Net neutrality and human decision making

In the European Union internet is open to all content and access; this is not the case in the USA anymore. In 2017 the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) ended network neutrality regulation, which has been the leading idea of the internet. "Net neutrality"-term refers to the idea that the content of the internet would be the same for each user regardless of service provided. If we give up the net neutrality ideal, the internet service providers (operators) have the freedom to choose the content they provide, speed of their service, and, more importantly, the price they charge from their customers. Internet service providers have naturally been delighted about the USA's decision to turn of net neutrality. Now they can do business with internet access much better than they were able to. They can choose the content (take more money of certain content, if they want to, and prohibit the content they do not like). Furthermore, they can also charge more money if they provide faster service to some content providers or specific net users (ex. Järvinen 2017, Väisänen 2018). ISP companies are, however, required to publish how they make selections (Laitila 2017).










Figure 1 What net neutrality means in a nutshell

The economic impact 

Many people have written about the pros and cons of net neutrality. For example, Isberto (2018) argues that when people only pay for access, it is unfair, since some people use more data space than others. For example, gaming and watching videos consume a lot of data space. The main benefit of removing net neutrality seems to be economical. Economists Hahn & Wallsten (2006) argue against any price regulation. They think that the liberation of the market would improve it.

Furthermore, it has been argued that under regulation, Internet service providers do not have incentives to invest in faster internet because they do not get any extra profit from it. As an opposing view, Chettiar and Holladay (2010) argue that there are also unwanted economic consequences of removing net neutrality since the access and investments of smaller companies might drop. However, the mechanisms are unclear. Companies like Facebook and Amazon have supported net neutrality because they fear that they will have to pay big bucks in the future for internet services (Shepardson 2018). Although they probably can afford it, this worsens their competitive situation to medium-sized and small companies (Galliano et al. 2018). 


It is good to notice that the economic impact is very different for different groups of people. The net users used to pay the same price for access regardless of how much they use space. When the USA removed net neutrality, the ISP could charge more from those who use more. This means that heavy net users are potential losers; minor net users might profit if their price drops. If one has to pay for providing content, all content providers are losers in the game, since so far they have paid only for access. Officials might benefit from fast lane in cases of emergency but lose in all other scenarios. The clear winners are Internet service providers and their associates.

 






Figure 2 Losers and winners when removing net neutrality

Since economic impact seems a bit unclear, let's take a look at the other aspects.

Democratic and ethical impact 

Even though ISP companies have not made any changes yet in the USA, they still can. It is rather difficult to understand that the USA has handed the power to regulate the content on the internet for companies, which can have whatever agendas and whose ownership can change. The growing power of ISP companies can limit freedom of speech and expression (Pitkänen 2017). If the access to the internet and content are (even possibly) limited, it harms the democracy. Is the access and efficient content distribution available only for those who have enough money or the right kind of agenda? Operators may, if they wish, charge their customers an additional fee for a subscription in which Netflix works smoothly, and good quality is guaranteed. At the same time, you could watch movies at the operator's service at a lower price. As an example of restricting competition, the giant operator AT&T previously blocked the use of Skype or Apple's FaceTime service, as it perceived data calls as a threat to its own telephony business (Laitila 2017, Pitkänen 2017). There is considerable risk for treating some groups of people discriminatively. And even though the ISP companies are not evil now, what about hostile takeovers? What if a company would have its agenda, which is not in line with current values? 

Knowledge impact (information access)

If the internet does not contain" all the information in the world," but selected information provided by those who can afford it and selected by ISP by some values of their own, the impact on human decision making is enormous. If the information in the net is limited, it has effects, for example, for education (Cuk & Robinson 2018 ) and even public health (Early & Bustillos (2018). How can we make informed decisions if our information is limited or biased? It is highly problematic if (in the worst-case scenario) people who already live in their social bubbles are also forced into ISP bubbles, each company providing their separate content. According to Pitkänen (2017), tens of millions of Americans live in an area where only one operator provides internet cable. There is virtually no competition, so they have no way of circumventing any restrictions on their operator, even by switching to another operator.

Safety impact

If the internet (and thus reality) is different according to which ISP one uses, people live in separate bubbles and are not able to understand each other. This raises the possibility of severe conflicts. Furthermore, with hostile takeovers, the owners of the companies can be other than Americans. Letting go of net neutrality is allowing foreign people to govern the content of the internet in the USA and possibly manipulate the people within

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