The Internet Should Be ‘Neutral,’ but Congress Should Not

A federal appeals court’s rejection of the Federal Communications Commission’s decade-plus push for stronger oversight of the internet was a crushing defeat for “net neutrality” as it has been pursued since the Obama administration. But the ruling could also be seen as the latest indictment of the inability of Congress to regulate at anywhere near the speed of tech. It has been more than a generation since Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, its first and so-far last really big swing on the internet, and that was a modernization of the Depression-era Communications Act of 1934. The failure of Congress to act as technology grows ever more powerful can be seen as an invitation for the executive and judicial branches of government in the U.S., as well as regulators in Europe and elsewhere, to fill the void. That leaves the tech industry, its business customers and consumers to navigate unresolved policy questions, a patchwork of state regulations and international rules, and federal agency policies vulnerable to court decisions.