Using the power of the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), federal regulators could in the future attempt to regulate websites based on political content to ensure balance, according to Ajit Pai, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
"It is conceivable to me to see the government saying, 'We think the Drudge Report is having a disproportionate effect on our political discourse. He doesn't have to file anything with the FEC [Federal Election Commission]. The FCC doesn't have the ability to regulate anything he says, and we want to start tamping down on websites like that,'" Pai said at the "Right Online" conference in Washington, reported CNS News.
Pai is an outspoken critic of the net neutrality regulations passed by the Democratic-controlled FCC on Feb. 26, which, upon taking effect on June 12, will reclassify Internet providers as utilities and prevent them from blocking or throttling online traffic.
But, Pai warned, "I could easily see this migrating over to the direction of content ... What you're seeing now is an impulse not just to regulate the roads over which traffic goes, but the traffic itself," reported CNS.
"Is it unthinkable that some government agency would say the marketplace of ideas is too fraught with dissonance? That everything from the Drudge Report to Fox News ... is playing unfairly in the online political speech sandbox? I don't think so," Pai said.
"I sense that among a substantial number of Americans and a disturbing number of regulators here in Washington that online speech is [considered] a dangerous brave new world that needs to be regulated," he added.
Advocates for net neutrality argue that Internet providers should treat all traffic on their networks equally. That means that a company such as Verizon would not be allowed to block or slow access to any website or content on the Internet, which could be done to benefit its own services over services offered by competition.
Pai, one of two Republicans on the five-member FCC, said he's even been harassed for the positions he has taken on net neutrality.
"I can tell you it has not been an easy couple of months personally. My address has been publicly released," he said. "My wife's name, my kids' names, my kids' birthdays, my phone number, all kinds of threats [have come] online."
