7 ms·

Libertarians make the case: net neutrality is unconstitutional

26 points by Cadsby 14y ago

b0rsuk 14y ago
My quick and dirty analogy: Imagine a world where each street is owned by a company. Then they start deciding who is allowed to drive which road. People who pay for the premium package don't have to stop at red lights, and right of way. Freetards aren't allowed between 08am and 12am. Only bicycles with UEFI are permitted.
- tzs 14y ago
  I once asked on a libertarian forum what would happen in that kind of world, where all streets and roads are privately owned, if someone were able to acquire ownership of a closed set of roads that separated me from things I need to live, and refused to give me permission to travel on his roads and refused to give permission to anyone who was bringing me stuff. I was told why this would not be a problem: under libertarian property theory, ownership is initially established over a resource by using it. Thus, land becomes owned by the first person to start making use of it. This ownership only extends to that which is being used. This means that most land is only owned at the surface, and as far enough down as is necessary to provide support for the surface land. Thus, I am free to TUNNEL UNDER THE ROADS, as long as I go deep enough and do it in a way that does not cause damage to the roads. I can thus tunnel my way under the enclosing roads out to someplace where I am welcome.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    All arguments are easy if applied against straw men.
    - tzs 14y ago
      What do you see as a straw man there? edit: up voting you to counter a ridiculous down vote.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Isn't this a little silly, though? It's not the universal libertarian position that all functions of governments are best served by free markets. The real position is: those functions of government that can be served by markets should be. A basic functional system of transportation sufficient to enable (but not optimize) commerce seems like something that could reasonably require a government to operate.
    - tzs 14y ago
      That some functions can't be well served by free markets and so there does need to be some government seemed to be the most common form of libertarianism years ago, but the impression I get nowadays based on online activity is that the "everything can be handled by the free market" form has gotten the upper hand. Or maybe they are just louder?
      - tptacek 14y ago
        I think that's called Message Board Libertarianism.
  - gojomo 14y ago
    You got a silly reductio ad absurdum answer... but also asked a silly question. Compare: "What if someone bought all the movie theaters, and then prohibited the showing of movies?!?" The thing is, people who buy theaters buy them because they want to show movies. People who run roads want them to be used. Sure, you could have a few eccentrics with destructive rules. They will not thrive. There may be innovative rules that appear eccentric at first, but turn out to offer offsetting benefits in allocation-of-limited-capacity-to-most-productive-uses. This is why competitive realms so often result in better results than those with a single, governmental/monopolistic owner: there are creative ways to re-slice a problem that never occur to a committee, or politically-sclerotic bureaucracy/legislature, or a comfortable incumbent. But a smaller entity -- individual or corporate team -- facing more directly the upside/downside of their decisions, can innovate. (Taking your enclosure question at face value: most fans of strong property rights and marketizing-almost-everything still believe in various kinds of common-law carve outs. You can trespass to rescue someone in distress; a tradition of allowed use creates an implied right-of-way/easement for continued use; etc. So you're no more likely to be 'encircled' by sustenance-denying monopolists in the extreme-market solution, than you are in a system where government zoning, eminent-domain, and redevelopment sometimes does the same thing to the politically-weak. Both have some corner-case risk, both have traditional checks. Which converges on useful arrangements more quickly, more often should be the question... rather than concocted extreme cases.)
geon 14y ago
I read sometimes about how few choices you US people have when buying your Internet connection. Something about only a single ISP allowed by the city etc. That would make your ISP the de facto government for your online activities. A government that is potentially very invasive, inspecting your every data package, limiting your access to certain sites and dictating what kind of content you can download at full speed. How is that libertarian?
- tptacek 14y ago
  That's a non sequitur question. A circumstance in a particular market isn't "libertarian" or "not libertarian". A libertarian would say, people should be free to make and enforce promises among themselves, and the government should constrain itself to those roles that can't be performed by markets. Libertarians by and large don't believe in "antitrust". The market is, a libertarian would reason, inevitably more powerful than any temporarily dominant firm. If a cartel of ISPs emerged from a free-market approach to Internet governance, that cartel would either (a) be an optimal solution to the requirements of Internet users or (b) eventually worked around and eventually replaced by alternate offerings in the market.
  - beernutz 14y ago
    Doesn't that ignore the effect of government granted monopolies? Since some ISPs are granted monopoly status by local governments, by definition the free market can't work. So, as in cases of civil rights, maybe the answer IS to attach neutrality conditions to such monopolies?
