Is The Last Bastion Of Free Speech About To Be Taken Away?

With the consolidation of media over the last decade, finding news in the regular places, television and newspapers, has become increasingly difficult, but the Internet has continued to thrive and grow allowing for alternative sources of news and opinion that have been swept off the front pages, airwaves and television news shows, to make it to the people. But that may be about to end.

Net neutrality, which Arianna Huffington points out is a terrible term from a marketing standpoint, is still one of the most important issues that we are facing right now. The FCC has made a decision (based on a Supreme Court ruling) that the Internet can be regulated in the same way cable television is, as opposed to the way telephone service is regulated. The difference between the two is that cable is a one-way transmission while telephone and the Internet are two-way transmissions. Everyone is a potential provider and receiver of information on the Internet, so there must be equality and neutrality in the way that information is shared. Cable on the other hand, provides information but they don't receive it, making it fine for them to control the vehicle through which information is passed and set preferences for what they carry. If this happens with the Internet, things will radically change.

Just imagine, you go to your computer because you just saw on your television that we have started dropping bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities and you want more information. You check out The Washington Post website, the page loads instantaneously, because you pay for high speed Internet access, and read the headlines and yes, they also report that we are conducting limited strikes, using conventional weapons to take out Iranian nuclear sites based on intelligence that they were about to strike us first (they had apparently built a nuclear bomb overnight). You seem to remember hearing a while back that there were plans to use mini-nukes in a strike against Iran, but The Post makes no mention of that, so you decide to go check out your favorite blogs to see what they're saying. You go first to your favorite blog, but the page won't load. You hit refresh, but the things just keeps spinning and eventually times out because, apparently, you now have syrup in your lines. You give up on your favorite blog and go to your second favorite instead. Same thing, the page won't load. Fine, you go to Democracy Now to see what Amy Goodman is saying because she always has good information. The page starts to load, but damn this is taking forever, on the top half of the screen that has loaded, you can see that yes, it does appear that we have used nuclear weapons in the strike, but geez, how much longer for the rest of the page? Getting frustrated you decide to check out the New York Times online, you zip over and it loads right away, but just like The Post, no mention of nuclear weapons. On to Yahoo News, same thing, loads right away, but zero on the nuclear payloads.

This is exactly what is on the way unless we do something about it. Call or write your Senators and Representatives in Congress and tell them to protect net neutrality! The following articles explain much better the details and why net neutrality is critical to preserving the Internet as we know it.

The Great American Firewall: Why the Net is Poinsed to Become a Global Weapon of Mass Deception

You Tube Video on Net Neutrality

Intel Backs Net Neutrality

Mike McCurry and Astroturfing Net Neutrality

Tech Giants' Internet Battles

Wikipedia on Net Neutrality