FCC Chairman takes on net neutrality critics including Cher and Hulk

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai defended his plan to overturn net neutrality rules Tuesday, taking on his opponents including Cher, Alyssa Milano and Mark Ruffalo, who plays Hulk in the Marvel movies.

Pai, speaking at the National Union Building in Washington, D.C., said he wanted "to cut through the hysteria and hot air and speak ...  in plain terms about the plan."

The plan, released last week, would overturn rules passed two years ago by a Democrat-controlled FCC, that prohibited Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or giving preference to broadband content.

The new rules, expected to be voted on Dec. 14, would require ISPs to disclose any blocking or prioritization of their own content or from their partners.

The new proposal also rolls back an "Internet Conduct Standard" intended protect consumers. States are also prohibited from enacting their own laws that would conflict with the FCC regulations.

More:What's at stake with the FCC's net neutrality vote

More:After net neutrality: How to tell if your ISP is slowing your Internet

At its core, Pai's proposal would reverse the 2015 rules' reliance on Title II of the Communications Act and to instead apply "light-touch" regulation under Title I of the same act. That move would restore the underpinnings that led to an Internet boom, he says. "The plan will bring back the same framework that governed the Internet for most of its existence."

Noting that many celebrities had used social media to encourage protests against the vote, Pai took time to respond to them during an event held by the free-market and conservative tech think tanks the R Street Institute and the Lincoln Network

First, he tackled criticism from The Big Sick and Silicon Valley actor Kumail Nanjiani that "ending Title II utility-style regulation will mean the end of the Internet as we know it."

Instead, Pai said, the new rules are "not a completely hands-off approach.  We aren’t giving anybody a free pass.  We are simply shifting from one-size-fits-all pre-emptive regulation to targeted enforcement based on actual market failure or anticompetitive conduct."

Then the chairman refuted singer Cher, who had argued that the plan will shut some Americans out of broadband service. 

Pai used a line from one of the iconic singer's own tunes to argue the current regulations are the problem, hindering the growth of smaller broadband providers.

"By turning back time, so to speak, and returning Internet regulation to the pre-2015 era, we will expand broadband networks and bring high-speed Internet access to more Americans, not fewer," he said.  

The chairman also tackled the online opinions of actor Mark Ruffalo, who portrays the Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok and other Marvel films. Ruffalo had tweeted that "Taking away #NetNeutrality is the Authoritarian dream.  Consolidating information in the hands of a few controlled by a few.  Dangerous territory.”

Pai quipped that "I will confess when I saw this tweet I was tempted to just say “Hulk . . . wrong” and move on.  But I’ve seen similar points made elsewhere, including in one e-mail asking:  'Do you really want to be the man who was responsible for making America another North Korea?'”

The suggestions are absurd, Pai said. "Getting rid of government authority over the Internet is the exact opposite of authoritarianism."

And addressing actress Alyssa Milano's recent tweet that the rollback of the 2015 rules represents a threat to democracy, Pai said, "I’m threatening our democracy?  Really? I’d like to see the evidence that America’s democratic institutions were threatened by a Title I framework, as opposed to a Title II framework, during the Clinton Administration, the Bush Administration, and the first six years of the Obama Administration."

The current rules put a larger burden on ISPs than on online providers such as Twitter, which he noted "has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate," in the case of Rep. Marsha Blackburn's online political video which Twitter blocked for its "inflammatory statement" about her efforts to block the sale of fetal tissue.

"We have no business picking winners and losers in the marketplace," he said. 

Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter:@MikeSnider.