The net neutrality battle ended when the FCC struck down the rules governing the internet service providers

The Sixth Circuit Upheld Net Neutrality: A Victory for the FCC and the Revocable Terms of the Internet Service Providers

The judges believed that they could ignore the agency’s interpretation of how to classify Internet service providers and were encouraged by the recent downfall of the legal doctrine known as “Chevron deference.” After the Supreme Court did away with that principle in 2024, courts became more free to favor their own interpretations over the judgment of expert agencies. Net neutrality was a prime target to be struck down. While the DC Circuit Court of Appeals upheld previous iterations of net neutrality, the Sixth Circuit judges note that it relied on Chevron to do so. The D.C.Circuit no longer has the ability to defer to the FCC’s reading of the statute.

This left the judges free to wax philosophical about phrases like “offering of a capability” and “information services,” finely parsing the distinction between those and more heavily regulated telecommunications services. “The existence of a fact or a thought in one’s mind is not ‘information’ like 0s and 1s used by computers,” one part of the ruling reads. It claims writing reduces a thought to sound, and it states that speaking reduces a thought to sound, and that the telephone service merely sends information to someone who responds in turn.

It is easy to ignore net neutrality, but the FCC wants the power to prevent broadband providers from engaging in discrimination, slowing speeds for certain customers or to certain sites. Those protections existed under the Obama administration but were rolled back shortly after Donald Trump took office in 2017. You probably won’t feel much near-term impact; we’re largely back to the status quo, and Spectrum is unlikely to immediately try slowing down YouTube to get you to watch its own cable news channels. The way the Sixth Circuit arrived at it’s decision may be more alarming than the ruling itself.

USTelecom hailed Thursday’s decision in a statement, calling the struck rules “a victory for American consumers that will lead to more investment, innovation, and competition in the dynamic digital marketplace.”

The FCC wanted to make the internet service provider accountable for outages, have robust network security, protect fast speeds, and provide greater protections for consumer data.

During the Obama Administration, net neutrality was introduced by the FCC and was repealed by Donald Trump two years later.

It’s a largely partisan issue that has found Democrats on the side of so-called net neutrality in an effort to hold ISPs more accountable for providing fast, safe and reliable internet for all. Net neutrality rules were prioritized by the Biden Administration.

The three-judge panel frequently cited Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the recent Supreme Court decision that overturned a legal doctrine known as Chevron deference. When it came to deciding how the laws should be interpreted, courts had to defer to regulatory agencies. Courts are free to make their own decisions. The Sixth Circuit did that.

The Fight for the Future is a nonprofit that fights for digital rights and believes that it’s a sad day for democracy when giant corporations can forum-shop for industry friendly judges to strike down consumer protection rules. “The court citing Loper Bright here is an alarming harbinger of industry-friendly rulings to come.”

Does Congress really need to interpret laws? The unlikely case in a Republican-controlled legislature with warped and hostile enforcing policymaking

There’s at least one way out of this imbalance of power, Bergmayer says: Congress can pass a bill that explicitly says agencies have the authority to interpret laws. That seems unlikely, though, in a GOP-led legislature that’s wary of—or outright hostile toward—the administrative state.