Biden-Harris FCC jeopardizes internet freedom three different ways
The internet isn’t broken. It’s flourishing with nearly 300 million Americans going online every day. So, naturally, the Biden administration wants to fix it.
Why? The prices continue to plummet and the quality of services for everything online from internet connections to search engine tools to cell phone applications.
This has all happened because of ruthless free market competition – not government controls.
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Now along comes the Federal Communications Commission, which wants to be the striped-jersey referee to determine who gets connected to the internet and what prices can be charged. The agency also wants to serve as a content speech screener that would rule on what can and can’t be said online.
The Biden-Harris administration is a threat to online free speech. FILE: President Joe Biden, left, holds up the arm of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, while on stage at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Phoenix Awards Dinner in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Three recent events each highlight the FCC’s power grab.
First, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals wisely halted the FCC’s illegal power grab to regulate internet access. The Biden-Harris administration has wanted to treat the internet as a regulated utility, a "common carrier." But more than 90% of Americans already have access to high-speed internet.
Private companies from Google to Apple to AT&T and Verizon have ensured near universal access to gain more customers. An Unleash Prosperity study has found that federal rules like "net neutrality" have actually impeded internet connections because of higher costs.
Next, we have seen the failure of the Biden-Harris "infrastructure bill," which dedicated billions of dollars to increasing access to the internet. Despite a price tag of some $42 billion, three years later almost no households have been connected.
Brendan Carr, a former senior Republican commissioner of the FCC found the agency "has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest."
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So much for "high-speed" internet.
Finally, and most chilling of all, was the August 26 letter by Meta/Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg admitting to the House Judiciary Committee that the Biden administration had pressured the company to "censor" COVID-19 content relating to health practices and vaccine safety during the pandemic.
In July 2021, President Joe Biden declared that social media platforms like Facebook "are killing people" for allowing misinformation about coronavirus vaccines to be posted on its platform. When the Zuckerberg letter was announced, the Biden administration failed to even apologize for its gross violation of the First Amendment and instead issued a mishmash explanation that they were trying to save lives.
Next, we have seen the failure of the Biden-Harris "infrastructure bill," which dedicated billions of dollars to increasing access to the internet. Despite a price tag of some $42 billion, three years later almost no households have been connected.
One wonders what the reaction of "progressives" would have been if this blatant violation of freedom of speech and the right of a free press, had been ordered by the Trump administration. The incident is especially chilling given that the real dispenser of misinformation about Covid came from the government itself. It was Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the president, and the Center for Disease Control that successfully advocated for lockdowns of the economy and shutdowns of schools.
Every time the feds intervene in issues related to the internet and access to digital services, they screw up or impede progress to universal access and the free flow of information.
Perhaps this is one of those rare issues where left and right can come together to see the threats to freedom and instead agitate to keep the web regulation-free.
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Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity, and an economic adviser to the Trump campaign. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect an institutional position for The Heritage Foundation or its board of trustees.
