically slow down service for web sites promoting other candidates.  Comcast users who want to research candidates could find themselves waiting minutes for a site promoting Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump in the next elections, because maybe Comcast prefers the platform of some other candidate.  Since the Republican Party is largely responsible for the repeal of net neutrality, maybe Comcast will provide faster service to websites promoting Republican congressional candidates, and maybe it will even put in a filter somewhere delaying email to and from Democratic congressional candidates.  Comcast can now legally take what amount to bribes from Microsoft to slow down Google's search service.  Perhaps it would also take bribes from Yahoo to put Gmail correspondence in a slow lane.  Net neutrality was designed to prevent a very wide range of abuses of control over U.S. communication.

Ending net neutrality did not just allow companies like Comcast to charge competing businesses more for their bandwidth.  It has allowed them complete control over communications through their network, including the ability to decide exactly what their users can see and experience as well as what those outside of their network can see and experience from their users.  This is bad!  It is a serious violation of some Constitutional freedoms (freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion) and many many other obvious freedoms not mentioned in the Constitution.

What it comes down to is this: If we cannot trust the government to protect our rights from companies like Comcast, then maybe internet service should be a government owned and operated national utility.  I don't like this idea, because it gives the government too much power over communication, but it is better than a very clearly greedy, profit driven private business having that kind of power totally unchecked.  In short, if we cannot have net neutrality, then lets abolish private ISPs and had over the internet to the government.  Because without net neutrality, that is the only way America stays free.