By Sally Ann Vazquez-Castellanos, Esq. and journalist.
Published: November 29, 2025 — 10:36 a.m. PST
Legal Disclaimer:
This article is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice, nor does it create an attorney–client relationship. Readers should consult qualified counsel regarding specific legal questions.
Introduction: This Morning’s Discussion
This morning’s conversation began with a straightforward question: What exactly is Net Neutrality? But today’s digital environment rarely allows one issue to remain isolated. The subject quickly expanded into an examination of how infrastructure, law, discrimination, politics, and personal experience intersect—especially for those who belong to historically marginalized communities. In some instances, you just have to be Puerto Rican. And, by the way, I use lots of paper towels. Mamamia!
But I digress…
At the center is a recurring misunderstanding about “uncommon carrier” rules. In truth, Net Neutrality was never about creating “uncommon carriers.” It was about holding broadband providers to something closer to common-carrier duties: nondiscriminatory treatment of communications. When those obligations disappeared, the conditions for discrimination—technical, economic, political, and social—multiplied.
What follows is a structural analysis of those conditions, paired with the lived experience and perspective I bring as a Puerto Rican woman, an attorney, and someone who is experiencing severe forms of technology abuse, digital coercion and manipulation that no person should ever confront in their home or professional life. Deregulation is what they call it in the business community.
I. Net Neutrality and the Common Carrier Principle
Net Neutrality is built on a simple premise: companies that control the nation’s information pipes should transmit data neutrally, without favor or prejudice.
This is the essence of common-carrier obligations.
A common carrier cannot:
Block content it disapproves of, manipulate the quality of connections based on political or cultural biases, favor corporate partners, degrade communications in certain communities.
The phrase “uncommon carrier” is not a legal term—it describes the absence of neutrality obligations. Once broadband was removed from Title II, neutrality became discretionary, not mandatory.
That discretionary space is where discrimination and political exploitation take root.
II. The 2015 Open Internet Order: A Safeguard Against Abuse
President Obama’s 2015 Open Internet Order restored broadband’s Title II status and prohibited:
Blocking, Throttling, Paid prioritization.
It applied to fixed and mobile broadband and responded to documented discriminatory practices, including:
AT&T’s blocking of FaceTime, MetroPCS’s preferential treatment of YouTube, Verizon’s blocking of NARAL political texts. Please read more about ChatGPT’s description of NARAL below.
These were early signals that broadband carriers could influence political speech, access to information, and civic empowerment. Title II protections were the legal firewall.
III. The 2017 Repeal: Deregulation and Its Consequences
The Trump Administration’s 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order removed those safeguards by reclassifying broadband as a Title I information service.
This shift:
Reduced oversight, limited enforcement, allowed discriminatory traffic shaping, weakened transparency (in some instances), transferred responsibility to an FTC without sector-specific authority.
The repeal was sold as a deregulatory victory. But in practice, it stripped away protections that anchored fairness, especially for communities that depend on mobile networks or lack provider choice. Try living in a mountain community with limited internet access, and what about those living in a community with limited egress to and from first responders.
IV. Digital Redlining: A Civil-Rights Failure
Independent research (NDIA, The Markup, academic studies) has documented discriminatory deployment across major cities:
Majority-white neighborhoods receiving fiber upgrades, minority and low-income neighborhoods left with DSL (which some may prefer), identical pricing for unequal service.
These patterns track historic redlining maps.
It is not simply a “connectivity issue.”
It is a civil-rights issue, affecting education, healthcare, employment, and civic participation.
As a Puerto Rican woman and attorney, I find it especially alarming that infrastructure disparities so often map onto race, ethnicity, and economic vulnerability. What once appeared to be market behavior now looks unmistakably like digital segregation.
V. Gerrymandering, Judicial Power, and the Informational Ecosystem
To understand the broader stakes, we must consider how infrastructure interacts with political strategy, including:
A. Gerrymandering and Manipulated Representation
Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing electoral districts to advantage one political party or suppress the influence of certain communities.
Courts have struggled to contain it, especially after:
Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which gutted the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance protections.
