As the fight over net neutrality moves into a newly Democrat-controlled Congress—at least in the House of Representatives—open internet advocates are warning that Republicans are planning their own “net neutrality” legislation designed to look like the real thing, but that would actually prevent regulation of the internet access industry—effectively gutting any future restoration of the Obama-era open internet rules that were trashed by the Federal Communications Commission.
One bill, to be introduced by Ohio Republican rep Bob Latta, promises to “to provide for internet openness, and for other purposes,” according to the tech site Gizmodo.
However, though the text of the bill is not yet published, the bill’s title says that it will “amend title I of the Communications Act of 1934,” and based on statements by Republicans during a Thursday hearing on net neutrality repeal before the House Energy and Commerce Committee—as well as a bill introduced in 2014 by Latta—the bill will “ensure that broadband access is permanently classified as an ‘information service’ under the Communications Act,” according to Gizmodo.
Reclassifying the internet as an “information service” rather than a “telecommunications service,” prevents the FCC from imposing string regulations on the internet, where a “telecommunications service” is subject to much stronger regulation—such as the 2015 net neutrality regulations.
Republicans Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, and Greg Walden of Oregon also announced at the Thursday hearing that they would be pushing their own, similar bills. But while the bills on the surface may appear supportive of net neutrality principles, the advocacy group Fight for the Future dismissed the GOP proposals as “deceptive.”
“This is just more of the same BS from Big Cable funded politicians,” said Fight for the Future Deputy Director Evan Greer. “They’re intentionally trying to confuse the public and derail real efforts to restore net neutrality by pushing weaksauce legislation that would undermine the open Internet while claiming to save it.”
The Republican congressional reps have past records that give away their true intentions, according to Gizmodo. Latta, for example, “didn’t support the effort last year to restore the rules under the Congressional Review Act. And when the court upheld the Open Internet Order in 2016, he expressed his disappointment, and then spouted off a bunch of telecom-industry talking points about how the rules would hamper innovation,” Gizmodo wrote.
Photo by Slowking4 / Wikimedia Commons
