by Jason Cohen
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took a major step toward finalizing the restoration of net neutrality on Thursday.
Net neutrality rules force internet service providers to enable access to all websites and content providers at equal rates and speeds, regardless of their size or content. Democrats now outnumber Republicans on the FCC, and the commission voted in favor of a notice of proposed rulemaking Thursday at the meeting.
The FCC established net neutrality rules in 2015 but repealed them in December 2017. Proponents of net neutrality predicted widespread blocking or throttling of content by internet service providers would result from the repeal; however, that did not transpire.
“We don’t exist in a world where there [are] no net neutrality policies,” Democratic FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel told The Washington Post. “We have it emerging from state capitals. But … in a modern digital economy, it’s time for us to have a national standard, and not just a patchwork of state approaches.”
The FCC October Open Meeting will take place today at 10:30 a.m. with an agenda that includes a net neutrality proposal, supporting new tools to close the Homework Gap, making life-saving emergency alerts more accessible, and more. Watch on https://t.co/e2rkGHCO8e.
— The FCC (@FCC) October 19, 2023
“We’re laserlike focused on getting this rulemaking process started, then we’re going to review the record, and my hope is we’ll be able to move to order,” Rosenworcel added.
The FCC pointed the Daily Caller News Foundation to a fact sheet related to net neutrality protections.
“The last thing that these broadband builders need right now is a regulatory onslaught from Washington,” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr asserted at the meeting on Thursday. “Yet, that’s exactly what Title II utility style regulation entails. As the FCC determined in 2017, the agency’s 2015 experiment with Title II negatively impacted small [Internet Service Provider’s] serving rural communities.”
The White House did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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Jason Cohen is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
