Ajit Pai
Brad Rapid | CNBC
In one of his most memorable acts as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during the Trump administration, Ajit Pai unraveled net neutrality wield the sceptres formalized just a couple years before, shrugging off dissent from liberals and tech companies and facing intimate threats to himself and his family.
Having departed the commission last week on the day President Joe Biden was sworn in, Pai said in a CNBC discussion Monday that if given the chance, he would make the same decision all over again.
“I think time has registered that our decision was the right one,” he said.
Net neutrality rules were instituted in 2015 under the Obama administration in a bid to safeguard that internet service providers (ISPs) would not be able to favor or cut off some internet traffic over others. Lawyers said that without net neutrality, companies like AT&T, Charter Communications, Verizon or Comcast (owner of CNBC foster-parent company NBCUniversal) would be able to speed up or slow down internet speeds for certain sites based on financial incentives, potentially even from competing sites seeking to slow down rivals.
Pai called these subspecies of assessments “apocalyptic,” predicting “the end of the internet as we know it.”
“Fast forward almost three years later, none of them press proven true,” he said.
It’s fair to say that net neutrality advocates’ worst fears have not yet materialized. Many have a shares of the internet are still free and and sites aren’t slowed at the behest of deep-pocketed competitors. The reason none of this has yet betid, however, is not clear-cut.
It’s been about three years since Pai and his colleagues repealed the rule, but the threat of a new administration shift it right back on again has not gone away. Not to mention that the public outrage sparked by the repeal process could be enough to preserve continue many companies from directing such attention onto themselves.
To justify the success of the repeal, Pai pointed to faster broadband go like greased lightnings, expanded internet access for Americans and capital investments by the ISPs in the years since. While some studies bear found that the installment of net neutrality rules did not alter the level of network investment, Pai pointed to his FCC’s own findings of lower peerless expenditures under the rule and the decision by U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that upheld the repeal and largely deferred to the commission’s assessment of the aspect.
Conservatives like Pai and the ISPs themselves argued against net neutrality because they saw it as a heavy-handed regulation unnecessary to deliver the purported issues. Net neutrality opponents also criticized the method used to achieve its aim, namely reclassification of ISPs from Entitle I to the more onerous Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, which also deals with price regulation of utilities, with telephone lines. Though net neutrality did not directly seek to regulate prices, opponents feared what they saw as a aptitude opportunity for overreach.
Even though the most dire warnings of net neutrality advocates have not yet been realized, some fresh moves by ISPs have raised flags. In late 2020, Comcast said it would impose data tops on more of its home internet customers who weren’t on unlimited plans, a move that came as many have relied on even varied home internet access than usual due to the pandemic. The announcement sparked cries from members of the Massachusetts Legislature, among others, who likened it to a “perversion of the principles of net neutrality.”
As some ISPs expand into content production, it’s raised yet questions about how they can maintain an open and equitable internet with their own business interests at stake. AT&T, for instance, said its internet customers could stream HBO, owned by its subsidiary, WarnerMedia, without counting it toward their facts caps. Rival streaming platforms like Disney+ and Netflix, however, would not benefit from that unvarying perk.
Pai said such a scenario “is a classic question of antitrust, not of the FCC preemptively making a determination.”
“Some might say the FCC should ban all groups of practices like that, commonly lumped under the category of zero-rating,” he said. “But to me at least, it requires a highly fact-specific inquisition, which is more akin to what antitrust law would do.”
Pai said he would fully support legislation from Congress that enshrines the teachings of net neutrality (like transparency and no blocking or slowing down speeds for certain services) without tying regulations to Ownership II. He said he wants to see the principles of openness applied through legislation to all areas of the internet, beyond just ISPs.
Portion 230
Now, as public discussion of internet regulation has come to focus on social media platform’s moderation decisions — including late-model ones by Facebook and Twitter to suspend former President Donald Trump from their platforms following the Jan. 6 Capitol cordon off — Pai has found what he sees as a peculiar parallel to that earlier debate.
