22 states and the District of Columbia ask U.S. appeals court to bring back net neutrality
The attorneys general of 22 states and the District of Columbia have asked a U.S. appeals court to reverse the FCC and bring back net neutrality. The Obama-era rules prevented ISPs and wireless carriers from favoring certain streams of data over other streams. Additionally, under net neutrality, carriers could not block or throttle the dissemination of content simply because it did not agree with the tone of that content.
After President Donald Trump took office, the makeup of the FCC shifted so that the 3-2 party line vote in favor of net neutrality that took place in 2015, turned into a 3-2 party line vote to lift the rules, which took place in June of this year.
With polls showing that the majority of Americans favor net neutrality, there has been talk that this will become a campaign issue in the run up to the 2018 mid-term elections. Various states have been looking to pass legislation that would make net neutrality a law in that particular state. Filing a suit with the U.S. appeals court, the attorneys general state that the repeal of net neutrality has negatively impacted Americans. The 23 attorneys general are from areas of the country where 165 million Americans live.
"For more than fifteen years, the Federal Communications Commission has agreed that an open Internet free from blocking, throttling, or other interference by service providers is critical to ensure that all Americans have access to the advanced telecommunications services that have become essential for daily life. The recent Order represents a dramatic and unjustified departure from this long-standing commitment."-Barbara Underwood, attorney general, New York
A separate filing was made with the court by several tech companies including Mozilla Corp, Vimeo Inc., Etsy Inc. and others requesting that net neutrality be reinstated (see image at the top of this story). Another tech giant that has been outspoken in its support of net neutrality is video streamer Netflix.
source: Reuters
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Things that are NOT allowed: