By now you’ve probably seen the Federal Communications Commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, “Preserving the Open Internet; Broadband Industry Practices.” I’m especially interested in what the FCC is saying about the internet as a tool for political actors.  In several paragraphs, the document invokes the internet’s unique place in politics to raise questions about the proper role of government in its regulation. For example, in discussing what efforts broadband internet providers could reasonably take to reduce or mitigate network quality-of-service issues and other concerns, the FCC would not “consider the singling out of any particular content (i.e., viewpoint) for blocking or deprioritization to be reasonable, in the absence of evidence that such traffic or content was harmful.” (Par. 137, footnote omitted).