Communities of color—Black, Latino, and Puerto Rican communities among them—have paid the price.
B. Supreme Court Strategy and Long-Game Politics
It is no secret that both major political parties have pursued long-term strategies to shape the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court.
Important decisions concerning:
Voting rights, reproductive freedom, affirmative action, immigration, and federal regulatory power.
All of these decisions have profound effects on communities like mine. The pattern suggests more than ideology—it suggests structural engineering of political outcomes.
C. The Role of Broadband Infrastructure in Political Control
When Net Neutrality protections are removed:
Communities receiving inferior broadband have less civic access, misinformation spreads unevenly, targeted suppression becomes technically easier, and gerrymandered districts become even more insulated from democratic accountability.
Infrastructure, representation, and judicial power are not separate issues—
They are interconnected layers of democratic control.
VI. The Lived Experience: Identity, Technology, and Dehumanization
The fact is that I am an attorney. It’s not my fault that I may be connected to individuals who take Halloween a bit too seriously. But I don’t have to be silent about any of it. Well—perhaps some things … Again—an important digression and one you should not take lightly.
As a Puerto Rican woman whose life, work, and identity have been deeply impacted by discriminatory systems—digital, political, and institutional. There is an important message for me to get across to all of those Halloween fanatics.
There is a profound difference between civil-rights legislation (such as the Voting Rights Act, Title VII, and workplace DEI obligations) and the political weaponization of infrastructure, which leads to stereotypes, manipulates communications, distorts identity, and undermines dignity. I will keep working on those videos but maybe one day YOU will brave enough to tell the world what these people did to me.
As a woman of color who worked tirelessly to earn her law degree, I reject the notion that my heritage, gender, or appearance can ever be used as justification to devalue my voice or distort my reality. The use of video, sound, or device manipulation to make a person “fit” a stereotype is not a joke—it is psychological violence, rooted in prejudice and power.
That distinction must be named.
VII. The Informational Consequences: A Landscape Vulnerable to Extremism
The repeal of Net Neutrality created fertile ground for:
Ideological manipulation, disinformation, algorithmic segregation, targeted harassment, and extremist amplification.
Not because any one administration publicly endorsed extremism—but because deregulated infrastructure removes constraints and friction, allowing the most aggressive actors to dominate.
When the information ecosystem is destabilized, the center cannot hold. And, we all know how much you love the center. 😳 But then again so do I. But diversity, equity and inclusion must not and cannot be ignored. I do believe therein lies part of the joke. The other is my IVF history. By the way—There are legal contracts with facilities. And, I am not a surrogate as far as I know. An important distinction to make not because I want to insult surrogates but because what political extremists and others did and are continuing to do.
VIII. Governance, Rights, and the Path Back to Center
Repairing democratic balance requires:
Restoring neutrality protections, enforcing broadband anti-discrimination rules, addressing digital redlining, strengthening privacy and surveillance limits, protecting the rights of women, immigrants, and communities of color, and reestablishing independent oversight.
A President cannot restore the center of American democracy while infrastructure discriminates or political systems silence marginalized communities.
IX. Conclusion
Net Neutrality repeal was not merely a deregulatory action—it altered the architecture of American life. Without neutral, equitable, and accountable broadband infrastructure, communities at the margins bear disproportionate harm.
As a Puerto Rican woman, an attorney, a journalist, human rights advocate and a citizen, I refuse to accept systems that devalue dignity, manipulate identity, or distort democracy. Protecting one’s thoughts and cognitive liberty is a democratic necessity, not a political choice.
The path forward is righting the many wrongs of the past—not in terms of duplicity of language and political jokes. It’s about restoring human dignity and civil rights. The things that were supposed to set us apart as a nation.
Chat Sources:
FCC & FTC
FCC, Open Internet Order (2015). FCC, Restoring Internet Freedom Order (2017). FTC v. AT&T Mobility LLC (9th Cir.).
