Unfettered internet freedom

[A version of this story originally appeared in the Congress Blog of The Hill.com] 

Throughout the late 19th century and for all of the 20th century, most forms of communications and media, from telephony, to radio, movies and TV, all went through the same cycle. Initial experimentation, innovation and when their use began to spread, all were constricted by a single large corporation (e.g. AT&T), or a small number of entities such as the large movie studios, all the way to the national radio/TV/print consolidation that marked the 80s, 90s and this past decade.  In all cases, innovation was stifled, smaller business and opportunity shut out, all in place of command and centralized control. 

Now we have the Internet. Quite possibly nothing in history has had a more far-reaching and permanent impact in such a relatively short amount of time. Life, the economy, and society will never be the same. Innovation, activism, connection, and commerce, are all happening at the speed of light. What has been born are the beginnings of a true “biosphere consciousness,” as coined by Jeremy Rifkin in his seminal work, The Empathic Civilization. 

Business, commerce and society are changing at a rate that is impossible to calculate: donations and disaster relief flows to places like Haiti in hours instead of weeks and months, totalitarian regimes like those in Egypt and Libya can no longer hide, companies like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter all spring up seemingly out of the ether. Much of this is owed to the increased velocity and transparency of an open and free Internet.

The FCC’s net neutrality rules, a framework to help keep the Internet from succumbing to the concentration and innovation-stifling dynamics of other communications and media technologies listed above, are now  set to go into effect on November 21st.  In part, the FCC's net-neutrality rules prevent Internet service providers from slowing down or speeding up access to websites. Wireless carriers are also banned from blocking lawful websites or applications that compete with their services.