People are known by the company they keep, and issues are defined by the corporations that defend them.
Recode reports this week that Amazon, Facebook, and Google have rallied a host of other multi-billion-dollar Internet corporations to file a legal brief in an effort to restore net neutrality. The crusade comes under the banner of the Internet Association, the leading Internet lobbying firm in Washington, D.C.
By conspiring to restore the previous regulatory status quo, those tech giants contradict the entire defense of net neutrality. Ever since funnyman John Oliver incited a digital mob to crash the Federal Communications Commission website, advocates have argued that neutrality is needed to preserve a level online playing field, to stand up for the little guy that still lives in his mother’s basement.
And at first glance, that argument is attractive. Net-neutrality forbids Internet service providers from slowing down access to less popular websites in order to improve access to more popular ones. AT&T or Verizon, for example, can’t rob Twitter of bandwidth to privileged Facebook traffic.
It treats everyone the same. It elevates no one. And it is completely unnecessary.
Never mind that the Internet grew up all by itself with little to no government regulation. Forget that nothing changed when the FCC flipped the switch to end net neutrality. What is telling is the corporate line-up.
Content providers such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google have grown into online behemoths in an environment where ISPs treated all information the same, where net neutrality was the default. At the top of the digital heap, those corporations now fear anything that threatens their business model — say, a fast lane for premium content. Instead of upping their own game, rather than provide a better product, they plan on throttling innovation through regulation.
It would seem then that net neutrality is little more than a front for a digital cartel and its supporters: unwitting corporate drones.
