FCC officially votes to reinstate net neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission made its official vote Thursday to reinstate net neutrality, which bars broadband providers from slowing or even blocking internet traffic to some sites while improving access to others that pay extra fees. With some changes and protections, passing the order titled Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet restores rules passed back during the Obama administration in 2015 and rolled back in 2017, after Donald Trump was elected president. Since the FCC announced in September that it would be pursuing this as a policy goal, it was more or less a fait accompli; there was no real…