I signed this petition from demandprogress.org (Aaron Swartz's site) to the FCC telling them to save Net Neutrality. I accompanied my signature with the following letter.
Here is the petition:
https://act.demandprogress.org/...
Net Neutrality is vital to the Internet. It has allowed for the growth of progressive movements around the world and has allowed the public to connect as equals. Dismantling Net Neutrality has the potential to destroy this progress in communications and it could very easily go so far as to create a class system on the Internet.
As education is a human right the Internet has been one of the most important tools available for my generation (I'm 29) to learn about the world and find new perspectives. While new perspectives might still be found even with a loss of Net Neutrality, when these new perspectives are given the unfair precondition of fundraising it severely limits educational opportunities.
Ending Net Neutrality could make education and information inaccessible; similar to how student debt interest rates can make traditional education and information inaccessible. The difference though is where getting rid of student interest rates would require legislation from a defunct Congress, restoring Net Neutrality would only require the FCC to change a classification. This does not require legislation; it just requires the FCC to do its job.
Dare I say it; ending Net Neutrality has a similar theme to closing down all the libraries world wide and replacing them with for-profit bookstores.
Libraries contain resources which are classless and paid for by public tax dollars (likely donations as well). For-profit bookstores, while usually offering affordable books do also require one to be able to afford a purchase. Now imagine this price tag for books is instead a fee to ensure Comcast, Verizon, or AT&T wont throttle or block internet traffic to a site where a person simply wants to express themselves (as they are guaranteed the right to do so under the First Amendment).
One such example of this is expression is blogging. One of the benefits to independent blogging is its affordability and accessibility. Furthermore, the readers of such blogging sites appreciate said affordability and accessibility as well. What happens if Comcast, Verizon or AT&T decide they don't like particular content and want to throttle a signal when they don't get their desired fee? The blogger, as well as the blogger's audience, has just been subjected to very unfair treatment when all people want to do is engage in conversation.
The loss of Net Neutrality would seem to be the final blow in a general corporate takeover of the channels of information. The first great blow was to diversity in telecommunications when President Reagan overturned the Fairness Doctrine. When he did so it became legal for news channels to present only one side of an issue with no counter-argument for comparison. One result of this has become an extremely biased media and a high percentage of Climate Change deniers in both the United States and Congress.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was another serious blow to Democracy as it took away monopoly restrictions and allowed for media corporations to expand their influence, buying competitor media entities, for greater profits; and less competition. Less competition leads to less Democracy. When you have less Democracy, and less opportunity for smaller media entities to grow, the nation takes a serious blow as far as its potential for information dissemination and social growth.
The Internet was the last great tool for diversity, communication, Democracy and discussion. Net Neutrality was something that actually made the overturn of the Fairness Doctrine and the Telecommunications Act of 1996, manageable. We finally had another medium for free, fair and open exchange. If it's even necessary to mention; the Internet's neutrality allowed the world to become more connected and it helped the global, as well as national, economy as well.
With no requirement for balanced content in media; with the permitted monopolistic growth of media corporations; and with an internet now controlled by those same monopolistic media corporations who can now freely discriminate against particular content… Well, there's only one way to put this:
Mass indoctrination of the mass communications… It's the end of Democracy.