The FCC’s Ajit Pai ignores public support and laws upholding equal internet access.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai issued a major order Tuesday in which he outlined his plan to dismantle landmark regulations that ensure equal access to the internet. Pai wants to repeal net neutrality rules that bar internet service providers from stopping or slowing down the delivery of websites and stop companies from charging extra fees for high-quality streaming. A formal vote on the plan is set for December 14th.

What Pai is proposing is to take that principle, net neutrality, out of the network and allow these very powerful companies to insert themselves as gatekeepers. And when you look at a company like Comcast which owns NBC Universal, there will be this great incentive for them to favor their own content and to degrade content from websites and services like Democracy Now! or other services. So, this fundamentally upsets the level playing field of the Internet.

The good news is, though, that there has been a very massive outcry and it took millions of people to get the Obama administration to put these 2015 rules in place. And since Pai and the Trump Administration started the process earlier this year, tens of millions of people have commented at the FCC. We’ve looked at those comments, and yes, there are some fake comments in there, but we took those out and counted the original comments and more than 98% of those commenting said they want to keep these net neutrality rules.

So, Ajit Pai is ignoring the public, he’s ignoring the law. These rules have been challenged in court and they withstood those challenges. And he’s ignoring the facts. He says this is government regulation of the Internet. It’s not. It’s a regulation of internet service providers.