Net neutrality

The tech media was set ablaze last month when President Obama called for the independent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt strong net neutrality regulations. Obama’s call comes after months of FCC commissioners publicly waffling about the issue, leaving the public to believe that upcoming regulations will favor Internet service providers (ISPs) over consumers. Unfortunately, Obama’s most recent statement falls in line with his history on net neutrality: empty and meaningless.

Net neutrality means that all data is equal and shouldn’t face discrimination on the basis of content, user, source or a variety of other factors. Net neutrality regulations would prohibit ISPs from artificially slowing the connection between you and your favorite website. Some ISPs, like Comcast, have been extorting funds from companies like Netflix under the threat of slowing connections to their website. This is a basic principle of the internet free market: everyone has equal access and opportunity to grow and communicate online.

Obama has publicly supported net neutrality since 2007, when he was running for his first term. Since then, they only way he has supported net neutrality is through weightless public statements. In fact, all of his actions suggest that he’s actually opposed to net neutrality. Obama appointed all five of the current FCC commissioners, including Chairman Tom Wheeler, who spent 28 years of his life working for telecom trade groups lobbying for deregulation of cable, phone, and internet providers. Now, Tom Wheeler and the FCC have the power to determine the future of the internet. Will they classify the internet as an essential public utility and hold ISPs accountable, or will they continue to allow anti-competitive behavior? Thanks to Obama’s misguided appointments, the latter is unfortunately likely.

Jed Hanson, UND Political Science Major