Dem: GOP’s net neutrality rollback aims to ‘choke off’ free speech

A House Democrat is accusing Republicans of trying to stifle free speech on the internet with their effort to kill the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules.

Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said eliminating the rules would give internet service providers control over online speech and make it harder to share views that big business disagrees with.

“Republicans in Washington want to jeopardize the fundamental freedoms that we enjoy by using an open internet,” he said in remarks at the New America think tank on Wednesday.

“Without the FCC’s net neutrality rules, in my opinion, large corporate interests can begin to choke off conversations they don’t like and they can speed up the ones they do.”

{mosads}He accused Republicans of cheering on censorship, referencing an incident last year when GOP leadership cut off camera feeds of the House floor during a Democratic sit-in over gun control.

“Now the same people who shut off those cameras are cheering on Chairman Pai’s proposal to take away our open internet,” he said.

Last week, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced his plan to take down the 2015 rules, which require internet service providers to give equal treatment to all web traffic.

Pai and other conservatives argue that the net neutrality regulations overreached by reclassifying the broadband industry as telecommunications services, which opened the providers up to tougher regulations from the FCC.

In his speech last week, Pai sought to address concerns over free speech, blasting those who “will argue that government control is the key to the ability to speak your mind on the internet.”

“Most Americans should recognize this absurdity for what it is,” Pai said. “For government regulation is no friend to free speech, but its enemy. After all, the First Amendment doesn’t give the government power to regulate. It denies the government that power.”

But Pallone on Wednesday said killing net neutrality rules combined with Pai’s efforts to relax restrictions on media company consolidation would stifle speech major telecom companies didn’t agree with.

“That means that the companies that connect us to the internet have financial incentives to give preference to the shows they like, to the content they like, the websites they run and the news they report,” Pallone said.

“And I think the consequences of that is that independent voices — those outside the mainstream — may be most at risk simply because they don’t have an affiliation with the companies that run the internet.”