TechCrunch reports:

The Federal Communications Commission made its official vote Thursday to reinstate net neutrality, which bars broadband providers from slowing or even blocking internet traffic to some sites while improving access to others that pay extra fees. With some changes and protections, passing the order titled Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet restores rules passed back during the Obama administration in 2015 and rolled back in 2017, after Donald Trump was elected president.

Since the FCC announced in September that it would be pursuing this as a policy goal, it was more or less a fait accompli; there was no real reason why the Commission, split 3-2 in favor of the Democrats, would vote against it. So though important, Thursday’s development is just another milestone on the road forward.

Opponents of the move trotted out the same old canards from 10 years ago: net neutrality equals heavy-handed regulation, rate control, the smothering of innovation — general arguments that never really had much weight. As Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel points out, the FCC already exerts rules with this authority (like with Title II, for those of you who’ve been with us from the start) in other areas, and they aren’t overcome with Draconian rules and limits.

Instead, she points out senseless inconsistencies with the last few years of operation. For instance, last year the FCC stripped some wireless providers affiliated with Chinese state actors of their ability to operate in the U.S. “But it is important to understand that our actions did not extend to broadband, thanks to the work of the last FCC,” she said in remarks at the meeting on Thursday. [Continue reading…]