Net neutrality, you have all heard of it in the news and if you have not you’ve seen some people tweeting about it on Twitter. What is it, and why does it matter?

Well first of all, net neutrality keeps big companies from using their money to influence the internet providers to control what sites they speed up, block, or slow down; net neutrality gives us our right to explore the internet as we please and gives us the right to express our opinion on social media.

In 2015, the FCC passed a law that keeps big companies from interfering with the internet we have come to know and rely on, and the only reason those laws were passed was because of activists, millions of them who spoke their piece about net neutrality.

The internet we have come to love and rely on is about to be gone, soon the big companies are going to be able to control what we do on the internet because on December 14, 2017 the FCC voted 3-2 in favor of getting rid of net neutrality. Some are calling on congress to overturn the vote.

Without these laws, internet providers can control what we see and look at on the internet, they can even influence what news we see (including politics) if they don’t agree with what is being shared. It's also possible that they could slow down or block sites that promote activism.

Net neutrality matters because without it you probably wouldn’t be able to read this article or express your opinion on social media, or possibly even lookup political topics on the internet. Some news sites would even be blocked because your internet provider might not agree with their political opinion.

But other than what you look up, or watch, it affects businesses because big companies will be able to take even more business from small businesses than they already have because small businesses will not be able to pay the fees to advertise their products.

Right now, Congress has the power to overturn the FCC’s vote, and there are activists urging people to call their lawmakers to do the right thing, which is to overturn the vote and restore net neutrality. People have always used the internet to speak their voice and know about what is going on in the country.

Do not let the government take that away from you, call your representatives and urge them to overturn the vote; urge them to do what is right and let us keep our internet. I urge you to call your representatives, tweet about it, post about it, speak your voice and protest because nothing has ever happened by just sitting there and watching what comes next.

Use your voice, God gave it to you for a reason, so use it to tell people that don’t know about net neutrality that it’s going to be taken.