Back in May, you may have seen a viral video making its rounds on the internet. John Oliver once again took it upon himself to bring up the Net Neutrality debate again. And unfortunately, this time it might be a bit bigger than John Oliver initially predicted. But wait, before you go and say that there’s no point to this debate, let’s go over some of the facts, who’s for and against, and what may be in store for the internet.
First up, the reason why Oliver and many others decided to stick their nose back in the gofccyourself.com pot again. In a quick summary, the FCC is trying to move the governing of ISPs from Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 to Title I, which essentially gives ISPs more freedom to throttle the free internet.
Now while the FCC did suffer a DDoS attack shortly after Oliver went all Wicked Witch of the West of us, it wasn’t because the site was overflowed with comments. Rather quite the opposite, it was as if the DDoS was to prevent legitimate commenters to access the FCC comments page. The comments were such a problem that the FCC had actually made a date in which they discredited any and all comments entered before May 18th, which is when they were going to make a vote for or against this change.
This possible change of legislation has, of course, brought up a lot of complaints not only from the general public but from big companies such as Easy, Kickstarter, Mozilla, Reddit and Amazon. On July 12th, these companies and organizations such as the ACLU are creating an online protest to raise awareness of what the FCC is trying to do. “The FCC is endangering American’s access to a free and open web,” said Denelle Dixon, Mozilla’s child legal officer, “ The FCC is creating an Internet that benefits ISPs, not users.”
Image courtesy Mozilla
Not all companies are joining in on this protest, however. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings explained that net neutrality might already be a lost cause. “It’s not narrowly important to us because we’re big enough to get the deals we want.” He does believe however that smaller startups are going to be harmed if net neutrality goes away, and that it is in the ISPs “long-term interest” to respect net neutrality principles, but “The Trump FCC is going to unwind the rules no matter what anybody says.”
While people outside of the US might think this isn’t a problem, the issue is slowly creeping out to other countries as well. China already censors their internet to keep news away from the general public, and even Prime Minister Theresa May has refused to rule out censoring the internet. “I think what we need to do is see how we can regulate,” said Prime Minister Theresa May. While May didn’t give an explicit commitment that she condoned outright censoring, she had decided that she would “work with the companies” to help stop the widespread of fear and terror after the latest of the London Attacks.
So yeah, it’s not looking good for the internet out there. Hopefully, at some point, the cries of the masses will be heard.
Samantha Limberger
Sam is a GTA- based freelance Writer and Graphic Artist.While she's new to the tech world she's had the opportunity to write for various publications. She has spent 5 years of her life dedicated to making people laugh via her comic Let’s Ask Violet.Originally, Sam submitted a drawing of herself in a giant purple dinosaur costume terrorizing Toronto, but the editors realized that there is such a thing as "too awesome", and asked requested a normal photo instead.
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We are all about to find out what damage this is going to do to the internet.
This is true. I think it will all be known on the 14th of this month. The internet as we all know it right now, could change forever and it will all come down to the guy that worked for Verizon who is now making the calls.
This is already pretty scary stuff. I live in a rural area and can BARELY get an internet connection that is worthy enough to watch YouTube on. Putting this much power in the ISP’s is not going to expand internet, it will just freeze everything where it is and the prices are going to jump.
Things like this are sort of funny considering a few years ago, nobody really cared about net neutrality until it was explained that most of us would be shut off from the internet.
Everyone thinks this is no big deal, but they are going to be the first ones complaining when they cannot access a website they have had the freedom to access for all these years.
I get it, a very touchy subject, but something has to give in the way of the consumer. Don’t you think?
Still a very strong topic today. I cannot believe that we are going to allow ISP’s to control what we see and do online. They already control the amount of bandwidth we get, what is next?
For the masses, this is all confusing and seemingly unnecessary. But you know, the government and all that stuff, just getting in the way, or not, just to do so.
I hate thinking that this is going to be something that is “on the docket” for many more years to come. Going back and forth, changing with each president and things like that.
This is only going to be talked about until something else bigger comes a long. Then it will be swept under the rug and passed without anyone knowing.
This is all still really cloudy for me to understand. I am going to have to do more reading about it before I decide which side of the fence I am going to be on.
This has to be one of the most confusing things that I have ever learned about. I just cannot figure out why the ISP’s would have the power to limit anything when we are PAYING customers.
Would we stop and think about why the FCC would want to cater to the ISP’s? Doing so is just like any other company that shits on the loyal customers and helps those that fund the business or the company.
I never really thought about this that much, but now that it has been in the news a little more, I would like to read a little more about it.
I think most people are on the same page that you are. Not really thinking about it much until it is something that impacts their life.