What are the positions on net neutrality?

Net neutrality promotes the exchange of information

Question: What are the positions on net neutrality?
Position1 of 2›: Net neutrality is good
Argument‹2 of 4›: Net neutrality promotes the exchange of information

The internet was originally built as a tool for further inquiry, learning, and exploration. Net neutrality promotes the free exchange of information, thereby protecting the internet's core functions.

The argument

No matter how small your blog or news site is, under net neutrality laws internet providers cannot block your content or reduce your reach. The rule is about carriage rather than content: the company that delivers the traffic is required to deliver it without deciding what deserves to arrive. The implications for citizens' ability to share information are far-reaching, and they matter most for the people with the fewest alternatives. A large publisher has other routes to an audience; a small site has only the connection. Under net neutrality, marginalized communities can ensure that their voices are heard and their stories told online, because reach depends on whether people want to read something rather than on whether a provider has agreed to carry it at full speed. The same protection underwrites accountability. Large multinational corporations can be held to account online, and — the sharper case — telecom providers themselves can be openly criticized on the very platforms they operate. Without the rule, the subject of the criticism would also control its distribution. That is the danger the argument identifies. Without net neutrality there would be nothing to stop a telecommunications conglomerate from blocking its customers' access to sites that criticized its services, or from blocking content at the behest of a government or a private entity. No new power would have to be created for this; the ability is inherent in operating the network, and only the rule prevents its use. If we would like to "preserve the Internet's ability to serve as an open, general-purpose infrastructure that provides value to society over time in various economic and non-economic ways", then we must maintain some form of net neutrality — because a network whose carriers choose what travels well is no longer general-purpose.

Context

At its core, the internet was designed to be a place of information exchange and open communication. Net neutrality promotes the exchange of information.

Premises

[P1]Under net neutrality, internet providers cannot block any site's content or reduce its reach, no matter how small. [P2] This lets marginalized communities be heard and lets corporations and even the telecom providers themselves be openly held to account. [P3] Without it, providers could block customers from sites that criticize them or suppress content at a government's or private entity's behest. [C] Therefore, because net neutrality promotes the open exchange of information, net neutrality is good.

Counter-arguments

The role of the internet has changed. What was originally designed to allow universities to exchange research has been hijacked by an abundance of false and misleading information. With such a wealth of 'fake news,' the unfettered spread of information is no longer feasible. We suffer from a glut of information but a dearth of verifiable information. Without net neutrality, internet providers could diminish the spread of false information in an effort to maintain a clean exchange of quality information.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The internet's role has changed. [Rejecting P4] What is good for the internet is not good for society.

Framing

The internet's core function is to enable to spread of information. Anything that furthers this objective is 'good.'

Proponents cited

Mark Zuckerberg
“If we want everyone in the world to have access to all the opportunities that come with the internet, we need to keep the internet free and open.”
Ron Wyden
“Without rules to guarantee all web traffic travels on the same track the economic might of big corporations will shove out competition from start-ups and disruptive technologies, depriving Americans of the next wave of innovative services and products.”
Barack Obama
“I am a strong supporter of net neutrality … What you’ve been seeing is some lobbying that says that the servers and the various portals through which you’re getting information over the Internet should be able to be gatekeepers and to charge different rates to different Web sites … And that I think destroys one of the best things about the Internet—which is that there is this incredible equality there.”
Al Franken
“Do we want deep-pocketed corporations controlling what information you get at what speed?”
Thomas de Maizière
“I am a big advocate of what is known as net neutrality. This means that providers are compelled to transmit content without political or commercial pre-selection.”
Cory Doctorow
“The internet isn't nearly so important as racial injustice and vanquishing white supremacy, nor smashing patriarchy, nor rescuing our planet from looters and climate vandals, nor feudal inequality: but EVERY ONE of those fights will be won or lost with the Internet.”