The Federal Communications Commission’s short-lived “net neutrality” rules officially ended Monday, replaced by a measure the agency says will keep the internet open to all while protecting consumers.

In a statement on its website, the FCC said the new regulations “will protect the open internet that consumers cherish while paving the way for better, faster, cheaper internet access.”

The agency said its Restoring Internet Freedom Order “replaces unnecessary, heavy-handed regulations dating back to 1934 with strong consumer protections, increased transparency, and commonsense regulations that will promote investment and broadband deployment.”

James Gattuso, a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, noted that the net neutrality rules were put in place only in 2015, and “the explosion of creativity, innovation, access, and choice on the web began and existed long before that.”

Opponents on the left have predicted numerous negative results for consumers from repeal of the rules, ranging from an inconvenience to an outright catastrophe.

Chances are, you’ve accessed the internet to read this article and so can be glad that one or more of the dire predictions hasn’t come to pass. Here are just seven of them:

1.  Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vt., said repealing the old rules would mean “the end of the internet as we know it.”

Sanders, a Democrat presidential candidate in 2016, said in a video:

A disastrous decision, it will impact every American. It will give huge advantages to big corporations over small businesses, to big media companies over smaller media outlets. We’ve gotta do everything we can to defeat this thing in the courts, and defeat it legislatively.

2. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., created a thread on Twitter where he said the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality would limit a couple’s ability to “Netflix and chill.”

3. Schumer also said it would preclude streaming a Yankees game on a cellphone.

4. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or  GLAAD, called repeal an “attack” on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, because “the internet is a lifeline for LGBTQ people to build community support networks and access LGBTQ resources on history, suicide prevention, and health.”

The group added that “allowing broadband providers to regulate access is a direct and unconscionable attack on freedom of expression.”

5. Feminist lawyer Sandra Fluke called repeal an attack on “reproductive freedom,” citing the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, or NARAL.

6. Senate Democrats warned that repealing the rules would mean extremely slow internet speeds.

7. Singer, entertainer, and apparent tech expert Cher said Comcast and Google would limit what consumers may see online.

 

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