FCC To ISPs: No First Amendment Right To Edit Your Content

ISPs are conduits for the speech of others; they are not delivering their own messages when they connect their customers to the Internet, the FCC argued. Rules against blocking and throttling Internet content thus do not violate the ISPs’ constitutional rights, the FCC said.

“Nobody understands broadband providers to be sending a message or endorsing speech when transmitting the Internet content that a user has requested,” the FCC wrote. “When a user directs her browser to the New York Times or Wall Street Journal editorial page, she has no reason to think that the views expressed there are those of her broadband provider.”

By delivering content requested by customers, broadband providers are acting in the same role as telephone companies, the FCC said.
Broadband providers who sued to overturn the rules claim their constitutional rights are being violated, but the FCC disputed that and other arguments in a filing in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for Dec. 4.