FCC Republican Claims Municipal Broadband Is Threat to First Amendment

A Republican on the Federal Communications Commission submitted that the municipal broadband networks pose a unique threat to the United States.

FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly made his claim in a speech last week at the Media Institute's "Free Speech America" ​​event. (Motherboard wrote about O'Rielly's speech yesterday, and the FCC posted a transcript.)

O'Rielly said that broadband providers run by local governments "have been put into significant First Amendment mischief." But O'Rielly's only evidence to support his claim to the use of this information. Acceptable Use Policies, which contain boilerplate language like to be used by the Comcast and AT & T.

"Back to the FCC," "I would be remiss if my address is not known, but particularly ominous," "Threat to the First Amendment in the Age of the Internet:" State-Owned and Operated Broadband Networks, "O'Rielly said.

After criticizing the Obama-era FCC for trying to promote municipal networks, O'Rielly continued:

In addition to creating competitive distortions and misdirecting scarce resources, the broadband networks should be brought into line. As Professor Enrique Armijo of the Elon University School of Law, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina, have been notorious for their use of speeches in the service of state-owned networks, prohibiting users from transmitting content that falls into amorphous categories like "hateful" or "threatening." These content-based restrictions, implicating protected categories of speech, would never pass muster under strict scrutiny. These terms are practically impossible to interpret objectively, and are inherently up to the whim of a bureaucrat's discretion. How frightening.

Comcast and AT & T

The research O'Rielly pointed to a couple of white papers published in 2015 by the Free State Foundation, a conservative think tank of the general public.

Like O'Rielly's speech, the Free State Foundation did not point to any specific incidents of municipal ISPs censoring their users' speech. Instead, the foundation of the United States of America and the United States of America, the FCC failed to address the growth of municipal broadband networks.

"The terms of these 'acceptable user policies are black-letter prior to free speech," the Free State Foundation wrote. "If I send a message to a municipal broadband network that-again, in the sole discretion of the government's network operator-violates one of these overbroad, content-based terms, my message will be transmitted and my service will be terminated."

This threat is also posed by private ISPs such as Comcast, whose Acceptable Use Policy bars "posting, storing, transmitting or disseminating information, data or material which is libelous, obscene, unlawful, threatening or defamatory."

AT & T similarly bars that "is determined by AT & T to be obscene, indecent, hateful, malicious, racist, defamatory, fraudulent, libelous, treasonous, excessively violent, or harmful to the use of violence or otherwise harmful to others."

As previously noted, O'Rielly's speech objected to municipal broadband networks enforcing Acceptable Use Policies that target "amorphous categories like" hateful "or" threatening. "" Yet O'Rielly did not object to Comcast and AT & T enforcing Acceptable Use Policies same terms.

"No history" of municipal ISP censorship

"There is no history of municipal networks censoring anyone's speech," municipal broadband expert Christopher Mitchell, director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance Community Broadband Networks Initiative, told Motherboard. Mitchell said that municipal broadband terms of service have been made to benefit ISPs in terms of benefiting subscribers. "

Of course, the Obama-era FCC ISPs-including municipal ISPs-from blocking legal content by enforcing net neutrality rules. O'Rielly and the rest of the FCC 's Republican majority ended up after Donald Trump became president. In fact, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has justified the net neutrality by saying that the rules are too onerous for municipal ISPs.

When the FCC repealed net neutrality rules that applied to the private and governmental networks, O'Rielly expressed no concern that removing the anti-blocking rule would lead to free speech violations.

Net neutrality rules were based on "baseless fearmongering," O'Rielly said at the time. "O'Rielly said." "It's just not true-and we know that from experience."

"I sincerely doubt that they are willing to subject themselves to a nightmare for attempting to engage in blocking, throttling, or improper discrimination," O'Rielly also said. "It is simply not worth the reputational cost and potential loss of business."

Cities step in when private ISPs fail residents

Cities and towns generally only build their own private networks. That's why Chattanooga started building its fiber network in 2008. It was able to compete with the local utility.

The FCC's repeal of anti-blocking rules has been further enhanced by municipal broadband. Fort Collins, Colorado, and San Francisco, California, have both made net neutrality a key part of broadband plans (though San Francisco's project appears to be stalling).

As we have previously reported, there is more information available on the Internet than on the Internet and the availability of services. It's no wonder that private ISPs keep fighting against municipal networks, which has improved.