Avoid Alternative Facts in Tech Policy Debates

When Congress overturned the Federal Communications Commission’s new privacy regulations last month, online activists falsely claimed that Internet service providers would now sell individual customers’ personal browsing history, Social Security numbers, and health information to advertisers, writes Alan McQuinn in Morning Consult. But this is not true. The rules would not have gone into place for another year, and so by vetoing them, the vote preserved the status quo—where this type of information was not sold anyway. But that didn’t slow down the outrage machine. Whatever your opinion of the broadband privacy rule change (ITIF argues the FCC’s privacy rules were misguided), these activists’ reckless disregard for accuracy is troubling.