Net Neutrality and Our Freedom to Think and Speak

[Commentary] A few years ago, Yale Law School Professor Jack Balkin explained that “a system of free speech depends not only on the mere absence of state censorship, but also on an infrastructure of free expression.”  He wisely observed that policies that facilitate open innovation “better serve the interests of speech in the long run.” To innovate, to speak, to learn, to trust – these are outcomes squarely within the power of the Federal Communications Commission to advance. So one would naturally have expected that the FCC would have carefully examined the implications for diversity of speech, especially political speech, when recently abolishing all of the conduct rules that maintain an Open Internet. Rules as basic as the admonition that broadband providers cannot block a website or app because of the political views publishers or people express there. Or slow those websites or apps down. Or make them pay extra to reach subscribers while websites or apps with different views rush to their destinations. But no.

[Jonathan Sallet is a Benton Senior Fellow]