What exactly does the Net Neutrality decision mean?
By Nico Kelly
December 15, 2017
By Nico Kelly
December 15, 2017
Net Neutrality is a hot-button issue surrounding the use of the Internet today. Although being important, many people that are tweeting about it have no idea what it actually is.
For those of you who are not familiar with what this term is, it’s essentially the first amendment which has been applied to the Internet. Whenever you are browsing the web, you want to be able to choose the content that you want to view and post what you want to post, whichever way you want to post it.
Everyone who uses the Internet has a preference for what content they want to browse and how they want to browse it. An example of this would be preference of search engines. If I like to use Google, and that guy from Everybody Loves Raymond likes to use Bing, we are each entitled to this preference and are allowed to use the search engine we like the most.
The ability for equally regulated use of browsers and any other website is credited to the United States’ net neutrality laws, particularly Title II. Title II was a legal foundation that the FCC passed under the Obama Administration in 2015 which blocked big corporations from tinkering with our Internet experience. This allows Raymond and me to choose which search engine we prefer.
If net neutrality didn’t exist, then large corporations like Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T would have more of an influence over our choices. If there were no net neutrality laws, then our Internet provider would be allowed to sway the way we both like to use the Internet and say that we should use Google. They could make it our homepage and even slow down Bing’s service speed on our computers.
Why would any corporation want to do this to us? Money. If Google wants to become the most-used search engine, they could pay off Internet providers to attempt to make us use it. After Obama and the FCC passed Title II, this hypothetical situation was banned.
It seems just, doesn’t it? As consumers, we should all be allowed to use whichever Internet server we want and not be swayed by corporations.
Until recently, this this principle seemed to be resolved and agreed upon by the government and Internet users alike. That was until President Donald Trump and his cabinet attempted to violate it and restrict the neutrality laws. This has caused a backlash in the Internet community who demand equality amongst the Internet and freedom of choice without corporate intervention.
So, is net neutrality important? Absolutely. Should the current policies be revoked? Absolutely not. But, the FCC decision is likely to face challenges in court, and several lawmakers would like congress to address the issue. So, as always, people on Twitter are blowing this issue out of proportion. You can all rest assured that nobody is going to break the Internet.
For those of you who are not familiar with what this term is, it’s essentially the first amendment which has been applied to the Internet. Whenever you are browsing the web, you want to be able to choose the content that you want to view and post what you want to post, whichever way you want to post it.
Everyone who uses the Internet has a preference for what content they want to browse and how they want to browse it. An example of this would be preference of search engines. If I like to use Google, and that guy from Everybody Loves Raymond likes to use Bing, we are each entitled to this preference and are allowed to use the search engine we like the most.
The ability for equally regulated use of browsers and any other website is credited to the United States’ net neutrality laws, particularly Title II. Title II was a legal foundation that the FCC passed under the Obama Administration in 2015 which blocked big corporations from tinkering with our Internet experience. This allows Raymond and me to choose which search engine we prefer.
If net neutrality didn’t exist, then large corporations like Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T would have more of an influence over our choices. If there were no net neutrality laws, then our Internet provider would be allowed to sway the way we both like to use the Internet and say that we should use Google. They could make it our homepage and even slow down Bing’s service speed on our computers.
Why would any corporation want to do this to us? Money. If Google wants to become the most-used search engine, they could pay off Internet providers to attempt to make us use it. After Obama and the FCC passed Title II, this hypothetical situation was banned.
It seems just, doesn’t it? As consumers, we should all be allowed to use whichever Internet server we want and not be swayed by corporations.
Until recently, this this principle seemed to be resolved and agreed upon by the government and Internet users alike. That was until President Donald Trump and his cabinet attempted to violate it and restrict the neutrality laws. This has caused a backlash in the Internet community who demand equality amongst the Internet and freedom of choice without corporate intervention.
So, is net neutrality important? Absolutely. Should the current policies be revoked? Absolutely not. But, the FCC decision is likely to face challenges in court, and several lawmakers would like congress to address the issue. So, as always, people on Twitter are blowing this issue out of proportion. You can all rest assured that nobody is going to break the Internet.