from executive producer isaac saul this is tangle good morning good, and good evening.

And welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum,

some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take.

I'm your host, senior editor, Will Kayback.

Today's episode is the third piece in an ongoing series that we've dubbed whatever happened to blank. Modern news cycles routinely highlight emerging stories with warnings of dire consequences

or large societal shifts, but just as often, those stories fade away without a clear

conclusion or follow-up.

As part of Tangle's efforts to model more constructive journalism,

we've launched this series as a way to shed light on those big stories that we've forgotten about,

and to explore why the media's initial coverage didn't match up with the eventual outcome.

Our first two pieces covered the 2022 baby formula shortage and the 2023 forecast of the Great Salt

Lakes imminent collapse. Today, we're covering the 2017 repeal of net neutrality.

As always, we'd love to hear what you think about this story

and this series, as well as your ideas for future installments. With that, let's get into

today's piece. The End of the Internet as We Know It. In 2017, a ferocious debate broke out across the United States,

spanning social media, print and television news, late-night comedy shows, and the halls of Congress.

At stake, according to some, was the future of the Internet.

That future looked increasingly bleak as the year waned. The fight centered on net neutrality, the idea that all internet traffic should be

treated equally by internet service providers, ISPs. That means no blocking access to websites that an

ISP might not like, no intentionally slowing

downsides, and no offering fast lanes to companies that could pay for them.

Under President Barack Obama, the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, reclassified

...