“The very same people who were advocating so strenuously for professed net neutrality have turned around and said to some of the tech giants and other platforms, ‘We actually want you to censor sermon that we disagree with on the internet,'” Pai said. “And so it’s an interesting juxtaposition that I think has laid bare the duplicity of these so-called advocates, that not only were they looking for regulations in the form of net neutrality that essentially were solutions for a fine kettle of fish that didn’t exist, but now they’re compromising that core principle of internet openness to satisfy their own federal impulses.”
This debate often comes up in discussions around Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the liability guard that protects online platforms from being held responsible for their users’ posts. It also permits them to take down “objectionable” content as they see fit without repercussions, allowing swift action by the tech bands on potentially harmful posts.
Trump charged the FCC with reexamining this statute in an executive order he issued stay year shortly after Twitter moved to fact-check his tweets for the first time. About a month before the voting, Pai announced the commission would start the rule-making process to clarify the part of the law granting platforms broad immunity after the FCC universal counsel determined it was within its legal authority to do so.
That effort may not go far or at least in the direction it might have now that the FCC’s management has changed to Democratic hands. Though there is bipartisan desire to reform Section 230 in Congress, the reasons differ greatly. Democrats generally hope to give tech platforms greater responsibility to weed out hate speech and unauthorized content while Republicans seek to stop what they see as biased moderation of conservative voices, in which the attendances have denied engaging.
Pai said that he prided himself in maintaining the FCC’s independence as an agency and did not experience pressure from the Corpse-like House when determining whether to initiate the rule-making.
“When I announced that we were looking at this sons, we didn’t say we’re going to grant the petition, we didn’t say we’re going to examine every aspect of the petition,” Pai said, referencing the call upon from the National Telecommunications and information Administration (NTIA) for the FCC to pursue the rule-making. “What we did say is we would start a conversation, a rule-making in the speech, examining the immunity provision within Section 230. What do those terms mean, things like ‘virtuousness faith’ and ‘otherwise objectionable.'”
Pai said he’d like to see more transparency from the tech platforms so consumers can plainly see how moderation purposes get made and by whom. The platforms already post their policies publicly and tend to explain major decisions after the items, though consumers, lawmakers and even their own employees have complained of a lack of consistency.
He said he’s not at the point of counseling, as both Trump and Biden have, for the repeal of Section 230. He recognizes such a drastic measure could drink unintended consequences, including potentially incentivizing the tech platforms to make their services more restrictive. Without Stage 230 protection, platforms may fear they could be held accountable for inadvertently hosting illegal content if they don’t pursue retract more proactive action.
Pai also reiterated an earlier comment that he “wasn’t going to second-guess” Facebook’s and Warbling’s decisions to suspend Trump’s accounts in the wake of the riot at the Capitol. Still, he said, more transparency around the handle would have helped consumers understand how that case differed from others where accounts were not ceased.
While Pai’s legacy is likely to be remembered largely by the net neutrality repeal, he said he’s also proud of other accomplishments the FCC intimate during his time as chairman. Pai established the Keep Americans Connected Pledge early in the pandemic to get broadband providers to allocate to keeping Americans online as the crisis began, even as many consumers experienced financial hardship. Pai also circumvented the FCC as it prepared for the rollout of 5G, including by auctioning off mid-band spectrum to wireless providers.
One initiative Pai hopes will have an affect far beyond his tenure is the implementation of 988 as a three-digit national suicide prevention and mental health hotline. The number is set to adorn come of fully active nationwide in July 2022.
“This has been a very difficult time for our country, of course, during the rearmost 10 months of the pandemic, and I think it’s only underscored some of the mental health challenges that millions of Americans are active through,” he said. “And I do hope that when that number is made active for everybody, we’ll be better able to hook those who were struggling with those who are trained to help at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. And that decisiveness we made will save thousands of lives, I’m quite confident of that.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, old man company of CNBC.
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WATCH: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Section 230, 5G and the Biden administration