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