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Meet The New Scarcity: A First Amendment Framework For Regulating Access To Digital Media Platforms, John Blevins
Meet The New Scarcity: A First Amendment Framework For Regulating Access To Digital Media Platforms, John Blevins
John F. Blevins
Digital media platforms such as broadband networks and search engines are increasingly viewed as “gatekeepers” that enjoy disproportionate influence over modern speech. Policymakers have responded by adopting regulations to ensure nondiscriminatory access to these platforms. This article examines the intersection of these new access regulations with the First Amendment. The literature continues to analyze these questions through the lens of traditional media technologies such as newspapers and broadcast television. Digital networks, however, differ from these prior technologies in critical, qualitative ways. First Amendment analysis of access regulations must therefore be updated to reflect these technological differences. Specifically, it must recognize …
Death Of The Revolution: The Legal War On Competitive Broadband Technologies, John F. Blevins
Death Of The Revolution: The Legal War On Competitive Broadband Technologies, John F. Blevins
John F. Blevins
In this article, I examine the role that law has played in entrenching incumbents in the communications industry, with a particular focus on broadband services. Earlier this decade, several new “revolutionary” broadband technologies threatened to fundamentally disrupt industry structures. This revolution, however, never arrived. The reason, I argue, is that industry consolidation has helped transform law into a powerful and versatile entrenchment mechanism that has stifled these emerging competitive threats. Simply put, the sheer size superiorities enjoyed by today’s incumbent companies has created new and self-reinforcing opportunities to use law to entrench their market position. My focus, however, is not …
A Fragile Foundation -- The Role Of "Intermodal" And "Facilities-Based" Competition In Communications Policy, John F. Blevins
A Fragile Foundation -- The Role Of "Intermodal" And "Facilities-Based" Competition In Communications Policy, John F. Blevins
John F. Blevins
The communications industry is currently experiencing extensive and rapid deregulation. The policies justifying this deregulation have been constructed upon the concepts of “intermodal” and “facilities-based” competition. At both the federal and state level, regulators and courts have increasingly embraced deregulatory policies that promote – and assume the existence of – these forms of competition. In short, these concepts have become the theoretical foundation of modern communications policy. In the rush to either embrace or reject these forms of competition, policymakers and scholars have not paused to ask whether these two concepts are descriptively meaningful. In this article, I argue that …