Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to kill net neutrality under the guise of “Restoring Internet Freedom.” The lone FCC commissioner in favor of the Open Internet Order and the net neutrality rules we had enjoyed over the last few years, Mignon Clyburn, said the change would be better named “Destroying Internet Freedom” instead of “Restoring Internet Freedom.”

Clyburn summarized the current plan to let ISPs loose with only a pinky promise to protect net neutrality rules. Clyburn said that the FCC plan:

“Contains a hollow theory of trickle-down internet economics, suggesting that if we just remove enough regulations from your broadband provider, they will automatically improve your service, pass along discounts from those speculative savings, deploy more infrastructure with haste, and treat edge providers fairly.”

Today’s FCC vote starts a process to dismantle net neutrality

The FCC’s net neutrality rules that currently regulate Internet service providers (ISPs) as Title II common carriers forbids them from throttling or prioritizing certain types of internet traffic are now on the way out. The second result of today’s FCC vote is that the FCC will consider whether or not they should be involved in regulating ISPs’ net neutrality commitments anyways. That is to say, your comments still matter.

Ajit Pai has said that he is for an open internet, and that the FCC is open to listening to your comments. Comments to the FCC now number over 2 million and there is now a new comment period from May 18th to August 16th. Tell the FCC that net neutrality should still be protected, even if not by Title II.

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