| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Net Neutrality Act | ||||
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The preceding video, while somewhat one-sided, is quite possibly the most palatable explanation of net neutrality available. This is not because it serves a particular agenda (which it does), but because it provides a simple, straightforward contextual foundation for the issue. The internet is a frequently misunderstood phenomenon, after all, and apparently even the people responsible for its regulation are prone to the most egregious misconceptions about its structure. Stewart and Hodgman's "packets", while humorous, also provide us with a valuable conceptual model of which the larger portion of the American populace is likely unaware.
More than once, the more esoteric aspects of net neutrality have been seized, misrepresented, and thrust upon an unsuspecting public to serve political ends. A recent push by the FCC to enforce net neutrality was branded by several media outlets as an attempt to "regulate the internet".
Of course, this is not technically untrue; net neutrality does effectively impose regulations on the way in which the internet functions. But it's not difficult to see how such a characterization would be deceptive. First, the regulations in question sought to maintain the existing structure of the internet, rather than alter it. Second, net neutrality seeks primarily to regulate corporate behavior, and has little if anything to do with the behavior of individual users. The resulting outcry of fear that the FCC somehow sought to restrict or impede the free flow of ideas online was both misplaced and entirely avoidable. Ironically, one of the reasons net neutrality was first implemented was to prevent exactly what everybody became so afraid of.
The conception and implementation of any policy regime requires a firm understanding of the relevant issues, and Hodgman's arguments provide us with a step in the right direction.
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