WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced its plan to vote later this month to reinstate crippling Title II regulations – commonly and misleadingly referred to as “net neutrality” regulations – on the internet. 

In response, Center for Individual Freedom President Jeffrey Mazzella released the following statement:  

“Utility-style Title II regulation of the internet has nothing to do with so-called ‘net-neutrality’ and everything to do with the federal government assuming total regulatory control over the internet.  It is an experiment that has already failed, and it would undermine the goal of universal broadband access.  

“Indeed, under the brief trial of Title II, private investment actually decreased for the first time in American history outside of an economic recession, and the adoption of broadband tottered.  As has been cogently noted by FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, since the FCC’s 2017 return to a light-touch regulatory posture, internet speeds increased nearly 260%, prices have declined, competition has intensified and the digital divide is narrowing.  

“Moreover, America’s longstanding ‘light-touch’ approach to regulating the internet kept our networks resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas tightly regulated markets like the European Union (EU) were forced to throttle internet service to their consumers in order to keep networks functional.  

“CFIF strongly opposes this latest attempt to revive the failed regulatory stranglehold that is Title II, and instead calls on the FCC to abandon this unnecessary partisan effort and focus on more critical and worthy issues before it.”  

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