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SAVE NET NEUTRALITY!
How did you end up here, reading this post? Did you have trouble accessing this website? Of course not, because your provider offers you connection to the internet, which means unlimited access to everything out there, to every website in existence. You are in charge of your internet experience, you have absolute control and you consider this a given. Because you expect (and there is) Net Neutrality.
Net Neutrality is how the internet works. It means it is open and free, and no internet service provider is allowed to speed up, slow down or block any content, applications or websites.
Unfortunately, the Net Neutrality rules, formally adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the U.S.A. in 2015, under the pressure of millions of activists, are now being compromised by the new Trump’s Administration FCC chairman – a former lower of Verizon, a big provider company. He proposed an internet-killing plan back in May, FCC voted to let it proceed, and the final vote is due today, December the 14th. In the rest of the world, the fact that phone companies appear to provide some new kind of low-cost service for access to a specific set of websites, clearly showcases this is an international danger.
Why do we need Net Neutrality?
Because it means everyone has the right to freely communicate online; that ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are not allowed to block or discriminate against any kind of content or applications you want to access or use. Because it protects freedom of speech and equal chances to innovation, exploring new technologies and entrepreneurship. Net Neutrality is also vital for minorities, vulnerable communities, like people of color and members of the LGBTQ community, because it is the only medium to share their stories, to tell truths that mainstream media ignore, bypass or avoid, and to organize for racial and social justice.
Thanks to Net Neutrality, the internet also offers the opportunity for small companies, start-ups and entrepreneurs to launch their businesses, advertise, reach their customers, grow and innovate.
What would losing Net Neutrality mean?
ISPs would be allowed to charge extra fees for preferential treatment, creating this way a two-lane internet; faster for content companies that can afford it and slower for the rest. They could block or slow-down websites and content they don’t like, or applications that compete with their own products. They would have a say in who is heard and who is not, what company succeeds and what not. The internet would become a closed system, a platform that shuts out whoever doesn’t follow the rules of the cable and phone companies. The internet would not be open, fair, free – it would not be internet.
What happens next?
Internet users as well as independent supervisory authorities, who understand the dangers of this specific proposal and recognize this new tendency in the offered services of big providers, are fighting to keep Net Neutrality alive by signing petitions, contacting their representatives and taking the subject into public consultation.
The internet is a platform for free speech, an open market for innovation, and its gatekeepers, the ISPs, should continue to do just that: open you the door and letting you in. Giving them the opportunity to profit from this position, by deciding what you can see after you enter, would be like allowing your phone company decide who you are going to call. Let’s try and restrain them from this power.
Vote Here to Help Net Neutrality -> https://www.battleforthenet.com/