Net Neutrality is Dead

Net Neutrality is dead. Links! Love 'em. So yeah. What happened?

The FCC tried to enforce net neutrality. Verizon said "your administrative oversight doesn't apply to us as broadband providers." A US District court said Verizon was right.

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A telecommunications company...under the regulatory oversight of the FCC...is providing broadband service...which is also under the regulatory oversight of the FCC...is arguing that as providers (under FCC regulatory oversight) providing a service (under FCC regulatory oversight) are not under FCC regulatory oversight...and a Federal court agrees with them.

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The fuck?

Anyway, this isn't about the FCC or Verizon. This is about how the death of net neutrality affects our efforts as Marxists. Obviously, this can get into martyr complexes and conspiracy theories very easily, so let's try and keep out of that territory. But if you recall that Facebook already provides preferential treatment to particular political viewpoints, it's not that hard to surmise that internet providers, more necessary to our daily functioning than Facebook, would do the same.

The internet has provided unprecedented ability for revolutionary movements and Leftists to network and organize. Net Neutrality has been one of our lines of defense that we have probably taken for granted. I know the AnCaps would respond to this by screaming "Statism! The State has no business on the internet!  Bwaaah! Free Markets!", but we on the Left should have a more nuanced response. AnCom or not, the Left at least explores its options and talks rationally.

The state, whether serving only the interests of the ruling class or not, has an agenda. At its core, that agenda is existential. The state propagates itself. This is fine. This is the nature of the state. As a "statist", I see no problem with a state safeguarding its interests. But when those interests aren't really the state's interests, but corporate interests, I have a serious issue with a Federal court defending a private corporation's interests over those of the state. Because, as is pointed out in the New Yorker article linked above, this opens the doorway for internet providers to severely limit access to particular websites, blogs, etc. While the New Yorker talks about competing firms, what if, say, Verizon decided because they were no longer in charge of the ACA's healthcare exchanges they wanted to degrade access to healthcare.gov?

Under this ruling, that would be potentially legal.

So, it is extrapolated that, should the Left unite and pose an existential threat to any one or all of the major telecommunications companies that provide internet service to millions of Americans, it would follow that our blogs, websites, news outlets, organizations, etc. would lose our internet presence. It would severely cripple our ability to organize and effectively agitate outside of peer-to-peer personal interaction. The election of Councilwoman Kshama Sawant would have been intensely more difficult were she to have lost her internet presence prior to the campaign.

What are we, then, to do? The most direct action is what liberals often do--petition, petition, petition. Failing that, more direct activism and action is needed. Should we drive ourselves into the Dark Web--the fabled depths of the internet where the Silk Road and Bitcoin dwelt? Or should we defiantly stake our claim here, on the surface, and continue as we have? I don't really have answers for this except that more than ever we need to unite behind a common banner and organization so we can more actively oppose actions like this. To fail to do so will allow this potentially existential threat to materialize more fully and more threateningly. With the United Left blog barely a month old, it seems like bad timing, eh?