Republican F.C.C. Commissioner Links Net Neutrality With Fairness Doctrine

Sam Gustin says: It's not the first time this ridiculous assertion has been made.

Robert McDowell, a Republican member of the F.C.C., has warned that if the "Fairness Doctrine" is revived, bloggers may be forced "to give equal time or equal space on their website to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas" determine their content.

McDowell suggested that such an outcome may result from the application of network neutrality principles to internet networks. We've heard this before.

In fact, network neutrality opponents have been linking the two concepts for some time now in an effort to play off conservatives' hatred of the Fairness Doctrine, a long-ago-abandoned F.C.C. rule which required radio broadcasters to give equal time to opposing viewpoints. Some Congressional Democrats have made no secret of their desire to resurrect the doctrine, which was effectively ended by the Reagan Administration.

This prospect strikes fear into the hearts of many conservatives, who worry that if the doctrine is revived, their dominance of talk-radio opinion may be undermined.

McDowell made his comments in the context of a discussion of the F.C.C.'s recent ruling that Comcast violated federal policy by blocking peer-to-peer traffic on its network. McDowell was one of two commissioners who voted not to punish Comcast.

In an interview with the conservative Business and Media Institute -- following a speech at the Heritage Institute -- McDowell claimed that the controversy over the Fairness Doctrine could "be intertwined into the net neutrality debate."

In fact, the only people who are "intertwining" network neutrality -- the idea that all web applications should be treated equally be network operators, with no particular application being favored or impeded -- and the Fairness Doctrine, are network neutrality opponents such as McDowell.

Network neutrality has nothing whatsoever to do with the political or ideological nature of internet content or applications.

Nevertheless, in an apparent attempt to pander to his conservative audience, McDowell let fly with the following nonsense.

"So you know, this election, if it goes one way, we could see a re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine," McDowell said. "There is a discussion of it in Congress. I think it won't be called the Fairness Doctrine by folks who are promoting it. I think it will be called something else and I think it'll be intertwined into the net neutrality debate."

Net neutrality advocates called McDowell's comments absurd.

"That's definitely the stupidest thing I've heard this week," Robb Tolpolski, chief technology consultant for Free Press, a pro-network neutrality group, wrote on his blog, adding, "one thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other."

"The Fairness Doctrine, if applied on the internet, would violate Network Neutrality principles!" Topolski wrote. "The network has never cared about the political positions of the senders of packets, and it would violate the neutral behavior of the network if it had to start caring."

If anyone is injecting politics into the network neutrality debate, it's McDowell.