How much have you already used the Internet today?
We don't think twice about how much we rely on the Internet. Imagine not being able to map directions on Google or check the weather online. A business that doesn't have a Web site? Forgettable. Or rather, unsearchable. Remember when we didn't have e-mail? Would you want to go back to those Dark Ages? Me neither.
The Internet is in the very fabric of how we communicate, learn, shop, conduct business, organize, innovate and engage. If we lost it, we'd be lost.
But did you know that we're at risk of losing the Internet as we know it? Millions of Americans don't know that a battle over the future of the Internet is being played out right now in Washington. How it ends will have deep repercussions for decades to come.
On one side are public interest and consumer groups, small businesses, Internet entrepreneurs, librarians, civil libertarians and civil rights groups who want to preserve the Internet as it is - the last remaining open communications platform where anyone with access and a computer can create and consume online content.
Right now a film student in Idaho can upload a video the same way a Hollywood movie studio can. A small upstart company can launch a brilliant idea that challenges the Fortune 500. An independent journalist can break a story without waiting for a newspaper to run or print it.
The principle of "Network Neutrality" is what makes this open communications possible. Net Neutrality is what allows us to go wherever we want online. Our relationship with the phone and cable companies stops when we pay for our Internet service. These companies can not block, control or interfere with what we search for or create online; nor can they prioritize some content over others -making the Hollywood video load faster than the kid's video in Idaho.
On the other side are the Internet service providers, who want to dismantle Net Neutrality. Not only do they want to provide Internet service, but they want to be able to charge users to prioritize their content, effectively giving themselves the ability to choose which content on the Web loads fast, slow or not at all. The film student, the small entrepreneur, and the independent journalist will be lost in the ether, unable to compete with other, more established companies who can pay for a spot in the fast lane.
Gone is the level playing field. Gone is the multitude of voices on the Web. Gone is the Internet as we know it - unless we act now.
The Federal Communications Commission is crafting new Net Neutrality rules right now. The public has until Thursday at midnight to tell the FCC what we value about the Internet, and why we want the agency to create a strong Net Neutrality rule to protect it.
I'm filing my comments today, and I have to admit, it's a little tough -- not because I'm at a loss for words, but because there's so much to say.
I'm filing because:
This is why I'm filing. Why are you? If you care about how the Internet impacts and boosts your life, and if you care about how the Internet could evolve in years to come, it's essential that you tell the FCC by Thursday.
The internet has not done anything for us. In fact, it has allowed the government to get away with mass murder, the corporations to buy the last pretense of separation from fascism, and it has simply accelerated our use of fossil fuels as we buy nutritional supplements to help us forget that we are impotent even as we 'gather' together on the internet by the billions.
The bane of the internet is the illusion that we are doing something when what we are really doing is sitting on our asses in front of a glowing screen.
Regardless of the beautiful prose or cutting wit I might splay on that screen, I still am just sitting here, while my tools rust in the cabinet, my children become zombies, and the government rapes us to death.
Tell me again why we should expect action from the FCC: an ineffective branch of government amid overwhelming corporate power controlling obese imaginations fitted to stupid and lazy blobs of consumption?
It is the same with much media now. Separations need to be made. Conduits for information need to profit simply by providing the information in it's raw state, not tailored for specific profit feeds.
Media should not be owned by any outside influences. It should profit simply by providing the outlet, not the sources.
I remember one FCC meeting on some action proposed. People FLOODED the FCC with negative comments. Thousands showed up at a town hall type meeting with the FCC guys. 80% were not in favor of the action. Guess what? The FCC did it anyway. