Net Neutrality--What it is and Why it's Key for Our Internet Experience

picture from aclu.org

When browsing on your favorite site or even reading this blog you expect to get to where you want to go or view the content you want to view with little to no limitations right? What if that wasn’t case? More so, what if it wasn’t allowed? How would you feel if your internet experience was altered by a third party service provider that got in the way by blocking or slowing down the content you view? This doesn’t happen to us now because of Net Neutrality but what happens if Net Neutrality is taken away? President Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman, Ajit Pai is looking to diminish the idea of Net Neutrality and the odds are being weighed and has the possibility of winning.

In this post I’m going to talk about all things covering this issue, why it’s important, and my personal thoughts on the matter.

picture from battleforthenet.com

First off let’s talk about what Net Neutrality is and why it’s key for our best internet experience. Net Neutrality preserves our rights to do whatever we’d like freely on the internet, it’s essentially our freedom bell of the 21^st century. Net Neutrality protects our freedom reign online, it doesn’t block or discriminate any content that we choose to view and how we choose to view it.

A few of the telecommunications networks include AT&T, Comcast, CenturyLink, Charter, and Verizon; when we use our high speed internet to view something online/browse content we are sending or receiving data in which we expect those companies to transfer that data from one end to another.  This has been the case since 2015 when the FCC had certain levels of protection placed to prevent these companies from manipulating or analyzing our experience.

Without Net Neutrality cable and cell phone companies will decide what content, websites, and applications will be accessible to us. This will lead companies like AT&T or Verizon to block advertisements from competitors or content they simply don’t like or approve of. This could take away our freedom of speech online in a sense—what if your service provider doesn’t believe in the same views you as a customer might? Would they block you from protesting as an online activist for example?

On May 18^th the FCC voted to let Pai’s plan to remove Net Neutrality move forward. Many companies have stood saving Net Neutrality by putting prominent banners on their sites making it aware to their customers that they support an “open internet.”

As for political parties and their stance on Net Neutrality, the Democratic party believes the internet traffic should be treated equally and it should be safeguarded by the government. Whereas the Republican party Net Neutrality will restrict the free market and there should be no involvement/intervening with the open internet.

ISideWith.com explains that The Republican party believes service providers should be allowed to speed up access on popular websites that pay higher rates at the expense of slowing down access to less popular websites that pay lower rates, the Democrat Party disagrees.

How do I feel about Net Neutrality? I believe we should leave the policy as it is today. Without Net Neutrality I would not have the freedom to browse what I want when I want and that’s not fair to me. As a customer of these companies I should have the access and say to whatever sites or content I want, I’m paying my hard earned money to do so, wouldn’t you agree? Without Net Neutrality I probably wouldn’t be able to have my viewers see my content and therefore diminish my success in my career field. Overall I stand with keeping the policy as it is today, it is essential to our internet experience and key to our freedom of speech.

What are your thoughts on Net Neutrality? Leave your response in the comments below or reach out to me on any of my social media accounts linked in the contact section!

Love and Light💓,

Emmy Espinal