    - tptacek 14y ago
      A libertarian would throw up in their mouth at the idea of a government-granted monopoly.
      - angersock 14y ago
        So, they have little-to-nothing useful to say on the current state of affairs for modern ISPs and telcos, then? And are instead just wanking around a mythical tabula-rasa marketplace?
slavak 14y ago
" Specifically, the groups say that compelling private companies to “speak,” by requiring them to carry all traffic across their networks, instead of allowing them to discriminate as they see fit, violates the principle of freedom of speech. " As someone pointed out in the comments below the article, this seems like a path the ISPs really don't want to go down. If you equate all packets running through your network to your speech, then you're implicitly making yourself responsible for their contents. This is hardly in their best interests, considering the amount of pirated content, [everyone's favorite boogeyman] kiddy-porn, and God-knows-what-else running down their pipes every day.
carsongross 14y ago
If I say something in defense of libertarians, will I get down-voted and burn through karma? Experience says that the answer is yes. What are the implications for the level and type of discussion here at HN?
- tptacek 14y ago
  There are lots of libertarians on HN. As a liberal, the impression I personally get is that I'm outnumbered by them. I think these impressions come in part from which threads you choose to join. If you restricted yourself to threads about Airbnb and Uber, you'd be forgiven for assuming that this was a Cato board.
gojomo 14y ago
We wouldn't accept any federal agency enforcing "Printing Press Neutrality", requiring the owners of printing presses to submit to government rulemaking about what pamphlets, periodicals, and books are printed on their presses. We would understand, instinctively, that having government involved in such matters is inviting the fox into the henhouse. For some reason, with newer media, the simple principle of "no meddling in private communications/publishing" gets lost. So we have the FCC, censoring broadcast media, and used via licensing and ownership rules to extract 'favors' for the political classes. And we have people who are ostensibly in favor of free speech inviting this censorious, political-establishment-subservient agency into Internet regulation. No, thank you. There's no need to tame the Internet to be safe and 'neutral'/neutered like regulated broadcast TV. It's working just fine without the FCC's enlightened approach, which historically has included set-asides for certain favored classes of programming [1], moral crusades, and other benefits for the politically-connected [2]. [1] http://reason.com/blog/2008/06/17/the-fccs-obsolete-quotas http://reason.com/blog/2008/06/17/the-fccs-obsolete-quotas [2] http://reason.com/archives/2008/06/12/the-central-committee-is-in-se http://reason.com/archives/2008/06/12/the-central-committee-...
- ericras 14y ago
  Exactly, oftentimes regulation becomes a easy way for politicians and bureaucrats to extract money and power. Net Neutrality! All bits are equal! ...Well except we want our VOIP calls to be clear so maybe they need priority. ...And there's this new distance medical imaging tech that should have priority because lives are at stake. ...Oh, your industry/business wants help getting an exception written into the law? I'm in Congress, I can help you, pay me.
- angersock 14y ago
  For some reason, with newer media, the simple principle of "no meddling in private communications/publishing" gets lost. You do realize that the same principle is hardly something that a free market would automatically support at reasonable price to the user, right? It's working just fine without the FCC's enlightened approach You're not a Time Warner Cable customer, or Cox, or subject to throttling very much, are you?
msfd 14y ago
It's alway sad when there is "libertarians" wanting to preserve nothing more than corporate rights over people's rights using skewed interpretation of the (US) constitution. And yes, I'm using libertarians with quote because a real libertarian would have thought a bit more than just "The constitution is the supreme rule!!!" and more about every right involved and how to maximize everyone liberty.
- ericras 14y ago
  "Maximizing everyone's liberty" is code for taking from some and giving to others to to achieve a "just" result. That's not how libertarians think, that's how modern progressives think. So you think a "real libertarian" should be in lock step with liberal progressives. I don't want to protect corporate rights over peoples' rights. I want all rights protected in accordance with the non-aggression principle. I don't want you using the power of government to beat down your enemies.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Hey! Don't impute pure utilitarianism to all liberal progressives! I just want good public schools and guaranteed issue health insurance. I don't need to see everyone's economic outcomes equalized!
- tptacek 14y ago
  This comment suggests that you haven't looked too deeply into how a "real libertarian" reasons through problems like Internet regulation, since "maximization of everyone's liberty" is a utilitarian goal, not a libertarian goal.
- sp332 14y ago
  It's obviously not right for the government to mandate that certain corporations must deliver certain messages. The only justification for this is that telecommunications companies are heavily regulated and are granted franchises which are effectively monopolies. So the libertarians should solve the monopoly problem, then the free speech problem. Fixing them in the wrong order is worse.
joelrunyon 14y ago
The actual article (not the comment section) - http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/libertarians-make-the-case-net-neutrality-is-unconstitutional http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/libertarians-make...
alrs 14y ago
Useful Idiots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
Pewpewarrows 14y ago
Just to play Devil's Advocate, this is what I'd imagine the average Libertarian response to this would be: In a free market the consumers hold the power. An ISP that didn't restrict Internet usage or tier what it offered would become in-demand, and would profit and succeed more than the others. In other words, the market would correct itself towards those ISPs that espoused the principles of staying neutral. If that didn't happen, then net neutrality isn't a big enough concern to drive the average consumer's purchase. It's a simplified generalization, but take from it what you will.
- fro 14y ago
  Another argument: Legislating that ISPs must treat all their bits as equal may cause ISPs to lose the flexibility needed to optimize their networks. Laws that inhibit freedom of private companies may look like a good solution to certain problems, but they often have unintended side effects that decrease the efficiency and effectiveness of the company. Allowing market forces to work solves the original problem, and does not create laws limiting freedom and innovation in the company.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    This is my problem with net neutrality (and I'm not even a libertarian!). The Internet service model is such a moving target --- and (I personally think) it's so not what (many) neutrality advocates think it is --- that legislating it seems counterproductive. Service providers should not be allowed to use local monopolies to harm competition in other markets or to form cartels in them, but legislated "neutrality" doesn't seem like the right way to ensure that.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    Absolutely. Water companies regulate water usage of their customers. You're going to find that regulation is needed on any shared resource. You're free to get a leased line that is private and just yours, but you will pay significantly more for that. The Internet lends itself so obviously to packetization and shared wires that it takes an extreme case to justify using a private network rather than sharing a public one. There needs to be regulation to stop (say) the DSL company from impacting VOIP traffic. But a completely unregulated network will lead to the torrenters destroying the VOIP traffic just as fast.
ucee054 14y ago
I agree with Ted Stevens... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE
beernutz 14y ago
This reminds me of the "libertarian" argument that business owners should be allowed to choose not to serve black people. Civil rights were something the government had to step in to protect. I think that net neutrality might be the same kind of thing.
- tptacek 14y ago
  The "libertarian" argument against the Civil Rights Act isn't that discrimination is good. It's that the prevailing attitude towards discrimination was inevitably going to trend away from discrimination, and that forcing businesses to serve people harms their right to associate freely with the people they chose; while this limitation on free association is obviously benign, it sets us on a slippery slope towards other violations of free association. I am not a libertarian and find this argument very unconvincing. Also, my emotional brain tends to impute racism towards those politicians who have advanced it. But it's not an illogical argument. So in that spirit I'd say: if you think the government should step in to guarantee neutrality, you're not a pure libertarian. You don't need the scare quotes.
  - beernutz 14y ago
    That is a good point. I did not mean the quotes as scare quotes, just to emphasize the idea that this might not be a core libertarian argument, but seems to be held up as such. I honestly don't know for certain. The idea that it harms their right to associate freely with the people they chose seems like a misnomer as well. It seems like it does the opposite. It says you are not allowed to turn AWAY customers based on race. Is that phrase or right in the constitution somewhere? I am embarrassingly ignorant in those areas.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    I think the race situation is actually the most damning example for libertarianism. I'm not convinced that, without anti-libertrian intervention by Congress and the Supreme Court, we wouldn't still be segregated today.
    - 14y ago
snowwrestler 14y ago
I propose a simple compromise in which ISPs can elect into one of two regulatory statuses: Unregulated and unprotected - The ISP is free to "curate" the content they deliver to customers as they see fit. However, customers may also hold the ISP responsible for their content, for example by initiating civil litigation if pornography is delivered. Regulated and protected - ISPs cannot be held legally responsible for the content they deliver, but they must deliver all content requested by customers, in accordance with published tiers of service and rate cards.
roguecoder 14y ago
Why shouldn't the government, as the representative of the people, place constraints in its contract with the providers? There is nothing compelling them to provide service, rather than a different provider. It is unfair to call this a libertarian position: it is the position of some specific capitalist-anarchist-libertarians. Not all libertarians see the social contract as less valid than other sorts, nor do all libertarians believe freedom of business trumps the freedom of consumers.

