The FCC’s case against net neutrality rests on a deliberate misrepresentation of how the internet works

The Federal Communications Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom notice of proposed rulemaking states: “Whether posting on social media or drafting a blog, a broadband Internet user is able to generate and make available information online. Whether reading a newspaper’s website or browsing the results from a search engine, a broadband Internet user is able to acquire and retrieve information online… In short, broadband Internet access service appears to offer its users the “capability” to perform each and every one of the functions listed in the definition — and accordingly appears to be an information service by the definition. We seek comment on analysis.”

Let’s just run down the obvious objections:

• First, most broadband providers simply don’t offer the services listed.
• Second, broadband providers often aren’t even aware what information they are transmitting, because it is encrypted.
• Third, most services that are in fact offered by the ISP, such as DNS lookup, error pages, caching and routing, all have to do with reasonable network management — the work of getting packets from one place to another properly.