Regulatory classification

[Commentary] The vote by the Federal Communications Commission repealing its 2015 network neutrality rules will have an especially negative impact on online innovation.

With network neutrality repeal, internet service providers (ISPs) are free to block or throttle any content they don’t like. That could include video, text and images distributed by people whose voices are underrepresented in mainstream society, including women and people of color.

[Comentary] The Federal Communications Commission GOP majority did what it was intended to do with net neutrality, which was ignore overwhelmingly positive public support across political affiliations and kill the policy anyway. Aside from hurting real sources of innovation, rather than the fake sources like finding new ways to charge more, it opens the door for people of more moderate means and the poor to be at a greater disadvantage than before.

Reducing effective Internet access has a profound impact on low- to moderate-income individuals:

Just take a survey of the past 48 hours:

1. The Federal Communications Commission got an anonymous bomb threat
2. Hackers threatened FCC staff: In an email claiming to be from the hacking group Anonymous, hackers said they had obtained the personal information of many FCC staff, including all of the commissioners.
3. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai made a video for the Daily Caller
4. Late night roasted Pai

We’re still too far out to know exactly what disclosures all the big Internet service providers are going to make — the rules (or lack thereof) don’t actually go into effect for another few months — but many internet providers have been making statements throughout the year about their stance on net neutrality, which ought to give some idea of where they’ll land. We reached out to 10 big or notable ISPs to see what their stances are on three core tenets of net neutrality: no blocking, no throttling, and no paid prioritization.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that supporters of net neutrality provisions that were repealed have been proven wrong, as internet users wake up still able to send emails and use Twitter after the regulations were struck down. Chairman Pai said that net neutrality supporters such as ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel were wrong to grandstand about the end of "the internet as we know it." "He's getting everything wrong about it," Pai said of Kimmel. "The free and open internet we had prior to 2015 is the one we're going to have going forward.

Donald Trump Jr. went after critics of the Federal Communications Commission's decision to rescind net neutrality rules, challenging critics to explain net neutrality. “I would pay good money to see all those people complaining about Obama’s FCC chairman voting to repeal #NetNeutality actually explain it in detail,” Trump Jr. tweeted. “I’d also bet most hadn’t heard of it before this week. #outrage.”

Disney just took control of 21st Century Fox’s media empire, and the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal net neutrality regulations that prevent internet providers from discriminatory behavior. These two industry-shaking events will set media companies on a dramatic collision course with ISPs. It is the conflict that threatens the internet.

Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) and 15 other Sens announced their plan to introduce a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would undo Dec 14's action by the Federal Communications Commission and restore the 2015 net neutrality rules.

After the FCC’s vote to scrap its net neutrality regulations, activists will turn to lawsuits, Congress—and the 2018 election. Lawsuits probably won’t be filed until at least January, but it’s already clear that they will challenge the FCC’s vote on both substance and process. The substance argument is a legalistic, almost existential, debate over the true nature of an ISP.  What’s kept the fire burning all these years is the fight over two lousy choices for how to legally classify an ISP.