What is Net Neutrality and why does it matter?
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What is Net Neutrality And Why Does it Matter?

If you have no idea what net neutrality is or why you should care about it, please skip whatever else I’ve written after this sentence and just watch the video I’ve embedded here. It’s short and sweet, and by sweet I mean infuriating and important. Net neutrality is the way the Internet has operated since the beginning—a democratic system without gatekeepers dictating what sites you can visit.

Next month the United States’ Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is voting on a proposal to destroy net neutrality which will give companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T the ability to censor and throttle access to the Internet in ways that only benefit them. These internet service providers will be able to decide what sites people visit; which sites run fast, which sites run slow, and which sites to block altogether. Americans will be forced into a tiered system and many websites will be inaccessible from the lower/cheaper tiers.

As most of our readership is based in the United States, a large portion of our audience not being able to access our site will make it a lot harder for us to survive. The death of net neutrality will undoubtedly mean the death of many independent websites and platforms! I could go off on a whole rant here, but watch the video below if you haven’t already and if you want to prevent any of this stuff from happening, please visit BattleForTheNet.com – you can send a pre-written electronic letter to congress (literally takes 20 seconds).

FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel just wrote an Op-Ed piece for the LA Times titled “I’m on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality” and in the article she says “There is something not right about a few unelected FCC officials making such vast determinations about the future of the internet. I’m not alone in thinking this.” This is someone actually on the FCC saying this!

She ends the article saying, “I think the FCC needs to work for the public, and therefore that this proposal needs to be slowed down and eventually stopped. In the time before the agency votes, anyone who agrees should do something old-fashioned: Make a ruckus. Reach out to the rest of the FCC now. Tell them they can’t take away internet openness without a fight.”

Lets make a ruckus! Tell everyone you know what’s happening! Three weeks from now it will be too late!

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