A Trump presidency may challenge or weaken net neutrality and roll back or undermine FCC's Open Internet Order as well as the privacy rules passed in October
Things are going to change a lot under the Trump presidency-not least because he will have the full force of the Senate and the House of Representatives behind him.
Context & Ripple Effects
This November 2016 analysis was the opening call in an arc the rest of the coverage traces end to end: it flagged that unified Republican control of the White House, Senate, and House put both the FCC's Open Internet Order and the October privacy rules on the chopping block. Within months the prediction was operationalized — Ajit Pai's FCC published the full text of its proposal to roll back Title II rules ahead of a May 2017 vote.
By late 2017 the FCC had unveiled a repeal plan that would hand ISPs broad power to decide which sites and services customers reach, and in February 2018 the Restoring Internet Freedom order entered the Federal Register, starting the clock on legal challenges. The pendulum kept swinging: in April 2024 the FCC moved to vote on restoring net neutrality and reclaiming broadband oversight rescinded under Trump.
First-order effects
- ISPs stand to gain broad discretion over which websites and online services customers can use, as the FCC's own repeal plan later spelled out.
- The broadband privacy rules passed in October 2016 face rollback alongside the Open Internet Order, since the same unified government controls both.
Second-order effects
- Once the repeal enters the Federal Register, as the Restoring Internet Freedom order did in February 2018, opponents' recourse shifts to litigation — legal challenges become the primary check on FCC authority.
- Every rule change invites a counter-move by the next administration, forcing ISPs and edge providers to plan around rules that reverse rather than settle.
Third-order effects
- Net neutrality stops functioning as settled law and becomes a partisan pendulum: the 2015 rules were repealed under Trump and targeted for restoration in 2024, so broadband regulation now resets with each change of administration.
- That oscillation pushes the real fight into the courts and Congress, where whichever branch can lock rules in place — not the FCC itself — becomes the decisive arena for internet governance.
The trend: US net neutrality is cycling from rule to repeal to restoration with each administration, turning broadband oversight into recurring political terrain rather than stable regulation.