Net “Neutrailty”: neutering free speech
November 13, 2008
Joseph Shelton - Fotolia.com
“Net Neutrality,” a proposal which would by law move financial investment in internet infrastructure from free-market into government hands, is raising its ugly head once more.
Billed as a way to keep corporations from hindering free expression by limiting services to those who can pay, in effect it brings government into business of deciding what “neutral” means. Now, the same people who brought you “fair” and “equitable” standards for employment, workplace safety, environmental protection, offshore drilling and education would be judging “fair” and “neutral” on the internet.
It is supported by companies like Google, Yahoo, eBay and Amazon and organizations like MoveOn.org, Common Cause and Free Press also support Net Neutrality.
You might recall that Google has made major concessions to the government of China by instituting a censorship scheme in the Chinese version of its search engine which conformed to the demands of the communist leaders of that country.
Barack Obama, a proponent of Net Neutrality and has named Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, to his presidential transition team.
Phil Kerpen in a National Review Online article today explains how Net Neutrality could become a threat to free speech:
Vint Cerf, Google’s chief net-neutrality propagandist, agrees. Cerf calls for the effective nationalization of the Internet, arguing that “incentives could be provided that would render the Internet more like the public road system … not owned by the private sector,” with its use “essentially open to all.” Not only does the Internet in its current form work much better, and improve much more quickly, than government-run highways and railroads. But anyone who knows anything about highway and railroad contracts knows that large-scale infrastructure management by the government invites politically motivated deal-making as well as rampant fraud and abuse.
There are some who believe nationalization of the internet would be a useful way to restrict what they deem to be disinformation on the internet. Kerpen cites University of Sunderland professor Alex Lockwood who believes that scientists who denounce Global Warming theory should be restricted from distributing their ideas on the internet. Kerpen offers this quote from Lockwood,
I would argue that climate disinformation online is a form of cultural and political malware every bit as threatening to our new media freedoms, used not to foster a forum for open politics but to create, in Nancy Fraser’s term, a “multiplicity of fragmented publics” that harms not only our democracy, but our planet.
If the government controls the internet infrastructure, would it be any less inclined to control the content that flows through the system on a broad scale outside of market competition than companies who must compete in a free market for customers?
This is a bad idea and would create a time bomb which could destroy the free flow of ideas in our country. In combination with The “Fairness” Doctrine, we could see the dismantling of the First Amendment begin under the cover of “fairness” and “neutrality.”
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