By now, my social media feeds have been inundated with mass protests against the upcoming FCC vote to repeal Net Neutrality. Chairman Ajit Pai has made it known his distaste for Net Neutrality and his intent on fighting to repeal it. As I explore deeper into the issues, I cannot help but notice how this issue devolves into something that is very partisan where the left is claiming this is a free speech issue and the right is claiming that less government regulation is necessary.
Given the current status of our political environment, it is only natural for a regulation issue to turn into something where the right and the left are attacking each other, however, I believe if this issue is as important as it is touted to be, we need to set aside party lines and take a look at the facts (something easier said than done). The partisan issue comes in when you begin to look at the fact that Net Neutrality was something instituted by the Obama administration. Given the pendulum swing in who controls the government now, it seems only natural that the Trump administration would want to undo everything put in place by the previous leftist administration.
However, shall we look at the internet before Net Neutrality was instituted? Those for Net Neutrality are screaming that corporations will be able to pay additional money towards ISP's to have their content "favored" over those companies who could not afford to pay (big business bullying small business), however, we did not see this problem before Net Neutrality was instituted.
Second, recall if you will, the case of United States v. Microsoft Corporation. In 1998, the lawsuit was brought forward for fear that Microsoft would "monopolize" the internet if the government didn't intervene and prevent Microsoft from bundling the Microsoft OS with Internet Explorer. While this may sound humorous today, it was obviously a legitimate fear back when the full competitive and innovative nature of the internet was explored!
But the question must be asked - have we reached that point today? Do we fully grasp the impacts of either repealing Net Neutrality or letting it remain? Or are we making this too much about free speech and government intervention to actually have a realistic outlook on this? I appreciate you reading and let me know what you think in the comments.