Comcast removed Net Neutrality promises the same day the FCC announced plans to repeal
In a speech to a conservative think tank, FCC chairman Ajit Pai seemed to paint the problem of an open internet as a purely ideological one, offering up the way that Twitter functions as a problem. Pai posited that because Twitter is free to decide who can use its platform, somehow that means that they are discriminating against conservative users.
As noted by the LA Times‘ Michael Hiltzik, this line of reasoning, which effectively equates Twitter’s treatment of racist/white supremacist users with some perceived bias against conservative outlets, says quite a bit about the way that Pai thinks, and quite a bit about the ultra-conservative politics of the Trump administration’s FCC.
With this in mind, the very same day that the FCC announced its plans to repeal Net Neutrality, internet and telecommunications giant Comcast, which has already been caught skirting the rules of previous iterations of Net Neutrality, changed the language present in its Net Neutrality section of its website, as reported by Slate.
In this new version of its Net Neutrality section, Comcast has eliminated promises to ensure that low-income families continue to have accessibility to its network and that it will inspire innovation, promote learning, and create jobs. Comcast has also removed a promise that was central to its social media presence, that it wouldn’t create paid fast lanes or prioritize paid traffic.
Even though the FCC is slated to officially vote on this issue next month, it is all but assured that the three Republican members, including Pai, who was Trump’s nominee to replace a vacant Chairman’s seat, will vote in line with the President’s well-established agenda, which is to erase any and every accomplishment of the previous President. This means that what consumer protections the previous iteration of the FCC afforded will be rolled back, and the internet will likely become the latest victim of free-market friendly Republican policy which has never actually worked for the benefit of the average person, and has only served to make corporations richer.