26 points by Cadsby 14y ago

My quick and dirty analogy: Imagine a world where each street is owned by a company. Then they start deciding who is allowed to drive which road. People who pay for the premium package don't have to stop at red lights, and right of way. Freetards aren't allowed between 08am and 12am. Only bicycles with UEFI are permitted.

tzs 14y ago
I once asked on a libertarian forum what would happen in that kind of world, where all streets and roads are privately owned, if someone were able to acquire ownership of a closed set of roads that separated me from things I need to live, and refused to give me permission to travel on his roads and refused to give permission to anyone who was bringing me stuff. I was told why this would not be a problem: under libertarian property theory, ownership is initially established over a resource by using it. Thus, land becomes owned by the first person to start making use of it. This ownership only extends to that which is being used. This means that most land is only owned at the surface, and as far enough down as is necessary to provide support for the surface land. Thus, I am free to TUNNEL UNDER THE ROADS, as long as I go deep enough and do it in a way that does not cause damage to the roads. I can thus tunnel my way under the enclosing roads out to someplace where I am welcome.
- danielweber 14y ago
  All arguments are easy if applied against straw men.
  - tzs 14y ago
    What do you see as a straw man there? edit: up voting you to counter a ridiculous down vote.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Isn't this a little silly, though? It's not the universal libertarian position that all functions of governments are best served by free markets. The real position is: those functions of government that can be served by markets should be. A basic functional system of transportation sufficient to enable (but not optimize) commerce seems like something that could reasonably require a government to operate.
  - tzs 14y ago
    That some functions can't be well served by free markets and so there does need to be some government seemed to be the most common form of libertarianism years ago, but the impression I get nowadays based on online activity is that the "everything can be handled by the free market" form has gotten the upper hand. Or maybe they are just louder?
    - tptacek 14y ago
      I think that's called Message Board Libertarianism.
- gojomo 14y ago
  You got a silly reductio ad absurdum answer... but also asked a silly question. Compare: "What if someone bought all the movie theaters, and then prohibited the showing of movies?!?" The thing is, people who buy theaters buy them because they want to show movies. People who run roads want them to be used. Sure, you could have a few eccentrics with destructive rules. They will not thrive. There may be innovative rules that appear eccentric at first, but turn out to offer offsetting benefits in allocation-of-limited-capacity-to-most-productive-uses. This is why competitive realms so often result in better results than those with a single, governmental/monopolistic owner: there are creative ways to re-slice a problem that never occur to a committee, or politically-sclerotic bureaucracy/legislature, or a comfortable incumbent. But a smaller entity -- individual or corporate team -- facing more directly the upside/downside of their decisions, can innovate. (Taking your enclosure question at face value: most fans of strong property rights and marketizing-almost-everything still believe in various kinds of common-law carve outs. You can trespass to rescue someone in distress; a tradition of allowed use creates an implied right-of-way/easement for continued use; etc. So you're no more likely to be 'encircled' by sustenance-denying monopolists in the extreme-market solution, than you are in a system where government zoning, eminent-domain, and redevelopment sometimes does the same thing to the politically-weak. Both have some corner-case risk, both have traditional checks. Which converges on useful arrangements more quickly, more often should be the question... rather than concocted extreme cases.)

geon 14y ago

I read sometimes about how few choices you US people have when buying your Internet connection. Something about only a single ISP allowed by the city etc. That would make your ISP the de facto government for your online activities. A government that is potentially very invasive, inspecting your every data package, limiting your access to certain sites and dictating what kind of content you can download at full speed. How is that libertarian?

tptacek 14y ago
That's a non sequitur question. A circumstance in a particular market isn't "libertarian" or "not libertarian". A libertarian would say, people should be free to make and enforce promises among themselves, and the government should constrain itself to those roles that can't be performed by markets. Libertarians by and large don't believe in "antitrust". The market is, a libertarian would reason, inevitably more powerful than any temporarily dominant firm. If a cartel of ISPs emerged from a free-market approach to Internet governance, that cartel would either (a) be an optimal solution to the requirements of Internet users or (b) eventually worked around and eventually replaced by alternate offerings in the market.
- beernutz 14y ago
  Doesn't that ignore the effect of government granted monopolies? Since some ISPs are granted monopoly status by local governments, by definition the free market can't work. So, as in cases of civil rights, maybe the answer IS to attach neutrality conditions to such monopolies?
  - tptacek 14y ago
    A libertarian would throw up in their mouth at the idea of a government-granted monopoly.
    - angersock 14y ago
      So, they have little-to-nothing useful to say on the current state of affairs for modern ISPs and telcos, then? And are instead just wanking around a mythical tabula-rasa marketplace?

