Amelia Brown ’18
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), led by Trump-appointed-chairman Ajit Pai, voted 3-2 on Dec. 14 in favor of rolling back the Obama administration’s classification of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as “commercial mobile services,” which had established harsher regulations to maintain an open internet.
Open internet, or net neutrality, is the idea that the internet is a level playing field: all content has to be given to users at the same streaming rate and price. The FCC announced in May 2017 that they would be reevaluating the rules about net neutrality to lighten regulations.
“When we’re used to a culture of going online and having freedom to do things without payment, that’s going to be a scene change for a lot of people,” Robert Shamberg, A.P. Government teacher, said.
Net neutrality has come up in the past as an issue the FCC would be voting on, but there has never been such a big change in favor of big companies over individual citizens.
“People feel betrayed. They feel like they shouldn’t be charged more than they originally were,” Matt Rowan ’19 said.
According to Pai, undoing the “heavy-handed, utility-style regulations” that were put in place in 2015 would not be a threat to the way the internet functions right now, but instead would allow the ISPs to expand more rapidly.
AT&T’s Public Policy blog posted support of open internet, but also insists that the 2015 regulations “creates an environment of market uncertainty that does little to advance internet openness.”
Yet many are skeptical about ISPs commitment to truly not change the way the internet currently works.
The non-profit, Fight For the Future, is concerned that big companies will prevent smaller businesses from having an equivalent online presence. “If some companies can pay ISPs to have their content load faster,” Fight for the Future states on its website, “startups and small businesses that can’t pay those fees won’t be able to compete.”
Fight For the Future, as well as Twitter hashtags, Facebook posts and talk show segments have drawn massive attention to the proposed legislation. The case file on the FCC website has received nearly 900,000 comments, almost all urging the committee to not lighten restrictions.
Despite this, the vote still came through, making some feel that their voices are being ignored.
“It is really disheartening because it shows the power of corporations,” A. P. Economics teacher Drew Coyne said.
Rowan agreed, but admitted he also feels the situation is hopeless. “I don’t really know anything to stop it,” Rowan said.
But Shamberg sees potential in a more fundamental governmental argument stemming from the debate.
“I foresee large companies continuing to say it’s their right to spend, it’s their right to lobby Congress people in order to protect their interests,” he said. “And smaller companies have a very compelling argument that if they’re not on equal footing, that’s not equal speech.”
While there were many concerns about the new rule turnover, the FCC is adamant that open internet is still protected.
“We conclude,” the FCC Fact Sheet on Restoring Internet Freedom read, “that the light-touch approach that we adopt today, in combination with existing antitrust and consumer protection laws, more than adequately addresses concerns about Internet openness.”
