I’d like to take a moment and share a post about net neutrality. This affects this website and all others you may visit everyday.
On December 14th the FCC will vote to end Net Neutrality rules that are already in place ending protections against ISP’s blocking, slowing or charging for access to certain websites or types of media.
This is a huge loss for consumers and goes against the wishes and comments of millions of Americans who commented on this proposed rule change. The FCC has publicly said they are going to make the change regardless of the wishes of American citizens! Public comment to the FCC was overwhelming in support of keeping the current rules however Chainman Pai of the FCC who is a telecommunications lobbyist has stated he is making the changes regardless of how many comments are against it. This isn’t how a Government for the people by the people works! Literally the only people who want this rule change are the 3 big ISP’s Comcast, Verizon and AT&T. Google, Netflix, Facebook, Reddit, Amazon, millions of Americans and every other internet business are against the change.
Taxpayers funded the development of the infrastructure and creation of the internet and now companies like comcast want you to pay more for something you already paid for. In some cases these companies took taxpayer money with the promise to build out their infrastructure and did nothing with that money.
When the current rules are repealed here’s what can happen to you the consumer. Your internet provider will be able to throttle your connection to certain websites while giving you full access to others that can afford to pay for full access or are owned by your ISP. This hurts small companies and competitors of your ISP. Say you use netflix but Comcast has their own streaming service. They could demand a payment to offer the same connection speed to netflix as their own service while not charging for access to their service. You the end user looses out because that extra payment is going to trickle down to you or you will no longer have usable access to Netflix or Hulu or whatever streaming video site you use. Comcast has been loosing cable subscribers at a record pace and you better believe they will go after streaming video services as soon as the current net neutrality rules are changed in an effort to force people back to cable TV service.
ISPs will be able to block access to websites and services they don’t agree with or are against their business model. This limits your ability to access information in a world where everyone is dependant on the internet. Our children use the internet for school research, we use it for everything from online banking to shopping. Think how much of your life is dependant on accessing any website at anytime. That can and will change. We will see ISPs offer “packages” and add on costs to access websites. These “packages” will be at their choosing. Regardless of your political views you should be concerned about any restrictions or blocking of websites and information sources in an age where most Americans get their news online.
You may be thinking all of this is ok, I will just change my ISP if something like this happens. Truth is most Americans only have access to one ISP and have no option to change if they needed to or wanted to. You are held captive by one company that is about to be able to charge you and content providers whatever they want for access to the internet. The current rules protect you from this!
You can help fight these changes by doing a couple of things:
Call AND write your representatives in Congress and let them know you are firmly against the FCC proposed rules that hurt Americans and voters.
https://www.battleforthenet.com/
Donate to the people that have been fighting this all along. The EFF @ eff.org, Freepress.net and battleforthenet.com
Attend a planned protest in Washington DC on Dec 14th in front of the FCC building to have your voice heard.
Read this CBS article describing what the changes may mean to you.https://www.cbsnews.com/…/fcc-net-neutrality-rollback-what…/