The United States senate voted 52-47 on Wednesday to reinstate the net neutrality protections that went into effect in 2015 before being repealed last December by current FCC chairman Ajit Pai.
This comes in ahead of the June 11 deadline, which would see the repeal go into effect. This repeal would drop the Title II protections that treat broadband internet as a utility, preventing ISPs from blocking or throttling online content.
Senate Democrats put forth a resolution under the Congressional Review Act that allows the Senate to review new regulations enacted by federal agencies. In addition Democrats, three Republican senators voted in favor of the resolution halting the repeal.
Now, the resolution moves to the House, where 25 Republican representatives will have to break from the party line in order to stop the repeal.
Two of the Republican senators that voted in favor of the measure were undecided as recently as a few days ago, which shows that the campaigns to reach out to political representatives about issues like these that affect our daily lives can indeed work and change minds. Net neutrality helps ensure that internet providers like Comcast and Verizon can’t prioritize their own services over those of third parties like Netflix, ensuring that the parties in control of the signal aren’t in total control of the content traveling across those lines.
The House of Representatives has until January to take its turn at the polls, so we have another seven months ahead of us most likely as we wait to see where the future of the internet will go.
