The FCC’s net neutrality regulations would impose monopoly-era common carrier-like...
The FCC’s net neutrality regulations would impose monopoly-era common carrier-like regulations on Internet providers operating in a generally competitive environment, Free State Foundation President Randolph May said in a Washington Times op-ed Thursday (http://xrl.us/bnj8fe). The net neutrality mandates are “likely…
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unconstitutional,” he wrote, arguing they violate the First Amendment rights of ISPs. “The FCC has a view of the First Amendment that turns the free-speech guarantee on its head,” he wrote. “The FCC’s regulations compel Internet providers to convey messages and content they would rather not. In other contexts, the Supreme Court has held that this is just as much a free-speech infringement as it is to prevent a speaker from conveying messages he wishes to convey. But the Obama FCC, with its pro-regulatory mindset, doesn’t really consider Internet providers like Verizon to be speakers or their networks to be private property.” May compared the regulations to the Fairness Doctrine that had a chilling effect on the speech of broadcasters, he said. “There is no justification in today’s digital age, with its abundance of media outlets and diversity of viewpoints, for infringing the First Amendment rights of Internet providers."