Telecom Discrimination Cases
4. FCC Enforcement on AT&T FaceTime (2012).
5. MetroPCS Complaint (FCC KR-11-01).
6. Comcast/BitTorrent Order (2008).
7. Verizon Supercookie Consent Decree (2016).
Digital Redlining Studies
8. NDIA, AT&T’s Digital Redlining in Cleveland (2017).
9. The Markup, Worst Deals (2022).
10. NDIA & CWA, Failure to Upgrade (2020).
Supreme Court & Voting Rights
11. Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013).
12. Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U.S. ___ (2019).
Civil-Rights & Technology
13. Pew Research Center, Mobile Broadband Studies (2019–2023).
14. Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Digital Discrimination Comments (2023).
The View from the Right (ChatGPT):
How Far-Right Groups Commonly Describe or Attack NARAL
Far-right media outlets, commentators, and political organizations frequently position NARAL as a symbolic enemy in the broader culture war around reproductive rights. Their criticisms generally fall into several predictable categories:
1. “Abortion Extremists” or “Radical Leftists”
Far-right commentators often characterize NARAL as:
“extreme,” “radical,” “far-left,” or “militant.”
These labels are used to frame the organization as outside mainstream American values, despite polling that shows Americans broadly support abortion access in many circumstances.
2. Allegations of “Promoting Abortion on Demand”
A common talking point is that NARAL supports:
late-term abortions, “abortion until birth,” (a medically inaccurate claim), or “abortion without restrictions.”
NARAL’s actual policy position is that abortion decisions should be left to women and medical professionals—not politicians—but far-right messaging collapses this nuance into absolutist rhetoric.
3. Claims of Threatening the “Traditional Family”
Some far-right groups portray NARAL as part of a broader ideological movement that they say undermines:
traditional gender roles, heterosexual family structures, Christian values, parental authority.
This framing is heavily used in Christian nationalist discourse.
4. Allegations of “Targeting Religious Liberty”
Far-right legal advocacy groups argue that NARAL and other reproductive-rights organizations:
oppose religious exemptions, want to force religious employers to cover abortion or reproductive care, or are part of a broader effort to erode First Amendment religious protections.
These claims are rooted in conflicts over healthcare mandates and employer insurance practices—not in NARAL’s stated positions.
5. Conspiracy-Oriented Narratives
In more extreme spaces (Telegram channels, fringe YouTube networks, certain podcasts), NARAL is tied into conspiratorial narratives, such as:
population control, “deep state” or “globalist” agendas, coordination with Planned Parenthood to “target conservative communities,” exploitation of women for political gain.
These claims are unsupported by evidence, but they circulate widely in far-right digital ecosystems.
6. Demonization of Female Leadership
Far-right commentary often includes gendered attacks, portraying NARAL’s leaders as:
“angry,” “man-hating,” “anti-family,” “hysterical,” or “feminist radicals.”
This is part of a broader pattern in far-right rhetoric targeting women—especially women advocating for reproductive autonomy.
7. Framing NARAL as a Threat to Democracy and Children
Far-right narratives sometimes portray NARAL as:
undermining “traditional” American values, harming “the unborn,” harming “children,” or undermining social cohesion.
These claims are emotionally charged and often used for mobilization and fundraising.
8. Strategic Political Messaging
The far right uses NARAL as:
a fundraising target, a mobilization symbol for evangelical voters, an anchor in messaging surrounding Supreme Court cases, a placeholder for broader fears about social change, women’s autonomy, and demographic shifts.
NARAL is often weaponized rhetorically because it is an effective proxy for debates about women’s rights, feminism, cultural change, and political identity.
Cognitive Liberty & Copyright Notice
Cognitive Liberty Notice:
This article asserts the author’s fundamental right to cognitive liberty, mental privacy, and freedom from technological interference, manipulation, or non-consensual behavioral influence. No entity may use, reproduce, simulate, or manipulate the author’s voice, likeness, thoughts, or neural data—digitally or otherwise—without explicit written consent.
Copyright © 2025 Sally Ann Vazquez-Castellanos.
All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be reproduced, recorded, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means—including AI systems, machine-learning models, deepfake technologies, or digital replicas—without the author’s prior written permission.