Net Neutrality is important to people of faith

Three years ago Casting Light warned that Net Neutrality matters to the SBC. Because, if assured, Network Neutrality means network access providers must treat all data equally, without preferential restrictions.

Indeed, Net Neutrality matters to all people of faith, as Jeffrey Rosen illustrated in his keystone example at The New Republic this week:

You might think that a decision to block the King James Bible would violate the First Amendment, or at least raise important constitutional concerns. But, if Comcast, a private company, is blocking a particular technology, rather than discriminating against particular speakers, there’s no state action and no obvious peg for a First Amendment lawsuit. That’s why the FCC is crucial to shaping the future of free speech. (Disclosure: I have known [Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Julius] Genachowski since we clerked together years ago for a federal judge.) Under the proposed FCC net-neutrality principles, broadband operators like Comcast can’t "discriminate against particular Internet content or applications" and will have to be transparent about their network-management practices.

Although Network Neutrality is the official policy of the Obama Administration, the battle over the details is intense.

Major service providers seek control over the "last mile of the Internet" to their customers so that they can "manage" traffic to enhance profits from their own service offerings. And there is a war over what Net Neutrality will mean for wireless services, with providers predictably seeking exemptions.

As a result, your freedom of digital expression is still at risk.

Casting Light offered examples of oppressive Internet provider practices in 2006, and the list has grown. Rosen offered several, and Comcast blockage of access to the King James Bible was in fact one of them.

He wrote:

Two years ago, Comcast, America’s second-largest high-speed Internet provider, blocked BitTorrent, a popular peer-to-peer file-sharing application that could be used to distribute (among many other things) high-definition TV video that would compete with Comcast’s video services. The obstruction was discovered by an amateur singer who wanted to share public domain performances of barbershop quartets with his fellow aficionados. After initially denying that it was blocking BitTorrent, Comcast, which was literally denying access to the King James Bible, claimed that it wasn’t blocking the file-sharing application, but merely delaying it to conserve bandwidth as part of "reasonable network management."

As with health reform, the debate is awash with misinformation. FreePress deals with the worst myths and helps elucidate the fundamental issues.

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