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Internet-Wide Day Of Action To Save Net Neutrality

In 2015, protestors and companies worked together to win strong net neutrality laws from the FCC. 

... ajit pai fcc federal communications commission member ajitRecently Ajit Pai, a member of the FCC, has pushed legislature removing these net neutrality laws, leaving the internet open to exploitation from ISPs. 

What Is Net Neutrality?

This is a question I am sure many people have, and the best description of I have seen comes from /u/sophacles who answered this exact question on Reddit six years ago: link

The Internet-Wide Day Of Action To Save Net Neutrality. AKA Battle For The Net Day

July 12th was the day that was chosen to be the day of activism for Net Neutrality. Groups worked together, attempting to make the FCC change their mind. Additionally there was a major focus and increasing awareness for net neutrality and explaining what what it is and how it affects us.

Who participated?

The list of companies who decided to participate in this event is what I find the most interesting. There are many companies who have already made their stance on internet freedom very clear from the services they offer, such as: Vyprvpn, Dropbox, Privateinternetaccess, Adblock, Adblock plus, Startpage, DuckDuckGo, imgur, and Bittorrent. 

There are also many companies that were founded on the internet and want to support it, such as: Reddit, Etsy, Kickstarter, Plays.tv, Twitch.tv, Pinterest, Patreon, Netflix, Twitter, Pornhub, Redtube, Youporn, Amazon, Spotify, and Stack Overflow. 

Additionally there are many news and activism groups who are in favor of net neutrality, such as: Creative Commons, Common Cause, Free Press, Center For Digital Justice, Change.org, MoveOn.org, NARAL, Open source Initiative, and Open Democracy.

Then you start to find the more interesting ones, such as: Rainforest Action Committee, Consumer Reports, Funny Or Die, Union Square Ventures, Authors Guild, American Library Association, Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace, Tastemade, Writers Guild Of America West and East, and the American Sustainable Business council. 

What Did They Do?

All of these companies worked together to attempt to simulate what it would be like if ISPs could control all internet traffic, and truthfully it sucked. Twitch made it so that all global emotes would not load. Major subreddits like /r/pics and /r/gifs added payment plans where you could only post so many things, or images in certain qualities without paying. Pornhub made videos suddenly stop loading completely, forcing you to close the tab and find the video back. Netflix and 4chan had banners across their pages, while Amazon had a video on the homepage explaining net neutrality and urging people to go leave comments on the FCC input page.

 Additionally creators all over the internet made videos, gifs, blogs, and pictures to help spread the word. Links to some of my favorite gifs are included below (The files were too large for Blogger to let me upload them).

Why Is This So Interesting?

... ' Approach to Net Neutrality: great video! - Futurist Gerd LeonhardHow often do you get to see the ALA, The Writers Guild Of America, and The Urban Dictionary support the same cause? How often do you see Spotify, GitHub, and Pornhub fighting together? The many different types of companies with different values and goals who support this cause shows that this is more than just a bipartisan issue, it is an everyone issue. The internet has become a place for all information to be shared and all people to be accepted freely, while corporations are trying to take this away. If we lose net neutrality, it will affect all americans in greater ways than any other government decision in recent history. We will lose the ability to express our thoughts on the internet without censorship. We will be unable to visit websites out ISPs have deemed questionable. Every major website will have to pay massive taxes to ISPs, affecting their earnings while making ISPs rich, driving up prices for online services. Additionally your ISP could charge you extra fees to use services. For example your ISP could charge you $20 a month to use Netflix on top of the fee $7.99 you pay to Netflix themselves.

What Can You Do?

The main thing you can do to support net neutrality is to go to battleforthenet.com and submit your comment to the FCC. Additionally spreading the word is needed, both to raise awareness and provide correct information. Sadly though, there is little we can do besides spamming the FCC page and hoping it is enough to change their minds.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 20, 2017 at 12:56 PM

    I agree that Net Neutrality is a very important asset in keeping the internet fair and free. I wish there were more concrete ways to support net neutrality then simply begging the FCC to not get rid of it. As a solution, I think there should be way to vote on this issue, so that the people's voice directly influences government policy.

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