Hell No, We Won't Go: No Fake Net Neutrality for Racial Justice Advocates

[Commentary] According to the Wall Street Journal, instead of preventing discrimination with real Network Neutrality rules, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler will propose a new set of rules in response to the January court decision which struck down open Internet protections.

These new rules would allow Internet Service Providers like Comcast or Verizon to charge content providers an extra fee for preferential treatment to fast track their content to end users like me and you. According to the proposed rules, big Internet companies would be able to decide whether or not to charge content providers a toll based on a subjective standard called "commercial reasonableness." Disguised as Network Neutrality, these proposed rules stand to create an Internet where the biggest producers of content like Netflix and MSNBC will pay more to push their product to wider audiences. Smaller content producers who can't afford to pay may be pushed onto a digital dirt road, unable to raise a powerful public voice online.

Unofficially, the Internet is already bursting at its digital seams with opposition to the proposed rules, calling them "fake net neutrality". Much of the debate seems predicated on which consumers will be most affected if content providers pass the buck on paying increased costs. So, let's talk about exactly which consumers stand to lose the most if content providers pass the buck on increased bills. About 100 million people in the United States live with little to no Internet access. Of those, the vast majority are Black, Latino, or households with annual incomes under $50K.

For communities of color and low income families that struggle to access the Internet in their homes, many turn to their cell phones as their primary means of Internet connection with the assistance of heavily scrutinized broadband subsidies.

Raising barriers to digital access for communities faced with these extraordinary challenges to Internet access in a digital age can mean the difference between employment and poverty, health care and sickness, democratic engagement or exclusion. For these Internet users, the cost of connection is already too high.

Yet the Federal Communications Commission insists that its priority as a regulatory agency is to ensure the rights of the largest telecommunications companies to profit where profit can be made. The FCC isn't proposing Network Neutrality, it's legalizing discrimination. As a nation struggling to close historic racial and economic gaps, I'd say we've had enough of that.

[Cyril Executive Director at the Center for Media Justice]