FCC's Clyburn: Only Silence Will Kill Net Neutrality

Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn told a crowd of Title II fans that network neutrality is dead unless they make themselves heard, no matter what the vote on the upcoming Title II rollback is. Commissioner Clyburn is currently the lone Democrat under the new Republican Administration, so she cannot stop the reversal of Title II but could delay it if she does not show up for the May 18 meeting and denies the chairman the necessary quorum. That does not sound likely since she said she did not know what the FCC would be launching this week, but she would vote "in the opposite way" from the Republicans. She said net neutrality is dead if "we are silent," no matter how the vote goes. Devin Coldewey of TechCrunch asked whether public comments matter and pointed to identical pro-Title II comments that had been filed. Commissioner Clyburn said that the comments will not be officially part of the record until the FCC votes the rulemaking and said commenters should keep weighing in. She said that was the only way to defend net neutrality. Commissioner Clyburn said the FCC has the technical tools to deal with the duplicates or get rid of the comments where "there is a little something going on."