Today, not only political discourse but also the professional and personal lives of most people younger than 50 depend on the Internet. Yet all of that is controlled by six huge Big Tech corporations: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Twitter.
Violation of the First Amendment
The key to the current state of the Internet is the Obamanet (which its supporters call net neutrality) passed by the FCC in 2010 for the first time. This is likely the most radical infringement, or even denial, of the First Amendment by the federal government in US history. It effectively prohibited freedom of speech and the press on the Internet.
From Obamanet (2010): “Purchasing a higher quality of termination service for one’s own Internet traffic, though, is not speech.” The “termination service” phrase is somewhat ignorant. ISP fees cover all the costs of delivering Internet traffic, not just termination. That pays for the Internet infrastructure build-up, from programming routers to laying fiber cables, and maintenance.
Public speech always requires means of its replication in a physical medium. Take away them, and the freedom of speech is gone. In the 18th century, speech was reproduced on paper using a printing press: hence, the words “freedom of the press” in the First Amendment. In the 21st century, speech is reproduced by delivery over the Internet. The right to purchase this delivery, including termination services by a retail ISP, is guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Obamanet (2010) text acknowledged that it was taking this right away, although buried this acknowledgement in 55,000 words of the text.
Under Obamanet, Internet users are forced to pay for speech with which they disagree and for which they are unwilling to pay, that is, unconstitutional compelled speech. That includes foreign governments propaganda. Continue reading Obamanet and Selection of Big Tech Winners
