Commissioner O'Rielly Remarks at the Future of Internet Freedom Event

After the painful and demoralizing 2015 decision to insert government regulations into the middle of the greatest man-made invention of our time, I was never quite sure that this day would come. The Commission had no enforceable net neutrality rules prior to December 2010. That unregulated regime resulted in the creation of Google in 1998, Facebook in 2004, YouTube in 2005, and Twitter in 2006. There is also no concrete evidence of network or consumer harm.  

In 2014, I warned that eventually FCC meddling and persistent mission creep meant “that the wrath of government regulations could be coming for edge providers next.” At the time, I was criticized for sensationalizing the matter. Many policymakers and the edge community had convinced themselves there was some magical red line that would never be crossed. Yet, just this year, we have seen the previously untouchable sector of the Internet economy come under criticism and their business practices subjected to oversight and scrutiny with demands that these companies also must be saddled with net neutrality. Indeed, one Senator just recently called for edge providers to be subject to net neutrality standards, stating that “Facebook, Google and Amazon, like ISPs, should be neutral in their treatment of the flow of lawful information and commerce on their platform.

It is critically important to be explicit that the service is interstate even though that may seem obvious. The draft order does just that. States and localities must be precluded from adopting a patchwork of regulations that would deter broadband investment by private businesses and undermine our own federal policies to facilitate deployment.

While I do not believe that net neutrality rules are warranted – or that the FCC has any legal authority to enact such rules – ultimately that decision is not up to me, or my fellow Commissioners. This is a matter for our duly elected members of Congress, acting on behalf of the American people, to balance the competing ideas and interests and decide whether and to what extent rules are needed. In other words, the FCC should put things back the way they were and let Congress decide whether any further actions are justified.