Another Fucking Article About Net Neutrality – The People WANT a Free Internet, Dammit!
Even though the FCC decided to gut net neutrality and completely ignore what the people want, despite the many, many protests people have done, the US Senate is holding a vote to block the repeal of net neutrality and keep things as they are, a place where Internet Service Providers can’t slow down traffic as they please. This Senate repeal has been building up for ages as people have been trying to convince a handful of senators for a while, to get those 51 votes to pass. And some time in May, this vote is going to actually happen. We the people have to pressure US representatives into doing the right thing. And apparently they only need one more vote, according to Battle for the Net.
The whole point of Net Neutrality is kinda simple. All internet traffic must be treated the same.
John Oliver did a great video about Net Neutrality and honestly he does a better job explaining it than I can ever do. Or you could read the other article I wrote about this. Or this one. Or this one. I’m pretty sure I linked the John Oliver video in some of them too.
I like John Oliver and Last Week Tonight. It’s a good show. Yeah, it’s probably a bit biased but everything is biased in some way.
If you say “Nah, corporations won’t slow down our internet, they’ll make fast lanes!” do you really believe that? They won’t make fast lanes. Because that would involve spending money on upgrading their systems. Why do that when they can just make everyone else’s connections slower. Come on, use your brains. Corporations want this, they love to nickel and dime their customers. Internet Service Providers are more corporations, ones that have less and less competition between each other, and at the end of the day they just want to make as much money as possible.
This isn’t even a real problem for big companies like Google. They could probably pay ISPs to do whatever they want. But roadblocks and slower traffic could hurt new start-up companies. It’s bad for competition, and if you like capitalism, then you want lots of competition!
This isn’t just a US thing either. A huge number of websites are hosted in the US even if they serve non-American companies. Why should they risk their traffic being altered or having potential customers driven away because ISPs say so?
It’s not just money either. You start creating slow lanes and messing with internet traffic, you can use that to block websites you don’t like, or give fast lanes to websites and media you do like. An ISP could say “oh I hate the New York Times and the Guardian but I love Fox News, so all traffic to the former will be slowed down!” Without Net Neutrality, there’s little stopping them from doing that.
What can you do?
Well, if you’re in the USA, you can talk to your representatives. If they’re for net neutrality, you can give them your support. If they’re not, you can try and change their minds, as long as you’re not rude. There’s a handy little contact form of sorts on the Battle for the Net website, and you can find your senator at the top of this page. It’s always good to know who represents you anyway. You can also find your representatives in the House here. Might be useful later on if for some reason this goes to the House of Representatives for any reason.
If you’re not American… well, all that’s left is to spread this about. I’m sure some of us readers have American friends who don’t know about this or don’t understand Net Neutrality or something like that. Raising awareness is important too!
Yes, I know the Battle for the Net website is tacky and kinda annoying, but sometimes that’s what’s needed to drive things home.