Donald Trump’s likely pick for chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, once said the days of net neutrality are “numbered” after voting against it and he hasn’t changed his tune.
Pai is the FCC’s highest-ranking Republican and many feel he’ll be selected to run the commission, perhaps on an interim basis until Trump selects a long-term option. The Open Internet Rule, often referred to as net neutrality, gives the FCC authority to enact rules that will help keep the Internet a free and open entity.
Back in February, the FCC passed the Open Internet Rule but Pai was one of two members who voted against it. “Its days are numbered,” Pai said at the time and comments he made on Wednesday to prove he hasn’t changed his mind.
“On the day that the Title II [net neutrality] Order was adopted, I said that ‘I don’t know whether this plan will be vacated by a court, reversed by Congress, or overturned by a future Commission. But I do believe that its days are numbered,'” Pai said in a speech before the Free State Foundation in Washington, D.C. “Today, I am more confident than ever that this prediction will come true. And I’m hopeful that beginning next year, our general regulatory approach will be a more sober one that is guided by evidence, sound economic analysis, and a good dose of humility.”
The regulations aim to ensure that all the Internet content you want to access, everything from streaming video to audio, will be treated equally by ISPs. The FCC feared that competitor ISPs could slow down content provided by rivals.
An ISP is a company that provides you with access to the Internet, such as AT&T or Comcast. A content provider is a company that creates and/or distributes content, such as Netflix and Amazon. But sometimes they overlap, and that is where things can get tricky.
So imagine if Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal and provides content through its Xfinity Internet service, decided to slow down the streaming speed of Comcast customers trying to watch something on a rival such as Netflix. That scenario will not be allowed because of net neutrality — for now.
In layman’s terms, if you wanted to binge watch “Black Mirror” but your ISP has a beef with Netflix, you don’t have to worry about the quality of your service being affected.
If net neutrality will really come to an end, it means corporate-owned Internet could become a very real thing during the Trump administration.
10 Times Donald Trump Shared Fake News (Photos)
Donald Trump is the country's most prominent spreader of fake news. Here are ten unquestionably fake news stories he has shared.
Getty Images
In 2009, Trump helped create fake news when the USA Network and WWE falsely reported that Trump was planning to buy "Monday Night RAW." It turned out that it was all part of a wrestling storyline.
Trump spent years demanding that President Obama produce his birth certificate and other papers in response to false e-mails that Obama was a Kenyan-born Muslim. He finally admitted Obama was born in this country in September, then accused Hillary Clinton of starting the lies about Obama.
In December 2011, Trump said President Obama "issued a statement for Kwanza but failed to issue one for Christmas." That was provably false. (This photo is from 2014.)
In February 2016, Trump entertained conspiracy theories that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered when he said he was found with "a pillow on his face." Alex Jones' InfoWars had earlier reported on suggestions Scalia was killed. But the owner of the ranch where Scalia died later clarified that he did not have a pillow over his face.
In June 2016, Trump tweeted a photo that purported to show a family of African-Americans who supported him. But they told BuzzFeed they definitely did not.
Twitter
In another case of Trump creating the fake news, he scored 22,000 retweets on Election Day by posting, "Just out according to @CNN: 'Utah officials report voting machine problems across entire country.'" But it was just one county. No R.
After saying for months before election day that the vote would be rigged, Trump won. He subsequently said “million of people” voted illegally. A guy on Twitter who had tweeted that 3 million voted illegally declined to provide any source. Trump has continued to make baseless claims about millions of illegal voters since he took office.
YouTube
Let's give credit where its due: On Dec. 6, Trump fired one of his transition team staffers for tweeting a fake news story that led to an armed confrontation in a Washington, DC pizza restaurant. The issue became known as "pizzagate."
On his first full day in office, Trump visited the Central Intelligence Agency and claimed 1.5 million people attended his inauguration. The New York Times said that photographs "disproved" that number. Vox did a deep dive into why Trump's numbers appeared to be off. And a Texas NHL team, among others, made fun of him.
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A running tally of all the times President Trump shared totally bogus stories
Donald Trump is the country's most prominent spreader of fake news. Here are ten unquestionably fake news stories he has shared.