• net neutrality
• politics
• technology

Good news. The FCC is expected to announce the beginning of its formal rulemaking process for net neutrality regulation.

The FCC's process is a great model of "open source" government. And it's going to be an interesting conversation when the FCC issues its Notice of Inquiry. Network providers don't like net neutrality, as it prevents them from determining how fast various packets of information travel across their networks. But advocates of net neutrality insist that a healthy Internet requires a "neutral" network.

It's important to note that the net neutrality rule conversation will benefit from the same infrastructure that's responsible for the flourishing of the Internet (and the same infrastructure that net neutrality rules will serve to protect). As Lawrence Lessig argues in The Future of Ideas, the Internet thrived because the network was "dumb," with the bulk of the "intelligence" being situated at the edges of that network (in various devices). Lessig offers the U.S. Constitution as another example of a dumb network - a document written with a flexible structure and that allows for change. The Internet's open, dumb architecture offers a dependable, flexible platform on which various "smart" devices can rely. Designers and engineers can rely on a predictable network that moves information in a fairly uniform way, and this allows all the various gadgets that fill our lives to flourish.

In a number of situations (it's important to note that this isn't the case for all situations), a "dumb network" is essential on a discursive level. The FCC rules process is such a situation. Anyone can contribute to its information gathering and writing processes: the kooks, the corporate interests, the engineers, the policy makers. This is a messy writing situation. But without a dumb network, the process might filter out important contributions.

Any number of rhetors will join the FCC rulemaking process, and it will be important to parse all of the arguments that clash and clang during that process. But the very structure that allows for these exchanges is just as important for those of us interested in rhetoric/writing/technology, for it reflects a hospitable structure that welcomes a broad range of voices to the conversation (kooks included).

• Jim Brown's blog
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