By an overwhelming margin, Americans want little or no government regulation of the internet, according to a Morning Consult poll released just this morning. This is noteworthy, because it directly contradicts the impression being created by pro-regulation activist groups through manufactured advocacy campaigns.
We’ve warned before about fake news campaigns being driven by special interests that benefit from heavy federal regulation, and the polling results released today confirm that it’s only a tiny number of people who believe the internet needs heavy federal regulation.
The poll of 2,194 registered voters found:
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By an overwhelming 78% to 12% margin, voters support the government having little or no regulation of the internet, with 53% supporting a “light touch” and 25% asserting that the government should not regulate the internet at all.
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By an 18-point margin (51% versus 33%), voters say the internet should not be regulated as a public utility.
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By a two-to-one margin, voters believe regulating the internet as a utility would slow innovation and decrease private tech investment.
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Support for light-touch regulation is bipartisan, including 55% of Democrats, 52% of Republicans, and 52% of Independents. Perhaps surprisingly, 21% of Democrats favor NO government regulation of the internet, along with 27% of Republicans and 26% of Independents.
You can see the detailed results of the poll for yourself at this link.
If you consume your internet policy news from Free Press, Public Knowledge, Ars Technica or TechDirt, you’re probably very surprised by these results, because you have purposely been propagandized in favor of government regulation by those biased sources.
Here’s the key takeaway: It’s that tiny 12% of respondents who believe the federal government should heavily regulate the internet that is driving the furor on social media, flooding the FCC with auto-form carbon copy comments, and harassing reform-minded FCC commissioners, including a planned protest at his home on Mothers Day.
As the FCC acts to undo the heavy-handed internet regulations imposed by the Obama administration and preserve a free and open internet on market-friendly grounds, the commissioners will know, both from the results of the last election and from the result of this morning’s poll, that the voters are behind their efforts.