Net Neutrality Does Not Protect Free Speech

The net neutrality debate has been rife with scare-mongering from the start, but the latest suggestion from the ACLU — that net neutrality is a necessary component of free speech — continues to annoy me:

Speakers at an American Civil Liberties Union conference today praised legislation that would ban discrimination of Internet content by broadband companies, saying that firms like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Communications — not the government — pose the greatest threat to free speech and expression online.

The problem with this idea is that free speech, as a legal principle, doesn’t extend to private property.  The fact that you can’t, for example, walk into a Best Buy and start shouting obscenities or post huge signs for Circuit City, isn’t a violation of free speech. It’s a property owner placing reasonable restrictions on how property, generally open to the public but not owned by it, can be used.  Similarly, unless an ISP specifically guarantees a user the right to do and say whatever he or she wants while online, there’s no inherent right to do so.  Free speech is not an absolute right to do or say anything anywhere you please; it means there can be no legal action against you for the content of your speech.  So disruptive, unwanted, or restricted behavior on private property doesn’t get the same protection. If an ISP wants to block obscenity or the websites of competitors or certain types of ads, it seems to me that, in the same way that retail establishments are allowed to control what’s said within or posted on their walls, internet providers ought to be allowed to do so.

Now, that doesn’t mean that a lot of heavy-handed blocking and restriction is a good idea. Indeed, I suspect it doesn’t make much business sense. Believe me: If my ISP started doing so in a way that was problematic for my regular usage, I’d jump ship to a slower but unblocked ISP as quickly as I could find the time — just as I stop frequenting grocery stores when they stop carrying my favorite products or raise their prices.  None of this, however, is a reason for Congress to get involved — all of these issues can and should be worked out between consumers and providers without government intervention.