At the beginning of today’s meeting of the Federal Communications Commission to present proposals on net neutrality, three demonstrators stood up to denounce the proceedings. “We want the FCC to do its job to regulate the internet for the people not for the corporations,” one of them declared before being hustled out of the room. After the demonstrators were removed, Tom Wheeler, the former cable industry lobbyist whom President Obama appointed to chair the FCC, opened the proceedings. Wheeler warned that “disruption doesn’t help getting to the point where the American people can provide input to the process.” Wheeler explained that the purpose of his proposals on what he called “the open internet” was to allow “American people to provide input.”

But it’s unlikely that anyone who doesn’t have a degree in information science, or a legal specialization in communications law, or works for one of the relevant lobbying groups will be able to make heads or tails of Wheeler’s proposals, which were couched in bureaucratic and technical gobbledygook. I suspect they were written precisely not to allow “the American people to provide input” but to keep matters safely between the commissioners and the well-heeled lobbyists who filled the room. I’ll try to make sense of the proposals as best I can.

The key issue in net neutrality is whether some content providers will be able to buy faster and better service from the internet providers like Comcast. That will give large companies an edge over small ones, and older companies an edge over startups. It will discourage innovation, and limit speech. Having had the FCC’s previous efforts at regulating the internet thrown out in court, Wheeler wants to write new rules that will get through the courts. First, he has to get the FCC commissioners to approve a four-month discussion on his proposed rules. That’s what he was doing today.

Last month, the press got its hands on the first draft of Wheeler’s proposals. They would have allowed companies to charge for faster speeds when it was “commercially reasonable.” That deservedly created a firestorm and may have embarrassed the president who had wooed Silicon Valley in his first presidential campaign by promising to maintain net neutrality. In his statements today, Wheeler tried to assure his critics, which include much of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, that he wanted to maintain an “open internet.”

At the meeting, Wheeler said, “The potential for there to be some kind of fast lane, available to only a few, has many people concerned. Personally, I don’t like the idea of the internet divided between haves and have-nots. I will work to see that doesn’t happen.” He said that nothing in the proposals authorized internet providers to offer “paid prioritization” to content companies. But Wheeler’s statement appeared to be misleading. While nothing in the summary of his proposal authorized paid prioritization, nothing prevented it either. The proposal invoked the same vague standard of “commercial reasonableness” to decide on regulations.