The War on the Young: Net Neutrality

By Adam Bitely -

As we all know, America’s youth spends most of its time on the Internet. The nannies at the Federal Communication Commission believe that the Internet that we all enjoy is at stake of being unfairly dominated by greedy Internet Service Providers that would treat certain web content unfairly. The FCC has proposed to stop this regulation through what they have termed “Net Neutrality”, essentially granting the FCC the power to regulate ISP’s. Do not be surprised if you have never heard of this term — most have not.

In the latest case of Federal regulators exhibiting signs of Mary Poppins Syndrome, a syndrome which makes those in government believe they can cure all wrongs or potential wrongs that they identify in society, Julius Genachowski, the Chairman of the FCC, will be regulating Internet Service Providers to make sure that the ISP’s treat all web content “fairly.”

Sounds like a good thing for government to do, right? Who would want to have certain web content blocked by their ISP?

The odd thing is, there is almost no evidence to support the absurd claim that ISP’s are blocking content, or treating certain content unfairly. This is merely a delusion that Genachowski and those that follow him believe may happen — and they want to prevent it just in case.

The trouble is, this level of government regulation may prove to be more harmful than if it were not enacted. Certain telecom companies fear that if such Net Neutrality regulations are enacted that the ability of the FCC to affect their price systems would hurt investors and may drive them out of business. This would kill jobs. Clearly there is something wrong with this.

The youth of America live online and would obviously be affected the most out of any demographic in America by these regulations. But they are told that Net Neutrality is for their own good. But how is it good to have competition in the telecom field removed?

In an age where Americans can live in freedom online through Facebook, Twitter and many other different types of Social Networking websites, Net Neutrality smells of bad government regulations that seek to control the ISP’s and dictate to Americans what sites are good or bad for our society — all done under the name of “neutrality.”

This is anything but neutral.

Adam Bitely is the Director of New Media at Americans for Limited Government.