Federal regulators unveiled a plan Tuesday that would give Internet providers broad powers to determine what websites and online services their customers can see and use, and at what cost.
The move sets the stage for a crucial vote next month at the Federal Communications Commission that could reshape the entire digital ecosystem. The FCC’s Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, has made undoing the government's net neutrality rules one of his top priorities, and Tuesday's move hands a win to broadband companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.
Pai is taking aim at regulations that were approved two years ago under a Democratic presidency and that sought to make sure all Internet content, whether from big or small companies, would be treated equally by Internet providers.
It was always going to happen sooner or later. The internet is simply following the same pattern of previous mass media toward more centralized and less democratic control. It's what capitalism does. You'll see some false moralizing from #Resistance types for a while but they'll never overturn this. Eventually we all belong to Verizon.
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