Protecting Free Speech in the Digital Age

[Commentary] The United States and the European Union are poised to address an issue that affects the free speech interests of Internet users around the world. In the past ten days, both the Federal Communications Commission and the EU have engaged on the issue of net neutrality, a principle requiring that Internet users themselves -- not their broadband providers -- enjoy the right to control what content and applications they can access. After experimenting for several years with a course of deregulating broadband providers, the FCC is now heading in the direction of requiring broadband providers to serve as neutral conduits for our Internet communications. The EU should do so as well. The future of the Internet as an open, global communications medium requires no less. The FCC and the EU should act now to require that the handful of powerful companies who serve as the gatekeepers for Internet expression fulfill their obligations to the public free of discrimination and censorship to protect our free speech interests in the digital age.