You may have heard the news lately that a deal cut between Google and Verizon is threatening Net Neutrality.
Then, if you’re like most people, you said “what the hell is Net Neutrality?”
“Net Neutrality” is a extremely boring name for a very important concept. It’s like the First Amendment of the internet. It means that no matter what internet provider gets you online, the only one who controls where you go and what you see is you. You can create your own website, you can check your email, read the news, or buy items online, and the company you pay for internet access can’t do a damn thing about it.
Imagine some of the alternatives: you try to visit your favorite website, but the site takes forever to load because they didn’t pay off your internet provider. A website criticizing some corporation is suddenly “not found”. Your online business starts losing sales because an internet company would rather use their bandwidth for wealthy corporations instead of your small enterprise. Or most likely, we could get two internets, separate and unequal: a high-speed, corporate-dominated internet, and a “public” internet, with independent sites that are hard, or impossible to view. It would be like a phone system, where you could barely hear your family or friends when you called, but got a crystal clear connection when you were calling to pay your cable bill. Or a road system where the only paved roads went to big chain stores, and you had to take dirt roads to get anywhere else.
Since the government has been avoiding actually doing anything about net neutrality, internet giants Google and Verizon cut a deal outlining what they plan to do regarding free and open access to the internet. First, they are totally dumping net neutrality for wireless internet. If you’re using Verizon for wireless internet, you can see what they let you see, and that’s it. They say that (for now) they will keep net neutrality for wired internet connections, but with loopholes that could make for the “separate but unequal” internet we mentioned above.
This guy sums it up pretty well:
We really can’t rely on corporations to be good citizens when they make profits by screwing us over. And we can’t rely on the government either, because they seem to want to bury their heads in the sand. So we’ll have to make the government do the right thing.
What can you do?
The Save the Internet Coalition has a quick and easy list of things you can do, and an easy form to contact your Congresspeople to tell them how you feel.
If you live in Minneapolis, the Federal Communications Commission (the government agency that is SUPPOSED to be regulating on this issue) will be holding a public meeting Thursday, August 19 where you can make your voice heard. Or you can contact the FCC directly by email or phone numbers (remember, be polite, they’re less likely to listen to you if you’re, y’know, calling them names).
Unless we step up, we may lose the freest, most democratic form of media the world has ever known.
Axis of Justice is a non-profit organization formed by Tom Morello and Serj Tankian. Its purpose is to bring together musicians, fans
of music, and grassroots political organizations to fight for social justice. 
on my computer it always becomes “nonresponsive” whenever i listen to rage against the machine or go on an anti-goverment website.then i check to see if the programs still running (on a dell you can do this by pressing “ctrl”, “alt”, and “delete” at the same time and checking the status) and the internets fine again. eventually i just left the windows task manager open.
Money can only go so far, because the people will only revolt.
Republicans ruled the White House for far too long - especially in the wake of Nixon’s idiocracy. Paranoia has become the sickness that is currently threatening to cut this country into shreds.
If we lose the right to communicate freely via web-based programs and internet sites… that will be a motherfucking sad day, indeed.
My dad just started “child blocking” websites on the computer. Now I can’t watch activist videos. For anyone who doesn’t care about net nutrality, I think of it as the internet being edited for everyone.
There are those who will stand in the way and do nothing and those who will fight for the future of society left for our generations to come. I will help and die trying to support Axis of Justice and Fromwithin into Bringing Awareness to all threw Networking reaching as many people into helping us Fight for our right. As well help tear down this Monetary System we run under… Mark my words. revolution will come!!!!!
What another way for big corporations to control society. The key to all this is to stop buying into all their propaganda B.S. Unless we stop now and revolt this is just another string added to another limb of our body.
“alex says:
August 20, 2010 at 11:12 am
on my computer it always becomes “nonresponsive” whenever i listen to rage against the machine or go on an anti-goverment website”
and you think putting the FCC in charge of the internet through net neutrality is going to alleviate this problem?
frankly, giving such authority to the an un-elected bureaucracy is just as terrifying as any corporation.
http://nointernettakeover.com/2010/06/18/americans-for-prosperity-slams-fcc%E2%80%99s-internet-takeover-attempt/
what is friggin happening here is it just me or is this martial law state getting more and more obvious? first they stick their hands down our pants and radiate people storing a naked image of everyone in a pentagon database. now they are creating open moves of fascism giving corporations the ability to write laws. lets put a stop to this global technocratic wonderland of legal robbery called the global economy and have a true global awakening towards a sovereign monetary standard, and having a free and open platform to exchange such ideas without new world globalists destroying individual countries freedom.
The internet COULD bring freedom of information to everyone, worldwide. Worldwide, unrestricted, and FREE. Its that simple.
The answer to “censorship” is, apparently, government control of private property. Net Neutrality will be used to control speech. Just like the “Fairness Doctrine”. You poor bastards, you have no idea what corporatism is.
TAKE A STAND life is a choice between fear and love and the goverment is obvisouly choosing fear what they fear is the loss of power as organizations like the axis of justice continue