WASHINGTON, D.C. — If your internet is starting to get slow on certain websites or you can’t get access to your favorite websites at all, it could be due to net neutrality being repealed.
Federal internet regulations are once again in question after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District announced that the Federal Communications Commission had no authority to enforce rules that prevented internet and cable providers from slowing or blocking access to internet content.
According to Marquette University Associate Professor of Digital Media and Performing Arts Dr. Erik Ugland, the repeal of net neutrality rules endangers internet consumers more than it does internet providers.
“The risk is if the internet is seen as an information service that guards it from FCC regulations like net neutrality, then companies can block channels and can exercise a kind of editorial control over the internet they provide,” said Ugland. “Instead of simply providing this infrastructure for customers to use to communicate with each other, internet providers would instead put themselves in the position of gatekeepers of what gets transmitted to consumers.”
Net Neutrality was introduced and enacted under the Obama Administration, was appealed during the first Trump Administration and was almost enforced again under the Biden Administration before the Federal Court of Appeals decided to appeal the action for good.
With net neutrality no longer being watched over federal regulators, Dr. Ugland says regular customers of internet usage may no longer have the same priority as corporate customers who could pay for higher internet speeds.
“From the vantage point of consumers, this should be concerning because it basically empowers these companies that have monopolistic influence in their domain to use that power to squeeze consumers even more,” said Dr. Ugland. “Now it could be really nefarious like blocking access to certain political websites. They would have the authority to do that if their an information service. Or it could just be a commercial exploitation. For example, taking payments from big companies like ESPN or Netflix to deliver their content faster than everybody else’s content.”
Dr. Ugland suspects that the next Congress will argue about the lasting impacts of no net neutrality and says it ultimately comes down to the consumer to ask for changes that ensures internet is delivered equitably for all online users.
