Former FCC Commissioner Tries To Claim Net Neutrality Has Aided The Rise Of White Supremacy

from the dumb-argument-hall-of-fame dept

When last we checked in with former FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth, he was rather grotesquely using the Manchester bombing to try and launch a completely bizarre attack on net neutrality over at the Forbes op-ed pages. Furchtgott-Roth, who served as an FCC Commissioner from 1997 through 2001, now works at the Hudson Institute, which not-coincidentally takes money from large incumbent broadband providers. The Hill, Forbes and other similar outlets then publish not-so-objective "analysis" from such individuals without really disclosing the money or motives driving the rhetoric.

In his missive for hire last May just days after the Manchester attack, Furchtgott-Roth tried to argue that protecting net neutrality somehow aids and abets terrorism and murder:

"A sensible question is why civilized governments do not seek to deprive terrorists of unfettered access to the Internet...Sadly, here in America, limiting access to the Internet would be illegal under the euphemistic term “network neutrality,” the two-year-old experiment in federal regulation of the Internet...To its supporters, network neutrality is a bulwark of civilization. But network neutrality is also a shield for terrorists who seek to destroy civilization."

As we noted then, Furchtgott-Roth doesn't appear to have even the remotest understanding of how the internet or net neutrality works, and conflated the issue of net neutrality with his own deep-rooted desire to see greater government censorship of the internet. That lust for censorship runs so deep, Furchtgott-Roth envisioned a future where ISPs could compete with one another (as if that's a thing) by how heavily they censor internet content:

"Under network neutrality, broadband companies--such as AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon—are prohibited from discriminating against any lawful websites or content. There is no clear distinction between lawful and unlawful websites and content. The net result is a broadband company could and likely would be sued for blocking websites housing information about recruitment and organization for ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Ku Klux Klan, or other terrorist groups. It is also illegal to block content that instructs viewers on how to manufacture explosives such as nail bombs."

Again, that has nothing to do with net neutrality. Net neutrality encourages the internet as a level playing field free of the anti-competitive or editorial meddling of giant telecom conglomerates comfortable in uncompetitive markets. And while ISPs are banned from blocking legal websites under the rules, few ISPs have interest in outright blocking of content in the first place due to political and PR backlash. In other words, eliminating net neutrality would do nothing to expedite Furchtgott-Roth's vision of a filtered internet anyway. ISPs simply aren't interested, and individuals have every right to avoid or filter websites as they see fit.

The former FCC Commissioner turned think tank "expert" simply conflated two completely unrelated issues (either intentionally for effect or unintentionally out of confusion) to try to demonize popular net neutrality protections. Apparently undaunted by his previous run in with extreme myopia and insensitivity, Furchtgott-Roth has since published a second, horribly ill-timed screed against net neutrality over at Forbes, this time blaming net neutrality for the resurgence of neo-nazis and white supremacy:

"In many countries around the world, national governments block much content and decide which websites its citizens can access. In the United States, we should allow individuals, not the government, to make those decisions. Broadband companies, including those currently regulated by network neutrality rules, should be allowed to offer various filtered services and filtering technologies to allow individuals to avoid content that they would rather not see, or have their families see. Families that want to block Daily Stormer and its ilk from the Internet should be allowed to purchase such a service directly from any business, and not have the FCC tell them that such a service is unlawful in the name of network neutrality."

That's an even deeper layer of bullshit than Furchtgott-Roth's original treatise. There's absolutely nothing in the net neutrality rules preventing individuals from using any filtering technology they'd like at any time under something known as personal responsibility. At no point has the FCC ever indicated that families can't purchase any filtering or parental control service they want. This is a completely made up and bizarre claim, made with total insensitivity to the recent attacks in Charlottesville, all to try to demonize some basic, popular consumer protections for the open internet.

At this point it feels like Furchtgott-Roth is just sitting around waiting for tragedies so he can blame them on the pure evil that is net neutrality. It would be lovely if he would fucking stop that.

Filed Under: fcc, harold furchtgott-roth, net neutrality

Former FCC Commissioner Uses Manchester Bombing As A Prop To Claim Net Neutrality Aids Terrorism

from the grotesqueries dept

Since the FCC's decision to begin gutting net neutrality earlier this month, broadband providers have been busy as hell trying to convince the public that gutting these essential consumer protections is just no big deal. We, of course, had that horrible Verizon video in which the company not only falsely claimed that net neutrality isn't being killed, but tried to pretend ISPs like Verizon didn't just spend a decade trying to kill it. Other ISPs like Comcast have penned similar "nothing to see here, guys" missives, in which they insist this whole thing is all some kind of big misunderstanding.

While these ISPs use polite, sensible-sounding public statements to insist that nothing's really changing and none of this will hurt consumers (that's false, if it needs repeating), their usual assortment of think tankers, astroturfers, lobbyists, consultants, hired economists and other "doller per holler" policy folks are under no such constraints, and have been busy taking an already hyperbolic debate to an entirely new level.

For example, just two days removed from the recent Manchester bombing, Forbes ran this abomination of an attempt at prose by former FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth, who now works at the ISP-funded Hudson Institute. In none-too-subtle fashion, Furchtgott-Roth uses the Manchester attack to suggest that none of this bloodshed would have happened if it wasn't for net neutrality protections:

A sensible question is why civilized governments do not seek to deprive terrorists of unfettered access to the Internet...Sadly, here in America, limiting access to the Internet would be illegal under the euphemistic term “network neutrality,” the two-year-old experiment in federal regulation of the Internet...To its supporters, network neutrality is a bulwark of civilization. But network neutrality is also a shield for terrorists who seek to destroy civilization.

If Furchtgott-Roth was hoping to craft a missive perfectly illustrating he has no idea how any of this works, this stumbling bit of prattle was a smashing success.

So, one, what kind of person, just two days removed from such a grisly attack, could think writing anything like this was a good idea? That said, to claim that you can somehow magically prevent just "terrorists" from accessing the internet quite clearly indicates he has no idea how the internet or extremism works. Net neutrality encourages the internet as a level playing field free of the anti-competitive or editorial meddling of giant telecom conglomerates comfortable in uncompetitive markets. Furchtgott-Roth's problem isn't with net neutrality -- it's just that he thinks government doesn't censor internet content enough.

So, quite clearly on this list of things Furchtgott-Roth doesn't understand sits free speech, first and foremost:

Under network neutrality, broadband companies--such as AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon—are prohibited from discriminating against any lawful websites or content. There is no clear distinction between lawful and unlawful websites and content. The net result is a broadband company could and likely would be sued for blocking websites housing information about recruitment and organization for ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Ku Klux Klan, or other terrorist groups. It is also illegal to block content that instructs viewers on how to manufacture explosives such as nail bombs.

So again, Furchtgott-Roth's problem here clearly isn't with the relatively basic net neutrality rules the FCC adopted. His problem is with the fact that governments and broadband providers aren't censoring internet content enough. But it's not the FCC's net neutrality rules that prohibit that: it's simply common sense. Even the large ISPs, which have said all manner of stupid things on this subject, have no problem with the anti-blocking provisions of the rules. They have zero interest in blocking specific websites, or the public relations shitshow that would occur were they to start.

Bizarrely, the author then proceeds to try and argue that gutting net neutrality rules would be a wonderful opportunity for ISPs to compete -- based on which one engages in the most creative, ham-fisted censorship of internet content:

A better approach would be to allow consumer preferences and competitive market forces for ISPs to fight against terrorism. In Israel, an ISP Internet Rimon provides filtering technology to block indecent images. A similar approach could be used in the United States to block terrorism. Different ISPs could compete on the basis of their degree of “anti-terrorist” efforts. Many individuals would be attracted to an anti-terrorist ISP. Some state and local governments might mandate purchase of such services by government institutions.

This ignores that there's little to no competition in the US broadband market, ensuring that this extremely distorted vision of competition would never materialize. Now, you can argue that if you fixed broadband competition you'd fix net neutrality, since the latter is simply a symptom of the former. But our government has long turned a blind eye to this problem at large campaign contributor behest, leaving us with the kind of anti-competitive mess we're trying to fix today. Insisting that gutting these consumer protections and dramatically ramping up censorship somehow fixes any of this is the intellectual equivalent of indigestion.

Having had a front-row seat for most of it, I've seen all manner of horrible arguments in the net neutrality debate. And while some have teetered close to this level of recklessness and absurdity (like the time Ajit Pai insisted net neutrality somehow encouraged dictators in Iran and North Korea), Furchtgott-Roth somehow managed to take things to an entirely new level. Using the Manchester bombing as a prop to justify dismantling essential consumer protections is simply grotesque, and represents a new, embarrassing low in what was already a swampy schlog of a technology policy debate.

Filed Under: censorship, fcc, free speech, harold furchtgott-roth, manchester bombing, net neutrality, terrorism