Net Neutrality Killed as FCC 'Hands Keys to Internet to Handful of Multi-Billion Dollar Corporations'

The nonpartisan First Amendment advocacy group Free Press vowed to take the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to court Thursday after the Republican-controlled panel moved to gut net neutrality protections that prohibit internet service providers (ISPs) from charging for and discriminating against content, in a 3-2 vote along party lines.

The ACLU released a statement calling the “misguided” decision “a radical departure that risks erosion of the biggest free speech platform the world has ever known.”

“Today’s loss means that telecommunications companies will start intruding more on how people use the internet. Internet service providers will become much more aggressive in their efforts to make money off their role as online gatekeepers,” said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the group.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also denounced the ruling:

Free Press and their many allies rallied outside the FCC headquarters in Washington, D.C. as the five commissioners prepared to vote on FCC chair Ajit Pai’s proposal to roll back the Obama-era protections. The protest represented the final push to stop the vote in its tracks, following hundreds of demonstrations outside Verizon stores across the country last week, Fight for the Future’s “Break the Internet” action earlier this week, and thousands of calls to members of Congress.

The two Democratic commissioners on the panel, Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, met with protesters outside and issued powerful dissents ahead of the vote, with Clyburn noting, “The fight to save net neutrality does not end today. This agency does not have, the final word. Thank goodness.”

In addition to Free Press’s plan to sue the FCC, the group urged supporters to push Congress to nullify Pai’s plan using the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows representatives and senators to review new regulations and overrule them by passing a joint resolution.

Forty senators, including one Republican, have voiced opposition to the net neutrality rollback, while a handful of Republican representatives have said they disagree with Pai’s plan. But the loudest opposition so far has come from the public and groups like Free Press and Fight for the Future.

“Why are we witnessing such an unprecedented groundswell of public support” for net neutrality, asked Clyburn in her dissent. “Because the public can plainly see a soon-to-be-toothless FCC is handing the keys to the Internet to a handful of multi-billion dollar corporations.”