A few weeks ago, as it seemed more and more likely that FCC chairman Ajit Pai would successfully dismantle US net neutrality rules, California Congressional representative Ro Khanna tweeted an alarming-looking screenshot from Portuguese mobile carrier Meo. “In Portugal, with no net neutrality, internet providers are starting to split the net into packages,” he wrote.

Since October 26th, this message has been retweeted over 58,000 times, and liked over 46,000 times. As Techdirt pointed out, it looks remarkably similar to a satirical chart showing internet services split into cable-style bundles, a graphic that’s been used to drive home the importance of net neutrality for years. But it’s also seriously misleading — in a way that misses a more important and subtle point about net neutrality.

In Portugal, with no net neutrality, internet providers are starting to split the net into packages. pic.twitter.com/TlLYGezmv6 — Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) October 27, 2017

The plan Khanna tweeted is called “Smart Net,” and as he correctly notes, it offers monthly subscription packages with names like Messaging, Social, and Video. Each of the five categories includes several big-name apps, including Netflix, FaceTime, Spotify, and Google Drive.

But based on Meo’s website, this doesn’t look like buying cable channels for the internet. It’s an add-on to general-purpose mobile subscriptions, which let you access any service — including the ones above. The idea is apparently that if you’re into apps like Snapchat and Facebook (or... LinkedIn, I guess), you pay around $8 a month to specifically get more “Social” data, so you can use your regular allotment for everything else. It looks a lot like the “Vodafone Pass” service in the UK, where subscribers can pay for unlimited access to a similar stable of services.

Techdirt explains this nuance, as does Quartz. But Khanna’s original tweet — the pithy statement that’s getting passed around context-free on social media — doesn’t. It implies that Meo is blocking or limiting certain “packages” unless you pay for them, the way that you can’t watch HBO without the right cable plan. His office didn’t immediately respond to an email asking for clarification.

Internet ‘packages’ are philosophically similar to zero-rating

“Portugal doesn’t have net neutrality, so it ended up with a dystopian cable-style internet” is also a bad argument for other reasons. For one thing, Portugal is part of the EU, which published widely praised net neutrality rules last year. More importantly, Meo’s plan doesn’t sound radically different from what telecoms are doing elsewhere. It seems philosophically similar to zero-rating, where carriers offer “free” data for apps like Netflix. Meo actually offers straightforward zero-rating for its own storage and entertainment apps, which provides them an even greater potential advantage.

Zero-rating and subscription packages both theoretically encourage mobile subscribers to favor established apps and services over up-and-coming competitors. In fact, you could argue that zero-rating and similar “sponsored data” plans are more insidious, because subscriptions at least make users consider whether they want to pay more for a better experience on certain apps. With zero-rating, they can just slip into using whichever default services offer unlimited data.

And you don’t have to look at Portugal, or a Trumpian future, to see zero-rating in action. General EU regulations call to examine cases on an individual basis, rather than banning the practice altogether, and so do the United States’ current (strong) net neutrality rules. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile all offer it in some fashion right now — including T-Mobile’s Binge On, which isn’t that far from a free version of Meo’s video channel.

Net neutrality isn’t a single policy switch

I’m not saying that these app packages sound good. Besides the competition problems I outlined above, they open the door for carriers to limit generic data pools, pressuring subscribers to buy extra subscriptions. But I haven’t seen a convincing argument that they’re a unique consequence of Portugal flouting EU net neutrality rules, nor something that seems unfathomable under the existing American system. Journalist Julian Sanchez argued that a US carrier could legally use Meo’s entire model right now. The biggest roadblock to US carriers adopting them is probably more public opinion than the FCC.

If there’s a lesson here, it’s that net neutrality isn’t just about writing rules, but about making sure that agencies will meaningfully enforce the spirit of them. The FCC, for example, determined in January that AT&T and Verizon’s zero-rating plans did violate net neutrality rules, though T-Mobile’s didn’t. But the report came out less than two weeks before former chairman Tom Wheeler stepped down, and Pai’s FCC has been predictably uninterested in following up with consequences.

Splashy headlines about Portugal’s supposed net-neutrality-free hellscape turn a complex debate over an imperfect policy to a good-versus-evil battle over flipping a single legal switch. The Trump administration has made it tough to have nuanced conversations, and so has Pai, whose proposed “light touch” rules are generally awful and paradoxically restrictive. But it’s better to try than to get lost in alarmist half-truths.