President Obama signaled a new push from his administration for “net neutrality,” releasing a statement and short video detailing his support for imposing new regulations on cable and telephone companies.
“Ensuring a free and open Internet is the only way we can preserve the Internet’s power to connect our world,” Obama’s statement reads. “That’s why the President has laid out a plan to do it, and is asking the FCC to implement it.”
Specifically, Obama wants the FCC to outlaw companies from charging more for faster service, and from blocking legal website content. This would prohibit Netflix, for example, from paying more to Comcast to secure faster streaming for their customers.
“No service should be stuck in a ‘slow lane’ because it does not pay a fee,” Obama objected.
Under Obama’s ideal proposal, the FCC would reclassify service providers like Comcast and Verizon under Title II of the Communications Act, treating the internet like a utility for the first time in history. This would grant the FCC unprecedented powers to regulate the internet, and prevent companies from making decisions about how to provide internet services.
Opponents of net neutrality argue that it amounts to granting the FCC regulatory powers over the internet to stop a non-existent problem, and that new rules potentially violate the rights of internet companies to choose what content they transmit, and how.
The FCC thanked Obama for his input, but hasn’t yet made any decisions about how it will proceed. The FCC, as Obama noted in his statement, is an indepdendent agency, and he can only suggest actions to them.
Republicans have already attacked the president’s statement, most notably Ted Cruz, who called net neutrality “Obamacare for the internet”:
“Net Neutrality” is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government.
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) November 10, 2014
“In charge of determining pricing, terms of service, and what products can be delivered. Sound like Obamacare much?” Cruz’s spokeswoman, Amanda Carpenter, added.
Just wait. Pretty soon, Obama will tell you “If you like your Internet, you can keep it.” #DontNeutertheNet
— Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) November 10, 2014
Sen. John Thune, a Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, said net neutrality would “stifle our nation’s dynamic and robust Internet sector with rules written nearly 80 years ago for plain old telephone service.”
Verizon told the New York Times that Obama’s proposed changes would be “a radical reversal of course that would in and of itself threaten great harm to the Internet.”
The White House is also hosting a Reddit AMA Monday afternoon to answer questions about net neutrality.
Watch Obama’s video below:
