As the Federal Communications Commission prepares to make its third attempt to impose “net neutrality” or equal-access standards on the Internet (its two previous efforts were deemed by the courts to exceed its authority), I admit to having found the subject confusing. Perhaps the best accessible primer on the entire “net neutrality” debate comes in today’s USA Today by media critic Michael Wolff. While careful not to explicitly choose sides, Wolff makes clear why the FCC has created a position that “is objectionable to pretty much everyone.”
His conclusion:
It is to the advantage of various sides in this debate to continue to cast the Internet as what it once was, a commons and a free-for-all, and our own thing, deserving of special protection. And it would surely be politically ill-advised for any of the sides to suddenly argue that the Internet isn’t about freedom. But everybody — except die-hards, (HBO’s) John Oliver and many members of the Obama administration — knows that the Internet is fast becoming the television business.