More Than Half of Voters Still Back Net Neutrality Laws

Days after a federal appeals court decision left in place a California law that protects net neutrality in the state, more than half of registered voters said that they supported such protections, a new Morning Consult/Politico survey found. That support has remained relatively stable for several years, even after the repeal of federal rules. Among all voters, 55 percent said they supported laws that protect net neutrality, which prevents internet service providers from blocking, throttling or prioritizing certain content. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a petition from telecommunications companies and industry groups to rehear a January 2022 decision that found that the Federal Communications Commission’s reversal of federal net neutrality rules in 2017 does not stop states from implementing their own laws. Independents (60 percent) and Democrats (57 percent) are almost equally supportive of net neutrality laws, while about half of Republicans (49 percent) say the same. The level of overall voter support is comparable to a June 2017 Morning Consult/Politico survey before the FCC repealed federal net neutrality laws later that year. In that survey, 60 percent of respondents said they supported net neutrality, as did 61 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of independents. Republican backing for net neutrality has fallen 10 percentage points over that nearly five-year period. There is evidence that the issue is starting to fade from the public consciousness, however. In the 2017 survey, 23 percent said they did not know or had no opinion about net neutrality, while in this year’s survey 29 percent said the same.