TC Sottek

Disney just took control of 21st Century Fox’s media empire, and the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal net neutrality regulations that prevent internet providers from discriminatory behavior. These two industry-shaking events will set media companies on a dramatic collision course with ISPs. It is the conflict that threatens the internet.

While it is clear that alignment with the Internet service providers is currently drawn along party lines, the industry’s attempt to gain favor with lawmakers is not partisan. Entrenched telecommunications companies liberally spread money and attention to everyone who holds office. Sometimes that influence comes in the form of lavish parties with Olympic athletes and lobbyists, but consistently it comes in the form of contributions to campaigns.

Donald Trump used Twitter to make outrageous claims during the entire 2016 election, and he’s still making them after winning the presidency. He is now turning Twitter into a state-media machine capable of quickly and widely spreading disinformation.

In the middle of a rant about the Electoral College, President-elect Trump tweeted a preposterous claim: that millions of people voted illegally in the election he just won. (He also trashed democratic norms before the election, saying it would be rigged and that he would not accept the results if he lost.) President-elect Trump made the false claim about illegal voting in the middle of saying there should be no vote recount in Wisconsin. President-elect Trump has given no indication that he will restrain his careless speech or improve his standards for evidence. He has used Twitter to tweet and retweet false and misleading information at a volume that has challenged the bandwidth of fact checkers. In many cases the fact-checkers don’t get a word in before the false claim. When President-elect Trump becomes President, his Twitter account won’t just be the ramblings of a private citizen — it will be the remarks of the chief executive of the US government. And if his Twitter account is the most open part of his administration, the platform could effectively become the White House press office.

[Commentary] The year is 2018. The death of net neutrality was just the beginning.

[Commentary] The Internet is screwed, and the US government is making it worse. Political cowardice caused the Federal Communications Commission to lose its first battle for net neutrality regulation: the rules that keep the Internet as you know it free and open.

The idea of net neutrality is that all traffic is created equal -- whether you’re a movie streaming from Netflix, or a WhatsApp message, or a Tweet, or a bulletin board message. But according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, instead of trying to correct the errors it made in open Internet rules the first time around, the FCC will consider enacting new rules that directly destroy the principles of net neutrality.

The proposal would allow profit hungry behemoths like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon to become gatekeepers that give preferential treatment to companies that pay the most for special access to customers. If cowardice caused the FCC to lose its first major net neutrality battle, complicity with the ISP industry is leading to its second major failure.

The proposed rules would mark a complete capitulation to the monied Internet interests, harming consumers in the short and long-term. The ISPs that control the "last mile" of the Internet -- the pipes that connect to your home -- would love nothing more than to extract tolls from companies. Netflix’s surrender to Comcast sits in the murky waters of "peering," where major ISPs connect to one another, but the new rules could mean that similar deals are made in the last mile of the Internet where net neutrality thrives.

The government is too afraid to say it, but the Internet is a utility. The data that flows to your home is just like water and electricity: it’s not a luxury or an option in 2014. The FCC’s original Open Internet rules failed precisely because it was too timid to say that out loud, and instead erected rules on a sketchy legal sinkhole that was destined to fail.