slavak 14y ago

" Specifically, the groups say that compelling private companies to “speak,” by requiring them to carry all traffic across their networks, instead of allowing them to discriminate as they see fit, violates the principle of freedom of speech. " As someone pointed out in the comments below the article, this seems like a path the ISPs really don't want to go down. If you equate all packets running through your network to your speech, then you're implicitly making yourself responsible for their contents. This is hardly in their best interests, considering the amount of pirated content, [everyone's favorite boogeyman] kiddy-porn, and God-knows-what-else running down their pipes every day.

carsongross 14y ago

If I say something in defense of libertarians, will I get down-voted and burn through karma? Experience says that the answer is yes. What are the implications for the level and type of discussion here at HN?

tptacek 14y ago
There are lots of libertarians on HN. As a liberal, the impression I personally get is that I'm outnumbered by them. I think these impressions come in part from which threads you choose to join. If you restricted yourself to threads about Airbnb and Uber, you'd be forgiven for assuming that this was a Cato board.

gojomo 14y ago

We wouldn't accept any federal agency enforcing "Printing Press Neutrality", requiring the owners of printing presses to submit to government rulemaking about what pamphlets, periodicals, and books are printed on their presses. We would understand, instinctively, that having government involved in such matters is inviting the fox into the henhouse. For some reason, with newer media, the simple principle of "no meddling in private communications/publishing" gets lost. So we have the FCC, censoring broadcast media, and used via licensing and ownership rules to extract 'favors' for the political classes. And we have people who are ostensibly in favor of free speech inviting this censorious, political-establishment-subservient agency into Internet regulation. No, thank you. There's no need to tame the Internet to be safe and 'neutral'/neutered like regulated broadcast TV. It's working just fine without the FCC's enlightened approach, which historically has included set-asides for certain favored classes of programming [1], moral crusades, and other benefits for the politically-connected [2]. [1] http://reason.com/blog/2008/06/17/the-fccs-obsolete-quotas http://reason.com/blog/2008/06/17/the-fccs-obsolete-quotas [2] http://reason.com/archives/2008/06/12/the-central-committee-is-in-se http://reason.com/archives/2008/06/12/the-central-committee-...

ericras 14y ago
Exactly, oftentimes regulation becomes a easy way for politicians and bureaucrats to extract money and power. Net Neutrality! All bits are equal! ...Well except we want our VOIP calls to be clear so maybe they need priority. ...And there's this new distance medical imaging tech that should have priority because lives are at stake. ...Oh, your industry/business wants help getting an exception written into the law? I'm in Congress, I can help you, pay me.
angersock 14y ago
For some reason, with newer media, the simple principle of "no meddling in private communications/publishing" gets lost. You do realize that the same principle is hardly something that a free market would automatically support at reasonable price to the user, right? It's working just fine without the FCC's enlightened approach You're not a Time Warner Cable customer, or Cox, or subject to throttling very much, are you?

msfd 14y ago

It's alway sad when there is "libertarians" wanting to preserve nothing more than corporate rights over people's rights using skewed interpretation of the (US) constitution. And yes, I'm using libertarians with quote because a real libertarian would have thought a bit more than just "The constitution is the supreme rule!!!" and more about every right involved and how to maximize everyone liberty.

ericras 14y ago
"Maximizing everyone's liberty" is code for taking from some and giving to others to to achieve a "just" result. That's not how libertarians think, that's how modern progressives think. So you think a "real libertarian" should be in lock step with liberal progressives. I don't want to protect corporate rights over peoples' rights. I want all rights protected in accordance with the non-aggression principle. I don't want you using the power of government to beat down your enemies.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Hey! Don't impute pure utilitarianism to all liberal progressives! I just want good public schools and guaranteed issue health insurance. I don't need to see everyone's economic outcomes equalized!
tptacek 14y ago
This comment suggests that you haven't looked too deeply into how a "real libertarian" reasons through problems like Internet regulation, since "maximization of everyone's liberty" is a utilitarian goal, not a libertarian goal.
sp332 14y ago
It's obviously not right for the government to mandate that certain corporations must deliver certain messages. The only justification for this is that telecommunications companies are heavily regulated and are granted franchises which are effectively monopolies. So the libertarians should solve the monopoly problem, then the free speech problem. Fixing them in the wrong order is worse.

