FCC Wants to Kill Net Neutrality. Congress Will Pay the Price

Voters know Republicans in Congress are the only ones who can stop Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai.  If enough Republicans tell Chairman Pai to stop, he will likely back down. After all, Congressional pressure has stopped the FCC before. Members of Congress face a choice: They can side with their constituents, who overwhelmingly want them to defend the greatest communication and innovation platform ever invented, or support one of the most blatant anti-consumer corporate giveaways in modern history. Some lawmakers believe the current FCC protections are the right solution, and others think that Congress should step in with a legislative solution to settle the matter once and for all. But all should agree that Pai’s plan to repeal the protections without a replacement is reckless and unnecessary. There’s no crisis Pai needs to save us from. The only crisis looming is the one that Pai’s plan will create for entrepreneurs, free markets, free speech, and for Republican members of Congress running for re-election who didn’t make the choice to stop Pai when they had the chance. [Ryan Singel is media and strategy fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and the CEO/cofounder of Contextly]