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The Pros And Cons Of Net Neutrality

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These pro Net Neutrality opinions, however, changed as the FCC replaced two members and ultimately voted to repeal Net Neutrality regulations. When the FCC voted to pass the 2015 Open Internet Order, they did so with a 3-2 vote supported by Tom Wheeler, the FCC’s Chairman, Jessica Rosenworcel, and Mignon Clyburn (Selykh). The opposition, Republicans Michael O’Rielly and Ajit Pai, “warned that the FCC was overstepping its authority,” and “solv[ing] a problem that doesn’t exist,” (Selykh). When The FCC later repealed Net Neutrality, Pai had replaced Wheeler as Chairman, and Brendan Carr filled the empty space left behind the wake of Pai’s transition while the other Commissioners stayed (“Leadership”). As a result, the three Republicans, Pai, O’Rielly, and Carr, outnumbered and outvoted the two …show more content…

According to his biography page found on the FCC’s website, Pai believes that “free markets have delivered more value to American consumers than highly regulated ones”. There is also a section of the page labeled “Selected Issues,” and the first, and longest, of these issues is “Broadband,” which is also referred to as the internet. Pai also believes that, with the repeal of Net Neutrality, “companies… won’t have to jump through unnecessary regulatory hoops in order to [provide internet access] to consumers” (“Ajit Pai”). Pai may also have a potential bias toward the repeal of Net Neutrality because he worked as the “associate general counsel of Verizon Communications Inc. from 2001 to 2003,” before working in the Senate, Justice Department, and the FCC (Puzzanghera). “The second anti Net Neutrality voter, O’Rielly, was first sworn in on November 4, 2013, and was sworn in for a second time on January 29, 2015 (“Michael O’Rielly”). Although his opinions on Net Neutrality can not be easily found on the FCC’s website, he, like Pai, opposed the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet Order Decision

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