The internet is about to become more expensive and less accessible for Americans, according to Stanford scholars. On December 14, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to repeal its net neutrality rules. To find out what this means for Americans and for internet freedom, we turned to net neutrality experts Ryan Singel at the Stanford Law School and Didi Kuo at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

What is net neutrality?

Singel: Net neutrality is a simple principle that Americans or people around the world are the ones who choose what websites they get to go to, what apps they get to use, what services they get to use, and neither their internet service providers (ISPs) — the companies they pay to get online like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T — nor the government gets to affect those decisions.

What does the repeal do?

Singel: The order eliminates all net neutrality protections. That means that ISPs can now charge sites and services to load for an ISP’s subscribers, create fast lanes that only deep-pocketed companies and speakers can afford, and block sites based on their content. This is a radical step by the FCC. Since its inception, the U.S. internet has operated under net neutrality principles. Users have always had the expectation that they could use whatever sites and apps they’ve wanted. And for decades, the FCC has taken action to make sure that is possible. This repeal of net neutrality not only gets rid of the existing rules, it prevents the FCC from putting rules into effect, even if the ISPs start acting poorly.

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