Net Neutrality Comments Surge Past Million; Will Anybody Read Them?
Comments to the FCC over net neutrality surged to more than a million Thursday, short of the passions raised by Janet Jackson’s briefly exposed breast, but still indicative of the strong feelings of those who fear a corporate takeover of the Internet and those who worry that further regulations would stifle innovation and jobs. (See separate report in this issue.) At noon, the count was 1.03 million, an agency news release said. More than 300,000 comments have flooded the agency since Monday, when the count was 677,000 comments. The record number of complaints, 1.4 million, came during the 2004 fallout when Janet Jackson’s breast was briefly exposed during a Super Bowl halftime show, FCC Senior Counsel Gigi Sohn said in a Twitter discussion Monday.
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Opposition to imposing net neutrality regulations under Title II included those from free-market policy organizations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as some the Communications Workers of America and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, among others. The Internet Infrastructure and Mozilla were among the latest to back Title II regulations.
Though the stance of CWA and the NAACP was not new, with them having opposed using Title II during the 2010 net neutrality order debate, though some saw it as a split among progressives. “It’s interesting, and potentially significant, that the CWA and NAACP oppose Title II on the basis that job creation and innovation would be harmed. It is obviously helpful for [FCC] Chairman [Tom] Wheeler to have groups on the left side of the spectrum oppose Title II if he wants to actively push the Section 706 commercial reasonableness proposal,” Free State Foundation President Randolph May told us. CWA and the NAACP’s position isn’t a surprise, said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood, who said the loss of jobs the groups were concerned about four years ago didn’t happen. Among progressive groups that have a “rational and evidence-based” stance, there is no split, Wood said.
The number of comments raised the question whether anyone at the FCC would really read them all. Certainly neither Wheeler nor any single person will do so, said former Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth, now with the Hudson Institute. He calculated that at five minutes per comment, it would take 20 FCC staffers working full time roughly four years to get through all the comments. All the comments will be reviewed, an FCC spokesman told us. “Due to the very large volume of comments, we currently are putting in place systematic processes to ensure the comments are thoroughly reviewed and given serious consideration. Staff from across the agency will be involved in the review of the comments, which will be ongoing over the coming months."
The sheer volume of comments could have an impact if it leads Wheeler to embrace net neutrality regulations under Title II, an FCC official acknowledged. “The critical question is whether Title II advocates will be able to pressure Chairman Wheeler into doing something that he clearly doesn’t want to do. The volume of comments could be helpful in that effort.” Others were unsure of the impact. “It certainly elevates the political significance of the debate,” said Furchtgott-Roth, “but at the end of the day, they're bound by statute,” as well as January’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision. “The Commission needs solid evidence and analysis in the record to serve as the basis for their decisions,” said Doug Brake, telecom policy analyst at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. “The sheer volume of filings shouldn’t make a difference if they lack the substance the Commission needs to make decisions. The Commission is an independent regulatory agency who has to support its decisions with more than tally marks."
The outpouring probably won’t “fundamentally change the FCC’s approach,” said TechFreedom President Berin Szoka. “Title II remains as unworkable as it ever was, regardless of the political pressures on the agency to do more than what Wheeler has proposed.” He said the political pressure may push the agency “to tweak its proposal on the margins to make it seem tougher.” That includes trying to ban prioritization under Section 706 or subjecting wireless to net neutrality regulations, Szoka said. “That way, Wheeler could soften the blow of being seen as selling out on net neutrality (however unfair that might be) by seeming to take a tough stand on merger conditions."
Grassroots organizations and Web platforms supporting net neutrality said Thursday they launched BattlefortheNet.com earlier in the week to send comments to the FCC. More than 100,000 people have used the website to send comments to the agency, a news release said. To them, the comments were an equalizer. “Before the Internet existed it would have been easy for mega-corporations like Comcast to screw us over without anyone noticing,” said Evan Greer of Fight for the Future. “But since the Internet is in fact a communication network, it has allowed the public’s voice to drown out lobbying dollars and PR firms.”
The website will also be used to send comments to the White House and Congress, the release said. “Elected officials who are tempted to sell out the very people they are supposed to represent should consider the serious blowback that is about to come their way,” said CREDO Mobile Political Director Becky Bond. Backing the site, the release said, are Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, Free Press, CREDO and Web platforms BoingBoing, Cheezburger, Etsy, Kickstarter, Namecheap, reddit and Tumblr. (kmurakami@warren-news.com)