Net neutrality is like free speech – and the internet needs rules, says FCC boss

Tom Wheeler tells the world's largest telecoms trade show 'there needs to be a referee' even as European officials propose fast lanes that don't impair traffic

The US's top media regulator hit back at critics of new net neutrality rules voted into law last week, comparing them to the first amendment and saying neither government nor private companies had the right to restrict the openness of the internet.

The Federal Communications Commission chairman, Tom Wheeler, was speaking in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, the world's largest telecoms trade show, just as European governments are meeting to thrash out their own principles for keeping the internet open.
"This is no more regulating the internet than the first amendment regulates free speech in our country," Wheeler said. "If the internet is the most powerful and pervasive platform in the history of the planet, can it exist without a referee? There needs to be a referee with a yardstick, and that is the structure we have put in place. A set of rules that say activity should be just and reasonable, and somebody who can raise the flag if they aren't."