Shortly after the Federal Communications Commission voted to enact neutrality regulations, Rasmussen Reports released poll results supposedly showing that only one in five Americans support such
rules.
But the poll's wording raises doubt about that conclusion. Consider, researchers posed the following question to 1,000 respondents: Should the Federal Communications Commission regulate the
Internet like it does radio and television? Only 21% said yes, while 54% said no and 25% weren't sure.
The problem, however, is that the FCC's neutrality regulations aren't comparable to
its rules regarding TV or radio licenses. Among the FCC's best known regulations regarding TV and radio are the controversial decency rules, which have resulted in broadcasters facing fines -- or
lengthy court battles -- after airing nudity or expletives.
The FCC's neutrality order in no way attempts to impose similar decency rules online, but it's not clear whether poll
respondents realized that. Instead, the rules prohibit all broadband providers from degrading or blocking material and wireline providers -- but not wireless ones -- from engaging in unreasonable discrimination.
Whether the new rules will effectively promote neutrality is another
question. Some observers have criticized the order as weak, arguing that it doesn't adequately protect wireless users or explicitly prevent wireline providers from pay-for-prioritization deals that
could grant certain companies fast-lane treatment.
But others, like Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick, disagree. In the blog
post "The FCC's Open Internet Rules -- Stronger Than You Think," she argues that the new rules will go a long way toward banning providers from giving preferential treatment to companies that pay
more. "While the text of the order stops short of an outright ban of 'third-party-paid prioritization' arrangements, it seems to get as close to explicitly banning these arrangements as one can get
without explicitly banning them," she writes. "The order explicitly endorses the concerns against these arrangements, unequivocally rejects the main arguments in favor of them, and concludes that 'as
a general matter,' arrangements of this kind are 'unlikely' to be considered reasonable."