Now that Donald Trump is officially the next President of the United States, barring any unlikely scenario that would prevent him from taking the oath of office, a lot of things are expected to change. One of these things is the matter of Net Neutrality as a given. Trump is a known opponent of the universally accepted doctrine that the internet must remain free. With him as president, the Federal Communications Commission might have a hard time maintaining that freedom.
It was only a few years ago that Net Neutrality was a battleground between ISPs, regulators, and the American public. In the end, Net Neutrality won, but only just barely. During that time, one of the most vocal opponents of the movement was Trump, who Tweeted that it was nothing more than another way to attack the conservative media, Recode reports.
“Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab,” the Tweet read. “Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media.”
If Trump holds the same belief that he had two years ago, the U.S. could be looking at another unraveling of Net Neutrality, whereby ISPs could pick and choose which to provide fast internet and which to throttle. This could open the way for a feeding frenzy, where bigger companies could eat their smaller competition whole.
The situation is made worse by the fact that Republicans now control both the Senate and Congress, The Verge reports, which basically guarantees that any conservative bill passed will be approved clean. Since the Republicans were the ones who were vehemently against Net Neutrality, there is a very real chance that it could be repealed.
On that note, Trump hasn’t made any direct comments on repealing Net Neutrality, as he did with Obamacare. So there’s also a chance that it might not even come up. Considering the lobbying power of ISPs, however, the chances of this happening are looking grim.