This November, the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) began considering a repeal of net neutrality. If you don’t know what net neutrality is, it is basically forcing internet providers to let consumers have equal access to websites, and that no discrimination is allowed. But what does this mean for us consumers?
In our society, the internet is like water to us. Though we do not need it to survive physically, in our capitalistic society, it is essential. We are expected to use it for important activities like work, school, marketing, and other means, and with that, we have our entertainment, news sources, and whatever else the internet reveals. But what does this mean for us?
Net Neutrality was originally put in place by the Obama Administration so that the internet providers (such as Comcast, Verizon, etc.) cannot block, slow down or charge you more for trying to access certain sites they may not like. If net neutrality were repealed, it could change the way you view the internet. Internet providers would be allowed to choose what we can and cannot use.
If this repeal of net neutrality is successful, internet providers would have the power to control what we see, or we could even lose a lot of the sites we are able to access. This can also hurt many small companies. The internet is a tool, not only for work, but also for creative individuals to possibly be able to change and better the web.
Think about Facebook for example. Mark Zuckerberg launched the site back when he was 20 years old as a communication platform among students at Harvard University, and today, it is one of the most well-known and popular websites used in our society today. It has helped small businesses establish themselves and grow a huge communication platform from talking to friends or family from outside of the country, or communicating with another student in your class. It started out as something small, and look what it has brought to our society today.
What scares me most is seeing our society take steps backward after moving forward. A backwards society, if you will. Slowly, the people of our society are losing more and more rights as we try to progress in a timely manner. How can we claim to be a progressive society that takes steps backward? After working so hard to allow an individual to be “free,” we are now losing more and more of the rights we once had. Our rights are becoming more and more controlled.
As our world moves in this direction, it’s important to learn about what is happening in our contemporary society. Seeing what we as citizens can do to stop the bigger companies from thinking that they know what is “best” for us. In a democracy, us citizens should have an option to voice what we believe is best for our country.
