People keep asking for my thoughts about Net Neutrality and then look stunned when they realize what it really means to us as Americans. Buried under all the headlines about sexual misconduct, Russian interference in our elections and tax reform is a current FCC consideration to essentially take away our First Amendment rights.
For starters, we are currently net neutral. Whether appropriate, wrong or disgusting we, as Americans, can visit any site we want and see whatever we want. Our internet providers (i.e. Comcast, Verizon, Charter, etc.) have no power to limit content we receive. We receive all internet traffic at the same speed and with the same priority.
Those opposing Net Neutrality want to be able to put the data we receive in the hands of internet providers. Your internet provider would have the right to limit what you see when you surf the web and would be able to charge significantly more for its use. In addition, internet providers would be able to throttle speeds of certain services and charge you more for their use.
Internet use is currently billed at a flat rate. In other words, you may pay $50.00 per month for 40 Mbps service no matter how much you consume. Provided the website (i.e. NetFlix, Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc.), can upload fast enough you will receive all content equally fast. Provided your payments are up to date you can watch NetFlix and surf Facebook until your eyes pop out.
Internet use is currently not filtered and you can look at whatever you want (provided it’s legal of course), whenever you want. If you want to research Republican candidates and you live in a Democratic state it’s your right. If you want to advertise your business on the internet you can broadcast to whomever you want. If you want to check out the latest dirty videos, you have the ability to do that.
Eliminating Net Neutrality will cause all of these freedoms to vanish. Content will be filtered. Speeds will vary. And prices of our internet usage will undoubtedly go up.
ISPs could potentially (and will most likely) start to tier internet use by type of data stream. Social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn will have their allocation. Streaming sites like NetFlix, YouTube and Amazon will have theirs. I’m sure shopping sites like Amazon and Ebay will also have their own. Removing Net Neutrality provisions would allow ISPs to throttle and limit what streams we receive and bill separately for each based on usage or bandwidth.
Most ISPs not only provide internet, but also have a television service. If they’re currently competing against NetFlix and other streaming sites they would most likely charge more for streaming traffic. It makes sense, right? Even though they can’t charge more for NetFlix or force you to pay for their television service, they can and will discourage NetFlix use by upping the price of using their service for NetFlix.
Freedom of speech will be severely limited by eliminating Net Neutrality. Internet service providers would have the ability to censor data we receive and force us to view data we may not want to see. If an ISP wanted us to see mostly Republican news they could potentially filter Democratic feeds and advertisements. Eliminating Net Neutrality eliminates freedom of speech by biasing information we receive.
Please understand that eliminating Net Neutrality will have detrimental effects on our freedoms as Americans. Many people don’t grasp Net Neutrality at all and don’t understand it’s a big deal that the FCC will be putting our choices in the hands of the ISP.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)