Skip to content Skip to footer

Net Neutrality Preserved in the Courts

The courts reclassified service providers and subjected them to new rules, in a bid to ensure equal treatment of online traffic.

The telecoms industry’s legal assault on the Federal Communications Commission’s “Net Neutrality” rule has been momentarily halted.

A ruling handed down by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Tuesday upheld the FCC’s regulations. Finalized in early 2015, they reclassified service providers, and subjected them to new rules, in a bid to ensure equal treatment of online traffic.

The commission’s Open Internet Order — perhaps the most significant progressive policy achievement of last year — was the culmination of years of grassroots organizing and agitating in response to internet companies’ threats to enclose cyberspace; by walling off or “throttling” content that inconveniences the provider.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for consumers and innovators who deserve unfettered access to the entire web, and it ensures the Internet remains a platform for unparalleled innovation, free expression and economic growth,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in response to Tuesday’s court ruling.

The three-judge panel affirmed the commission’s authority to reclassify fixed and mobile internet service providers as a public utility in order to apply greater regulatory pressure on them.

The court also rejected arguments made by industry lobbying groups that Net Neutrality rules violate telecom companies’ First Amendment rights.

“Because a broadband provider does not — and is not understood by users to — ‘speak’ when providing neutral access to Internet content as common carriage, the First Amendment poses no bar to the open internet rules,” Judges David Tatel and Sri Srinivasan wrote.

Judge Stephen Williams partially dissented in a separate opinion.

Though defeated in court, opponents of Net Neutrality vowed to fight on, and will likely appeal to the Supreme Court. They also put out a call for assistance to their allies on Capitol Hill.

“While this is unlikely the last step in this decade-long debate over Internet regulation,” said the National Cable & Telecommunications Association in a statement, “we urge bipartisan leaders in Congress to renew their efforts to craft meaningful legislation that can end ongoing uncertainty, promote network investment, and protect consumers.”

Although there are a number of proposals pending in the legislature that could cripple the FCC’s internet rule-making, none are likely to overcome a presidential veto.

Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn

Dear Truthout Community,

If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.

We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.

Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.

There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.

Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?

It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.

We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.

We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.

Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.

We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.

With love, rage, and solidarity,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy