Facebook Data Concerns Show Need for Tough Net Neutrality Rules, Wheeler Says
The questions being raised about Facebook and alleged use of customer data by Cambridge Analytica show why 2015 net neutrality rules shouldn’t have been overturned in December (see 1712140039), said former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. He led defense of the rules, approved on his watch, during an Intelligence Squared debate streamed live from Chicago Tuesday.
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“Facebook is one website,” Wheeler said. “The network that connects you to the internet knows your traffic to every website. Your private information is known by the network and, unless there is common carriage net neutrality, there is no responsibility that they have to protect your privacy.”
The internet is “a very important and crucial asset,” Wheeler said. The access isn’t competitive and most consumers have few choices of ISP, he said: “There needs to be rules.” Wheeler noted arguments by an attorney for Verizon during the successful challenge to the 2010 rules in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 1401150062). “Verizon sued, went to the court, and stood in the well of the court,” Wheeler said. “And the lawyer said to the judges, ‘I have been instructed by my client that I may say that the reason why we are suing is we intend to discriminate.’"
The future of the internet is at stake, said Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker. “When we click on a link or select an app, what happens?” she asked. “Do we get to see the site or the application we're aiming for, or is it suddenly not available? Without net neutrality, it does not need to be available to you. It's kind of odd to think that part of the internet might not be there, but that's part of the discussion.”
Without net neutrality rules, ISPs are free to discriminate as they want, Baker warned: “The ISP could discriminate against the app that you want to access because they have some sort of business arrangement, or maybe they're fighting with a company that makes your app.” ISPs can discriminate just because they don’t like the content or because an app cuts into their profit, she said: “The lack of net neutrality is great for innovation for the ISPs … and it is terrible for all the rest of us.”
Net neutrality isn’t neutral, countered Michael Katz, professor at the University of California, Berkeley and former FCC chief economist. “Different applications have different needs,” Katz said. “Videoconferencing needs much higher speed signal and more reliable signal than something like email. So, to say we're going to treat them equally, it's not to treat them equally.” Companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google have spent “literally billions of dollars” to build their own “private fast lanes,” he said. A company like Facebook has proprietary specifications for fiber, he said: “They build their own integrated circuits because the servers other people would have to use aren't good enough.”
Under net neutrality, a game like Wolfenstein, where players try to kill fictional Nazis with supernatural powers is treated the same as a doctor trying to do remote surgery, Katz said. Reclassifying broadband as a common carrier service also raised big questions about investment in networks, Katz said. Rural areas get coverage only if ISPs invest in facilities. “Well, what makes them invest in the facilities?” he asked. “The possibility of making money. If you impose open-ended and vague regulations that constrain these firms in known and unknown ways, you are reducing their incentive to invest in those rural areas.”
Reclassifying broadband as a common carrier service wasn’t the answer, said Nick Gillespie, editor at large of libertarian magazine Reason. Gillespie noted the communications network of the past was the Bell system. “That's the pre-internet past and when you have common carrier, you get bad service,” he said. Gillespie reminded the audience of an old comedy bit by Lily Tomlin, who played a Bell operator. She would tell callers, “We don't have to give you customer service because we're the phone company and we don't want to,” he said.
Intelligence Squared polled the audience before and after the debate and the side opposing the 2015 rules gained ground. Before, 60 percent agreed “preserve net neutrality, all data is created equal,” while 23 percent were against and 17 percent undecided. After, supporters of the statement were steady at 60 percent, while 31 percent said opponents were right.