The Federal Communication Commission Chairman Ajit Pai had announced that they are planning to overturn net neutrality, saying it will help protect online privacy, boost competition and more. But looking at the facts, it showed that the regulation is not hindering any of these developments from happening.
According to a report from RT News, Pai said that internet service providers (ISP) like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T are being burdened by the net neutrality rules. He said that the rules have "slowed, if not halted, the development and deployment of innovative new offerings."
The net neutrality rule was created to "protect and maintain" free access to any legal content on the internet without ISPs blocking, impairing, or establishing fast and slow lanes. The rule came into effect on June 12, 2015.
Pai argued that the internet was not broken in 2015, hence there wasn't a need for the regulation. He adds that the net neutrality is only aiming to protect the people from "hypothetical claims" and "hysterical prophecies of doom."
The FCC chairman said that getting rid of net neutrality will help boost competition, protect online, privacy, create more jobs, and bring high-speed internet access to more Americans. But is this really what getting rid of net neutrality will do?
The FCC released a "Myth vs. Facts" statement about the regulation to bring more clarity to it and justify why it needs to be removed. TechCrunch provided the statement, but also added their own facts as a counter argument to the FCC's claims.
One of FCC's arguments is that the Title II regulation has hindered ISPs investments and development, saying domestic broadband capital expenditures of the 12 largest ISPs decreased their investment by $3.6 billion during the first two years of the regulation. The report countered that the stats are misleading as ISPs actually increased spending and the projected decreases are mentioned years ahead of time.
Another of FCC's arguments is that net neutrality is hindering competition as smaller ISPs don't have the resources of larger companies to cope with the increased regulatory cost and have scaled back on broadband development. The counter-argument for this one is that Title II has an exception for smaller ISPs, who have customers for up to hundreds of thousands, which means smaller companies are not affected.
Lastly, the FCC said getting rid of net neutrality will help protect online privacy, as it would restore the task of monitoring privacy to the Federal Trade Commission, which they said successfully protected consumers privacy. The report argues that the authority for privacy and security was given to the FCC, which put strong rules to address vulnerabilities. But the strong rules were repealed last month even before they took effect and it is a decision that was approved by Chairman Pai.
The FCC chairman said that they will vote on the proposal on May 18, during the commission's next meeting. Learn more about net neutrality and why current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is rejecting it in the video below.
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