User blog:Athena Hawkins/Save Net Neutrality 2

Last July, I made a blog about how net neutrality in the United States was being threatened by FCC chairman Ajit Pai, and they're supposed to unveil a plan soon that would roll back net neutrality. If you aren't aware, "net neutrality" is the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites. (thanks, Google). The net neutrality rules prohibit Internet providers from blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization ("fast lanes" for sites that pay, and slow lanes for everyone else). Unfortunately, companies like Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable are looking forward to having net neutrality rules slashed, and really badly want those fast lanes.

If you understand and depend on the Internet, then you have little reason to oppose net neutrality. Without it, you will be paying more than necessary to use the Internet and many websites won't be able to afford to get out of the slow lane, and only the greedy ISPs will be gaining anything from this. While this is supposed to mostly affect Americans, outsiders may be affected by America-based sites that throttle (slow down) constantly. What I mean is that the whole world may be strongly affected if America ends up having its net neutrality slashed, which can result in some potential chaos as many American companies rely on internet service and having that taken away from them can cause some serious economy damage -- or at least it looks that way to me.

Under our current government, our chances of victory are slimmer than ever for net neutrality, and there is a lot of opposition to it from our various American politicians. Call up your members of Congress if they are against net neutrality, and get in contact with the ones that haven't given a stance on it yet. Everyone's communication is important here -- just because you are one individual does not mean you can't do great things. Please consider giving all this a shot, especially if you're American and especially if you love using the internet. The new vote to end net neutrality will be held around the holiday season, which was probably done in order to take advantage of the busy Christmas scene. This means you have a little over a month to do something.

There's a site about this stuff: battleforthenet.com, which I've used to word some of the sentences I've made in this blog. On it is plenty of information regarding net neutrality. If you want to show your resistance, copy off some of the banners and widgets and make this more publicly aware than ever. The more people that know, the more protesting there will be.

I can't promise that even with all this protesting that we'll truly make it somewhere, for our government has all the power it wants to slash things up anyway. But it can't hurt to try and persuade, and being totally hopeless won't lead us anywhere. Let's team up, friends, and try and see if we can keep net neutrality once again. If we've won before, we can win again, right...?

EDIT 1: On my older blog, a comment by SpicyJusticeLass accurately laid out what net neutrality really is and why it's so important. Give it a read in case I wasn't convincing enough.