Prophets in the digital public square
This month, the Federal Communications Commission voted to open debate on new rules regarding net neutrality, the idea that Internet service providers (Verizon, Comcast, etc.) should treat all data equally, regardless of its source or destination. Net neutrality advocates argue that the Internet is best when it operates on a simple first-come, first-served basis.
The FCC’s proposal, however, includes provisions for ISPs to allow “paid prioritization,” otherwise known as an Internet “fast lane,” when such service meets a threshold of “commercial reasonableness.” This means that ISPs can negotiate massive payments from large-scale purveyors of online bandwidth—Netflix, for example, which recently negotiated billion-dollar deals with Comcast and Time Warner to bolster its content-delivery infrastructure. On the other hand, it also inevitably means that those content purveyors without paid prioritization face diminishing bandwidth, slower load times, and potentially blocked or disconnected access.
If you don’t follow tech news, this ruling might seem indecipherable or simply irrelevant. But add it to the last year’s news in digital surveillance, privacy, cyber-security, and even issues as seemingly benign as patent and copyright reform, and it becomes clear that we can no longer afford to treat tech news like a niche category.
