In 2015, President Obama lobbied the FCC to enact rules on the internet by regulating internet service providers. They wanted to be able to control the net more, through throttling bandwidth usage and blocking sites. The "pipes" of the internet would be nationalized, and prevent business innovation and investment into the internet's infrastructure. This would also make things worse for all users.
The FCC didn't know what they were talking about for justifying their draconian measure of control over people's freedom online. After the implementation of 'net neutrality' in 2015, investments in the infrastructure declined. When the internet started and AOL became a big thing, they were able to become big because they discovered better ways to service customers. Throttling back connection speeds and download limits wasn't their solution. The infrastructure grew instead.
The market decided the outcome, not the Feds. Letting the government regulate business models rarely works out in fast changing technology fields. Broadband has become more available, with Americans who don't have access dropping by more than half between 2012 and 2014, down from 72.1 million to 34.5 million. After 'net neutrality' was passed, adoption became 3 times slower. 2012 had 81.2% of Americans with broadband access, 2014 had 89.4%, and 2016 had 92.3%.
But 'Net Neutrality' was supported by big companies like Netflix, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon. They argued that ISPs controlled the internet "pipes" and would discriminate against certain content with that control. Yet, the one's who want the control are the mega corps.
Free speech is a target. Companies like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google welcome policies to police speech online. 2017 saw a flurry of activity to eliminate, demonize and punish "bad" personalities from their sites in order to provide a "safe harbor" for certain groups or people that objected to what the "baddies" talked about. In 2018, Youtube has been purging many channels for talking about issues they deem to be "bad".
So today marks a good day as we see 'net neutrality' die. The regulations have been repealed by the FCC. But activists for the flawed concept are still trying to get it reenacted. They had the Senate pass a bill to overturn the FCC decision to scrap the regulation of 'net neutrality'. They are trying to get it passed at the House level as well.
But these efforts are largely a waste of time, energy and money. If it passes the House of representatives, it then goes to the White House for Trump to OK it. This won't happen. Trump wants deregulation, and reenacting the regulations of the internet is not up his ally.
References:
- Activists Attempt Last-Minute Effort to Save Net Neutrality
- Net Neutrality Is Officially Dead. That's a Victory for Free Speech.
- Why Net Neutrality Was Mistaken From the Beginning (AOL Edition)
- Senate approves bill in bid to retain U.S. net neutrality
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