PrintNovember 17, 2009
Obama promotes internet freedom in China while trying to stifle it at home
When any president goes off to a foreign country and states that that government should stop censorship, well, that's a good thing.
But when President Obama, "pointedly nudged China on Monday to stop censoring Internet access," I have to wonder where the joke is, especially when the FCC is set on regulating the Internet for the good of the consumer.
To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.
To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.
To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.
To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.
There's a lot of encouraging going on here, but anything the government regulates ‘to encourage' is just as easily discouraged.
We're going to be dealing with the FCC's desire to implement policies such as Codifying a Principle of Nondiscrimination and Codifying a Principle of Transparency. Who needs to be a lawyer to see where this is going?
A collection of laws is going to put in place to "apply to all forms of broadband Internet access, and a discussion of "managed" or "specialized" services." Of course, there's more, being that the document is over hundred pages long.
Censorship is a dicey subject - no argument there, especially when dealing with the subject of pornography, for instance. But the FCC involvement with Net Neutrality offers a lesson that can be learned by anyone, even the Chinese, and that is: Don't outlaw Internet activity, but encourage, codify, and apply, and the result can be a comfortable and deafening silence.
