Net Neutrality – A Solution in Search of a Problem – IOTW Report

Net Neutrality – A Solution in Search of a Problem

Inside Sources-

A Federal Communications commissioner is doubling down on arguments against the agency’s recent Open Internet Order, saying the agency failed to “identify a single” net neutrality abuse before adopting new regulations over broadband providers earlier this year.

“The difficulty with the FCC’s regulations isn’t just their breadth,” Pai said. “They’re also vague.”

Pai pointed to the order’s “Internet conduct” standard, which gives the FCC the authority to rule on whether certain business practices providers engage in are permissible. When asked what kind of conduct that entailed, Wheeler responded, “we don’t really know.”

“Instead of providing any specific guidance, he analogized the FCC to a football referee and said that it would throw the flag if it saw behavior that it didn’t like,” Pai said. “That answer, I would submit, is the very definition of regulatory uncertainty.”

The next week Wheeler said regulating the Internet as a public utility common carrier service is “no more regulating the Internet than the First Amendment regulates free speech in our country.”

“Now, I give him credit for trying to couch the FCC’s decision as being consistent with our nation’s founding principles, but it shows a very different take on our Constitution,” Pai said. “The First Amendment is one of our most cherished principles because it operates as a restraint on government. It lets ideas compete in the marketplace free from any government intervention or regulation.”

“It quite clearly has nothing in common with the FCC’s decision to subject the Internet to extensive government control,” he added.

Pai was first asked about net neutrality’s potential impact on online free speech earlier this year.

“It is conceivable to me to see the government saying, ‘We think the Drudge Report is having a disproportionate effect on our political discourse,” Pai told the Right Online conference in May. “’He doesn’t have to file anything with the FEC. The FCC doesn’t have the ability to regulate anything he says, and we want to start tamping down on websites like that.’”

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