Obama: The Internet Is a Utility (Flashback)

A new "net neutrality" plan released by the White House on Monday morning includes an endorsement of an old idea that some activists have been pushing for years: the treatment of the Internet as a public utility.

So when you are your fellow big government regulating Freepers do not like the actions of a company you will declare them a utility. Then have them ruled in manner to your liking. Still waiting on that definition of a utility. I’d like to know what other companies you would like to regulate.

So you think having big government rule social media will turn out well for conservatives? Go study up on the fairness doctrine. Then maybe you will drop this liberal tripe your selling.

Never thought I’d see Freepers lining up with Mark Zuckerberg and ask the government to enforce speech codes. You do understand you and Facebook agree on this?

See if you can follow this. It is unconstitutional for the government to restrict speech which also means compelling speech. That’s what the Colorado baker case was about. It is not unconstitutional for a privately held company to restrict speech. Do you understand that? Is a Facebook account worth inviting the government to control social media and start acting as a censor? Have you stopped to think you are aligning yourself with BO? Why do you think BO and the entire prog movement take your position? Facebook should be free to conduct business they way they see fit. And if that means they ban every conservative voice so be it.

Allowing the government to control social media is a far worse problem and a threat to our liberty. You really think the US Federal government is going to protect conservative speech on social media? Nativity runs deep here.

Never thought I’d see Freepers lining up with Mark Zuckerberg and ask the government to enforce speech codes. You do understand you and Facebook agree on this?

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I assure you that the last thing FB wants is to be regulated as a utility.

To have no power over content. To be paid by subscribers.

No I dont think so.

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No all on the net needs to regulated as utilities so it provides unregulated and uncensored and un manipulated inforation.

We differ.

In scenario #2, Facebook wins. Google wins.

In my scenario #2 those companies are declared to be public utilities, then subsequently regulated as all public utilities are.

Can AT&T or Verizon cancel your phone account because they don't like your politics? No, they cannot.

How would that be winning for the big tech companies?

First, if they were made into utilities(Google, Instagram, etc) they would be unassailable monopolies sanctioned by government. You know, like that Tea company the King had that the Founders found to be so grotesque. Second, considering Zuckerberg's close relationship with all of the big wigs and powerbrokers on the left, he and his buddy Bezos would be the ones writing the rules. I can assure you he will not be writing rules against Facebook. He will be writing the rules against https://freerepublic.com.

Finally, Facebook and the rest would have less to worry about from litigation. All decisions about content would be offloaded to nameless faceless bureaucrats and federal law agents who you don't vote for and I don't vote for. No chance for malpractice there, right? Did you see what happened in regards to Hillary's email server? Whole lot of nothing, that's what.

That's three reasons why being declared a utility would be a huge win for Facebook. Any of them. All of them. The more regulation, the better. The bigger the better. Zuckerberg wants his server to be Hillary's email server too.

Ronald Reagan once said: "Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth"

If Facebook were turned into a utility it becomes an immortal government program. Friedrich Engels, who I quoted above, said(wrote) the exact same thing from the other side about eternal life that Reagan did.

Now I'd love to see you define the downside to immortality. No wonder Zuckerberg went to Congress to beg for it. Who wouldn't want eternal life, if they were in his situation?

First, if they were made into utilities(Google, Instagram, etc) they would be unassailable monopolies sanctioned by government.

I think you're wrong. Those companies are already unassailable monopolies. For all intents and purposes, they've become public utilities, which, because of their outsized dominance over internet content, communications, and commerce, must be forced to adhere to the same sorts of rules and regulations other behemoth companies must follow.

We currently have only one method of bringing such megalithic organizations to heel, and that's through the power of government. Let us not forget that the federal government ostensibly exists solely to serve the people. This is one of the few areas where it still does.

The big tech companies have brought this heat upon themselves. They chose to put the liberal ideology of their principal members ahead of profits, which in turn created a corporate cultural climate of hate and discrimination against conservative individuals and groups.

That unmitigated anti-social behavior has resulted in real and active suppression of conservative speech and activism across those platforms. As you well know, scores of prominent conservatives have had their accounts suspended, terminated, demonetized, throttled, de-linked, shadow banned, and/or censored. Some, like Alex Jones, have been completely de-platformed, I.e., run off the internet entirely. That takes collusion across corporate walls.

If the same egregious treatment were being dished out to prominent mainstream liberals, we could perhaps make the case that these companies are simply adhering to their internal policies in an even handed manner, but they're not.

Obviously I'm not in favor of big government solutions to everything that ails us, but there are situations that our government is properly suited handle. This is one of them.

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