by Jason Cohen
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed a vote related to “preventing digital discrimination” in accessing broadband internet at a meeting on Wednesday.
The FCC, which has three Democratic commissioners and two Republicans, voted along party lines in favor of a notice of proposed rulemaking Wednesday at the meeting to tackle “digital discrimination,” based on President Joe Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr asserts the rules would massively increase the commission’s regulatory authority to almost all facets of internet service.
“There’s no element or component of internet service that will not, for the very first time, be subject to FCC regulation,” Carr previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “And it does so through this lens of equity, which is a broad and sort of nearly unlimited sort of phrase in terms of the discretion the government would have.”
The rules would allow the government to oversee internet facets including, “how [internet service providers (ISPs)] allocate capital and where they build, to the services that consumers can purchase; from the profits that ISPs can realize and how they market and advertise services, to the discounts and promotions that consumers can receive,” Carr stated in his recent opposition to the rules.
The FCC similarly made a significant move toward reestablishing net neutrality in October by voting in favor of a notice of proposed rulemaking. Net neutrality regulations require ISPs provide equal access to all websites and content providers at the same rates and speeds, regardless of their size or content.
“This latest effort from the Biden administration represents a whole of government approach that will have ripple effects through the economy from large ISPs to the small businesses, leaving everyone worse off,” James Czerniawski, senior policy analyst at AFP, said in a statement shared with the DCNF. “The risk here is that this idea will bleed into every other sector of our economy, exacerbating the pain Americans are feeling from the persistent inflation under Bidenomics.”
The FCC did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Jason Cohen is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
