FCC Readies Net Neutrality vote

Plan faces growing chorus of bipartisan opposition

As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prepares to vote next week on a set of rules that will give the federal government the power to regulate news and information content online, members of Congress are stepping up their opposition. The takeaway?

According to Amanda Carey at The Daily Caller, almost everyone opposes what has been termed “net neutrality” except, as the December 21 vote is expected to show, the majority of the FCC’s five commissioners.

The FCC’s proposed regulatory framework bans internet service providers from blocking or inhibiting consumer access to content. Put simply: internet companies like Verizon and Comcast will not be allowed to operate one website on a slower or faster bandwidth than any other.

The fear behind the push for the new regulations is that Verizon, for example, could play favorites by making a liberal-leaning site load slower than a conservative one. But once the technical and complex lexicon of net neutrality is stripped away, it appears the proposed rules have little to no support from the Right, and waning support from liberals who view them as being too weak.

Read more here.