On December 14, 2017, the FCC will be voting to extend or end Net Neutrality. I have had conversations with many of my loved ones about how significant this is. Some agree it should end, others say it needs to stay, but most don't care. This bothers me more than any other political, civil rights, or religious issue because the internet is the one place everyone has the freedom to say and find the info they want.
Let's start off with the basics. Internet Service Providers (ISP) like Verizon, Comcast, Charter etc. invested billions of dollars to build the hardware that runs our internet as we know today. This was an amazing achievement because it connected the world at speeds that we had never dreamed possible. Owning all this infrastructure, these corporations would like to control how they are used. Specifically, the speed at which you can see certain web pages over others. They would create a 'two-lane network' or a 'fast' lane and 'slow' lane. How does a site stay in the fast lane? You guessed it, by paying a "small" fee.
This makes total sense, they built it, they own it; they should be able to do with it what they want. This is where the heavy issue comes into play. If they can control the speeds at which we see something, they could make it take ten years for a single web page to load. This is very far-fetched but not outside the realm of possibility. They would be able to control the price amount to access the fast lane so then they could, in theory, raise it or lower it at their own discretion. Making it impossible for some web pages to exist.
Are you an avid Amazon shopper? Well, recently Walmart has been making a huge push to fight back against the online-supermarket. What if, Walmart paid all the ISP to redirect all Amazon traffic to Walmart?
Wells Fargo Mobile App all of a sudden isn't working on Android? Well Apple just paid ISP to block the data transfer. Excuse me, not 'block' but 'slow down' the data transfer.
What if...
BuzzFeed paid to shut down Odyssey?
MySpace paid to block Facebook?
Vine Revival has paid to shut down Instagram?
BitCoin transfers take 2.5 years to go through?
The Department of Motor Vehicles has no internet access, we're back to paper and pen filing?
This is theoretical, for now, but this is where we could head. I urge you to please CALL your state representatives. Not email, not donate money, rather get on the phone and use your voice!
This link will take you to the Eau Claire District Wisconsin State Reps and Senator. CALL CALL CALL CALL!!!!
This is a real danger to the informational age we have created.
