"Push-Polling" Network Neutrality

[Commentary] Recently, Rucker -- the executive director of ColorofChange.org -- wrote about why there are so many civil rights groups and members of the Congressional Black Caucus opposing network neutrality and why so much of this opposition echoes discredited telecommunications industry talking points. He thinks it's incumbent on leaders opposing or questioning net neutrality to publicly make clear why. Unfortunately, none have done so.

Rucker's piece was answered by Navarrow Wright, a former television and Internet executive and current strategic consultant. Throughout his piece he asserts that the civil rights groups are only "asking questions" that we "shouldn't be afraid to answer." After reading it a couple of times, Rucker realized where he had seen this technique before: Wright's piece -- and the broader arguments he seeks to defend -- are the rhetorical equivalent of a push poll. Push polls are a well known and highly effective political trick. They ask questions that insert into the public consciousness a false idea, positioning a baseless assumption as plausible. Navarrow Wright, and the civil rights organizations he is defending, are effectively "push-polling" net neutrality. They are asking the question, "If you knew that net neutrality would widen the digital divide, would you support it?" The question is asked without any evidence to suggest that the premise of the question is true, but the question itself alters the frame of the debate. The effect has been real -- FCC commissioners who know the truth about net neutrality are being held hostage by debunked theories, as they don't want to be perceived as embracing policy that could hurt minority communities.