The Fight for Free Speech: Will We Be the Greatest Generation?
Nonsense. OF COURSE the Government will regulate the Internet, because the Internet is a rapidly growing critical piece of the world’s infrastructure. The more important question is what form that regulation will take. Net-neutrality is an interesting issue, because true net neutrality, as described by Dan, is a very good thing (and how the internet has operated from the ’70s until now – and by the way, the internet was run by the government entirely until the 1990s). On the other hand, the net is supplied by private companies, who arguably have the right to do whatever they want with their facilities.
Ultimately, some sort of regulation similar to that of common carriers (which have a net neutrality equivalent) or utilities will happen.
On the other hand, some will try to control content on the internet. Well, some already have – from China’s censorship to the US’s (somewhat justifiable IMHO) criminalization of terrorist and child porn internet content. Some content control is inevitable.
What is important is to protect free expression (in the US, within accepted constitutional limits), not keep the government completely out of the internet. The former can be done, the latter is a fools errand.