joelrunyon 14y ago

The actual article (not the comment section) - http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/libertarians-make-the-case-net-neutrality-is-unconstitutional http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/libertarians-make...

alrs 14y ago

Useful Idiots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

Pewpewarrows 14y ago

Just to play Devil's Advocate, this is what I'd imagine the average Libertarian response to this would be: In a free market the consumers hold the power. An ISP that didn't restrict Internet usage or tier what it offered would become in-demand, and would profit and succeed more than the others. In other words, the market would correct itself towards those ISPs that espoused the principles of staying neutral. If that didn't happen, then net neutrality isn't a big enough concern to drive the average consumer's purchase. It's a simplified generalization, but take from it what you will.

fro 14y ago
Another argument: Legislating that ISPs must treat all their bits as equal may cause ISPs to lose the flexibility needed to optimize their networks. Laws that inhibit freedom of private companies may look like a good solution to certain problems, but they often have unintended side effects that decrease the efficiency and effectiveness of the company. Allowing market forces to work solves the original problem, and does not create laws limiting freedom and innovation in the company.
- tptacek 14y ago
  This is my problem with net neutrality (and I'm not even a libertarian!). The Internet service model is such a moving target --- and (I personally think) it's so not what (many) neutrality advocates think it is --- that legislating it seems counterproductive. Service providers should not be allowed to use local monopolies to harm competition in other markets or to form cartels in them, but legislated "neutrality" doesn't seem like the right way to ensure that.
- danielweber 14y ago
  Absolutely. Water companies regulate water usage of their customers. You're going to find that regulation is needed on any shared resource. You're free to get a leased line that is private and just yours, but you will pay significantly more for that. The Internet lends itself so obviously to packetization and shared wires that it takes an extreme case to justify using a private network rather than sharing a public one. There needs to be regulation to stop (say) the DSL company from impacting VOIP traffic. But a completely unregulated network will lead to the torrenters destroying the VOIP traffic just as fast.

ucee054 14y ago

I agree with Ted Stevens... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE

beernutz 14y ago

This reminds me of the "libertarian" argument that business owners should be allowed to choose not to serve black people. Civil rights were something the government had to step in to protect. I think that net neutrality might be the same kind of thing.

tptacek 14y ago
The "libertarian" argument against the Civil Rights Act isn't that discrimination is good. It's that the prevailing attitude towards discrimination was inevitably going to trend away from discrimination, and that forcing businesses to serve people harms their right to associate freely with the people they chose; while this limitation on free association is obviously benign, it sets us on a slippery slope towards other violations of free association. I am not a libertarian and find this argument very unconvincing. Also, my emotional brain tends to impute racism towards those politicians who have advanced it. But it's not an illogical argument. So in that spirit I'd say: if you think the government should step in to guarantee neutrality, you're not a pure libertarian. You don't need the scare quotes.
- beernutz 14y ago
  That is a good point. I did not mean the quotes as scare quotes, just to emphasize the idea that this might not be a core libertarian argument, but seems to be held up as such. I honestly don't know for certain. The idea that it harms their right to associate freely with the people they chose seems like a misnomer as well. It seems like it does the opposite. It says you are not allowed to turn AWAY customers based on race. Is that phrase or right in the constitution somewhere? I am embarrassingly ignorant in those areas.
- rayiner 14y ago
  I think the race situation is actually the most damning example for libertarianism. I'm not convinced that, without anti-libertrian intervention by Congress and the Supreme Court, we wouldn't still be segregated today.
  - 14y ago

snowwrestler 14y ago

I propose a simple compromise in which ISPs can elect into one of two regulatory statuses: Unregulated and unprotected - The ISP is free to "curate" the content they deliver to customers as they see fit. However, customers may also hold the ISP responsible for their content, for example by initiating civil litigation if pornography is delivered. Regulated and protected - ISPs cannot be held legally responsible for the content they deliver, but they must deliver all content requested by customers, in accordance with published tiers of service and rate cards.

roguecoder 14y ago

Why shouldn't the government, as the representative of the people, place constraints in its contract with the providers? There is nothing compelling them to provide service, rather than a different provider. It is unfair to call this a libertarian position: it is the position of some specific capitalist-anarchist-libertarians. Not all libertarians see the social contract as less valid than other sorts, nor do all libertarians believe freedom of business trumps the freedom of consumers.