Estimated reading time: 4 minutes. Contains ~700 words. Calculated using Read-o-Meter. Originally posted on the 7th December 2017
こんにちは, reader.
14th of December 2017 will be an important day for the internet. In just one week the US could abolish a rule which is one of the most important rules of the internet. Net neutrality. I'm sure some people are sick and tired of hearing about this; I don't care. It is essential for this to stay in place so that the internet can function the way it does today. If you don't know what net neutrality is then read the link above or just stop reading here. If you can't be bothered to enlighten yourself with the freely available knowledge then you will lose the right to do so.
I live in the UK, so the threat of the US losing net neutrality is not a huge issue here. However, I realise that any law the US passes the UK probably won't be too far behind. That's why I care about the vote. A friend of mine, who is studying Computer Science at University level, had this to say about the threat of losing net neutrality:
"...I think the US will abolish [net neutrality] and [the UK] won't be far behind with a vote. For me the added costs isn't the worst thing, it's the huge potential for political manipulation and removing freedom of speech. At the very worst, if ISPs side with the Republicans for their [net neutrality] decision, then ISPs could throttle Democratic websites and anti-Republican articles so a lot of people don't wait for loading and those who wait are left with a subconscious bad taste that becomes associated with the other political side. Then the outright blocking happens and small websites go under and everyone is essentially brainwashed..."
Next week the people of the internet will wait in tension in the threat of losing the internet as we know it today. If net neutrality is abolished, ISPs will have the ability to, say, throttle your bandwidth for streaming videos. Or they could charge you a premium to access free services such as Steam, or DuckDuckGo, or Instant Messaging services. This isn't right. These people should not have the power to do this. The FCC hides behind the idea that this will increase competition in the market, I say it's just the FCC getting cozy with the businesses and corporations such as AT&T and Verizon to get them more money. It's disgusting. These people already have enough money. It's obvious that the FCC doesn't care enough about openness and freedom to allow net neutrality.
"The new chairman of the FCC was a top lawyer at Verizon. And now he's calling for a vote to kill net neutrality, as a gift to his former employer... They are Team Cable. They want to end net neutrality, to control & tax the Internet."
Look at it this way. Allowing ISPs to charge you more for visiting certain site is like allowing your electrical provider to charge you more to use certain appliances. You could have your basic service in which you could only turn on the lights and nothing else, a plus service to allow you to use kettles and microwaves and finally have a premium service to use a TV or a computer. This just isn't fair, and abolishing net neutrality will result in the Internet being charged like this. You would have your basic service which allows you access Wikipedia or a search engine, then a plus service to use social media and finally a premium service to allow you to stream video or call someone. ISPs are already charging enough for a decent Internet connection, and to get any faster you need to pay a stupidly high subscription fee.
Do you think this is fair? I don't. The whole point of the Internet is the freedom of information, and the ability to contact others and share great things. To lose this would be a backward movement in human progress. A lot of conventional services have already been digitised and put on the Internet. To abolish net neutrality would make accessing these services very difficult or very expensive.
I guess this was a short article compared to my previous two, but net neutrality is an important thing and everyone should care. If you don't care about the ability to freely access any website, that right will be taken away from you: if you don't care about free speach, it will be taken away from you.
Some websites to help you in the fight:
Net neutrality and browsing historyGO TEAM INTERNET ☕🌐
Originally posted on my blog at WordPress
My problem with net neutrality is that we still see huge censorship on the internet even with it in place. I would replace it with something better.
Indeed, this is sad. You can try to get around it with VPNs, but at the end of the day the greedy corporations and corrupt governments will win.
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