The Supreme Court made net neutrality more vulnerable than ever

On today’s episode of Decoder, we’re talking about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Chevron deference and what it means for the future of the internet.

I’ve been covering the fight over net neutrality for almost my entire career as a tech reporter — over 15 years now. The idea is that internet service providers shouldn’t be able to discriminate between what services you access on the internet: AT&T shouldn’t be able to slow down X and speed up Threads, and Verizon shouldn’t be able to block Zoom because it owns BlueJeans. 

It’s pretty basic stuff, and after all this time, the Biden administration’s Federal Communications Commission once again made it the law. But big telecom companies truly hate the idea that anyone would regulate their networks, and they once again filed a lawsuit over it. Until very recently, everyone sort of understood the arguments in a case like that and how they would go — like I said, I’ve been covering this for 15 years now. It felt familiar.

But then, everything changed. In late June, the Supreme Court issued a bombshell opinion in a case called Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned something called Chevron deference — the idea that courts should generally defer to agencies like the FCC when it comes to interpreting ambiguous parts of the law. 

That means the net neutrality lawsuit is suddenly very different. It’s now about whether the court thinks the internet should be neutral, not the FCC. And wouldn’t you know it, the Sixth Circuit immediately halted the FCC’s new net neutrality order and asked for briefs on how the Loper Bright ruling would change the case.

I invited Verge editor Sarah Jeong on the show to talk about all of this with me, and you’ll really hear us get into it. I mean, for the last 40 years, judges have basically deferred to federal agencies when it comes to the details of interpreting law because the agencies employ experts and have really deep subject area knowledge. 

But now, judges will be empowered to make their own interpretations and throw out old ones. And with a dysfunctional Congress that can barely pass any laws as it is, the Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright is a major power grab for the judiciary over the other two branches of government.

It’s a very big deal, with some far-reaching consequences for basically everything, including the environment, labor law, and all manner of regulation. Here at The Verge, our policy team has been tracking this outcome for a long time, so I wanted to have Sarah come on the show to break down how we got here and what it means for the future.

If that sounds really chaotic and unstable to you, well… you’re not wrong, and you’ll hear us discuss that toward the end, when we did our best to put this state of affairs into context and try to figure out what happens next.