With Midnight Deadline, Final Push to Thwart Trump's Attack on Net Neutrality

Wednesday at midnight, Eastern Time, is the deadline to submit public comment on the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to roll back net neutrality rules that prevent internet service providers (ISPs) from limiting or prioritizing customers’ access to particular websites.

“Giant corporations shouldn’t dictate how we use the internet. Most people agree with that principle.”
—Trevor Timm, the Guardian

“Giant corporations shouldn’t dictate how we use the internet. Most people agree with that principle, and that’s why the Federal Communications Commission passed the incredibly popular net neutrality rules in 2015,” writes Trevor Timm at the Guardian.

The 2015 ruling reclassified ISPs as under Title II authority, enabling the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate them as a public utility. Because of the ruling, telecommunications companies must treat all online content equally, and cannot slow down, speed up, or block content.

However, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Trump appointee who wants to rescind the 2015 rules, “has dubbed the FCC’s new proposal to rollback the Obama-era net neutrality rules the Restoring Internet Freedom Act, ostensibly trying to confuse consumers into supporting a proposal that certainly will leave corporations with vastly more power to control how we consume information online,” Timm explains.

As public support for net neutrality has grown—a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll shows 60 percent of registered voters support the rules, and only 17 percent oppose it—open internet advocates have organized to raise awareness about the issue, including a national day of action last month, which advocacy group Free Press said was part of a long-term effort to “save the internet from Trump and his cronies,” as Common Dreams reported.

This is the Trump administration’s “second major policy shift with the potential to significantly erode online consumer rights,” MapLight reports. In April, President Donald Trump signed a law that allows ISPs to sell customers’ private browser histories, even though in a March HuffPost/YouGov poll, 83 percent of adults said it “should not be allowed.”

Some, such as CALinnovates executive director Mike Montgomery, have argued: “It’s time to end the slowest game of policy pingpong before it drags into another decade. It is high time for Congress to finally step up—after multiple decades of hibernation—and pass affirmative, bipartisan legislation that makes net neutrality the law of the land.”

But, as with many regulations designed to protect consumers, proponents of net neutrality have to square off with well-heeled donors. In this case, four major ISPs that support the plan to eliminate net neutrality rules—Comcast Corp., AT&T, Verizon, and Charter Communications—have given more than $1.2 million to the Republican members of Congress who have scheduled a September 7 hearing to discuss legislative options for repealing the 2015 regulations, MapLight reports.

Earlier this week, the open internet group Fight for the Future unveiled crowdfunded billboards targeting representatives who have received contributions from telecom companies and support the rollback, encouraging constituents to contact their elected officials.