Why Net Neutrality Was Mistaken From the Beginning
26th November 2017
Current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai memorably told Reason that “net neutrality” rules were “a solution that won’t work to a problem that doesn’t exist.”
Yet in 2015, despite a blessed lack of throttling of specific traffic streams, blocking of websites, and other feared behavior by internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile carriers, the FCC issued net neutrality rulesthat gave the federal government the right to punish business practices under Title II regulations designed for the old state-enabled Bell telephone monopoly.
Now that Pai, who became chairman earlier this year, has announced an FCC vote to repeal the Obama-era regulations, he is being pilloried by progressives, liberals, Democrats, and web giants ranging from Google to Netflix to Amazon to Facebook, often in the name of protecting an “open internet” that would let little companies and startups flourish like in the good old days before Google, Netflix, Amazon, and Facebook dominated everything. Even the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which back in 2009 called FCC attempts to claim jurisdiction over the internet a “Trojan Horse” for government control, is squarely against the repeal.
The Usual Suspects, of course, consider it the End Of The World and reacted accordingly:
Pai is also being targeted by net neutrality activists, who have posted signs naming his children by his house and reportedly ordered pizzas as a nuisance.
This is the sort of bullying that the proglodyte fringe always indulge themselves in because they always feel justified in standing in the way of Hitler or whatever.
As a general rule, the side of a question that mobilizes ugly people marching in the streets and carrying ugly signs can be presumed to be wrong. This works 90% of the time.