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FCC Votes In Favor of New Net Neutrality Regime, But How ‘Neutral’ Will It Be?
February 26, 2015 By 21wire 3 Comments
21st Century Wire says…

These last few weeks saw a vicious partisan battle take place in the United States over new government policies regarding Net Neutrality.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to implement strict new “Net Neutrality” rules designed to make sure Internet service providers treat all ‘legal’ content equally.

hp-a-fcc-net-neutrality-100339595-origIt got really ugly in the week preceding today’s FCC ruling. Democrats and other liberal pundits have said that losing Net Neutrality would allow mega corporations to dictate who has access to the fast lane, and who does not. Republicans and their media outlets are claiming that this was all about ‘Obama wanting to takeover the internet’ by determining what content we are allowed to post online.

In the end, both sides of this debate called vigorously for the preservation of an ‘Open Internet’, making it a choice between two paradigns — big government, or “the free market” (big cable operators in this case). So in the end, poor partisan America is left with a classic Hobson’s choice: do you go with the Federal Government or Big Business? Daunting isn’t it? .

One rule of thumb here is that whatever big business is attempting to change regarding the status quo – which is a ‘neutral internet’ aka Net Neutrality – is most likely a change designed to favor their narrow interests and may also be seen as a monopolistic urge to buy-up all the valuable bandwidth we call broadband, effectively shutting out weaker competition aka ‘the little man’. Judging by history, it’s almost 100% certain that any intense lobbying by mega corporations will be in order to tilt the playing field in their favor, and in favor of locking up markets for themselves. That is not a premature concern, it is a clear and present danger.

Cries of a ‘government takeover’ by right-wing pundits like Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Michael Savage (all reading from the same hymn sheet. “Didn’t you get the memo?”) may be premature. In other words, it hasn’t happened yet. If it does, the public will have some recourse to fight back, as opposed to a fascist corporate takeover of the internet which cannot be reversed or fought off. So in this way, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Michael Savage, who each work for a mega media corporation – seem to be shilling for the fascist-corporate takeover of the internet’s information super-highway, disingenuously claiming their pro-corporate positions are all about spurring on “competition”, and “innovation”. The reality is that although each of these pundits like to portray themselves as poor little upstarts and ‘not part of the mainstream’, each of them represents big business – so expect big business will dictate what their stance is on this issue. Either that, or these pundits are just obsessed with making Net Neutrality a partisan or “Obama” issue, and actually do not understand the mechanics of the internet from a user or small business point of view.

Conservative fears of the FCC now having more authority over internet content are still relevant, but only to the extent that a new regime of censorship does grow out of what the FCC has described as: “plans to enforce its new open Internet rules through ‘investigation and processing of formal and informal complaints.’ For the first time, the FCC can also address complaints at interconnection points, the gateway between ISPs and the rest of the Internet, on a case-by-case basis.” The wording puts an emphasis on protecting “all legal content” but does not specify what will be deemed as “illegal” content in the future. Whether or not this new federal regime will employ an anonymous communitarian complaint system and opaque “standards” like the one used and abused as ‘stealth censorship’ by Britain’s broadcast regulator Ofcom and its shadowy subsidiaries – is yet to be determined. If this is the case, then such policies should be fought tooth and nail, while preserving the original spirit of Net Neutrality.

Still, one has to ask the obvious question: Was leaving it alone ever an option?

Either way, the FCC and the federal government now must be monitored very closely by consumers and watchdog groups alike – and challenged vigorously in the high courts if any of their measures or policies are being used to silence free speech and expression, or to restrict the flow of real information and opinion. In that respect, nothing has really changed.

Moreover, the collusion between big business and big government is even more frightening, when you consider that the man charged with presiding over this historic vote, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, is a former cable lobbyist. A viper in the nest if there ever was one.

So was this a big corporate power-grab, or an FCC power-grab? In reality, it was both. Both sides do share very similar interests and are determined to control the web. The only difference being that big business is completely unaccountable (accept to its shareholders), while the other side is accountable to voters (sometimes).

More reason to keep a very close eye on this, a ‘Round One’ decision (the battle is just beginning)…

http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/02/26/fcc-vote-in-favor-of-new-net-neutrality-regime-but-how-neutral-will-it-be/