Net Neutrality Is Trump’s Next Target, Administration Says

The Trump administration said March 30 that its next move to roll back the regulation of broadband internet service companies would be to jettison the Obama Administration’s network neutrality rules, which were intended to safeguard free expression online. The net neutrality rules, approved by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015, were intended to ensure that no online content is blocked and that the internet is not divided into pay-to-play fast lanes for internet and media companies that can afford it and slow lanes for everyone else.

In a news conference, White House spokesman Sean Spicer mentioned the net neutrality rules and said President Trump had “pledged to reverse this overreach.” The Obama Administration rules, Spicer said, were an example of “bureaucrats in Washington” placing restrictions on one kind of company — internet service suppliers — and “picking winners and losers.” Telecommunications and cable television companies, the broadband services providers, fought being classified as common carriers. They said the classification opened the door to bureaucratic interference with business decisions that would ultimately reduce incentives to invest and therefore raise prices and hurt consumers.