A federal appeals court struck down the FCC’s landmark net neutrality rules, ending a nearly two-decade effort to regulate broadband Internet providers as utilities.
Backstory: Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers must treat all online content equally, without blocking, throttling, or prioritizing specific websites or services. It gained prominence in the early 2000s, leading to the FCC to adopt Open Internet rules in 2015 under the Obama administration, aimed at preventing ISPs like Verizon or Comcast from blocking or degrading the delivery of services from competitors like Netflix and YouTube. The rules were later repealed in 2017 during the Trump administration, and efforts to reinstate Net Neutrality have continued since then without success. President Biden signed a 2021 executive order encouraging the FCC to reinstate the rules.
Who was for net neutrality? Major tech companies like Google, Facebook and Netflix, as well as many (most?) consumers saw the rules as a necessary restraint on corporate power / greed and a campaign to keep the Internet open and fair.
Who was against net neutrality? Evil cable and telecom companies opposed the rules because they saw them as regulatory overreach and feared that classifying broadband providers as “common carriers,” like phone companies, opened the door to utility-style regulation and government price setting.
Flash forward to last week: The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati ruled that the FCC lacks the authority to reinstate rules that prevented broadband providers from slowing or blocking access to certain Internet content. A three-judge panel referred to a Supreme Court decision from June, called Loper Bright, which overturned a 1984 rule that let government agencies have the final say on regulations.
Brendan Carr, Trump's pick as the incoming FCC chair, has been a strong critic of net neutrality, contending that the rules represent an excessive overreach of government authority, potentially stifling innovation and deterring investment in broadband infrastructure.
Evan Swarztrauber, a former policy adviser to Carr, said that the court's opinion “puts to bed an issue that unnecessarily sucked up a lot of oxygen in tech and telecom for two decades now,” and that “the work to unwind the Biden administration's regulatory overreach will continue.”
Seriously guys? Consumer protection laws are considered “regulatory overreach” now? Creating an even playing field for all tech companies, streaming networks, and publications to reach consumers who are paying for that fair access “stifles innovation”?
Here's my question to net neutrality opponents: If preventing ISPs from blocking, throttling, or prioritizing specific websites or services stifles innovation, how does allowing them to do so foster innovation? Seriously, hit reply and give me an answer if you've got one. I've been waiting two decades to hear a good one.
The court’s decision doesn’t affect state laws on net neutrality in California, Washington and Colorado, and I encourage other states around the country to create their own Internet consumer protection laws to fill the gaps. Telecom companies have proven time and time again that they can't be trusted to do the right thing on their own, nor can they be trusted to be stewards of taxpayer subsidies to build out infrastructure. The Internet is as necessary of a utility as electricity, water, and public roads and should be governed as such in our country.
Democrats at the FCC are calling on Congress to create laws promoting net neutrality, signaling that the issue may not be over yet, despite the recent blow to the efforts. For anyone who's ever said, “I agree with the principle of net neutrality, but Congress never gave the FCC the power to create those regulations!” — now is your chance to support Congress passing the laws themselves.