Net Neutrality Was “Rolled Back” But the People Aren’t Having It

We’ve written about Net Neutrality before. You probably remember when it was all over Facebook, Reddit, Snapchat… wherever you looked people were trying to get others to write to their legislators to push back against the FCC’s Net Neutrality repeal.

Then in December the FCC (headed by everyone’s favorite ex-Verizon employee Ajit Pai) ignored the enormous public backlash, and repealed Net Neutrality.  Apparently having bots write pro-repeal comments to try to influence public opinion doesn’t make people like you.

Immediate Aftermath

It’s been about 2 months since the vote, and the internet as we know it hasn’t ended yet – that’s good news. The other good news is that 4 states (with over 20% of the country’s population) have already passed bills that will force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to comply with net neutrality.

Attorneys general from 22 different states have filed lawsuits against the FCC for their move, and it looks like people aren’t willing to just roll over at the moment.

As far as I’ve seen, ISPs haven’t started throttling speeds and forcing customers to buy fast-passes for things like streaming services, but it could happen if we all forget about this debacle.

What’s Next?

Well hopefully the Net Neutrality rules are put back into place, because an open and free internet is necessary to most Americans’ way of life nowadays. If more states follow the examples set by those first 4 states (California, Montana, New York, and New Jersey) then maybe we can completely eradicate this problem and call it a blip.

In fact, apparently AT&T is already speaking in favor of net neutrality. Maybe it’s to save face, maybe it’s to prepare for the inevitable switch back to the protected-internet.  Whatever their reasoning, I don’t really care – it looks like we might actually be able to reverse this outlandish decision.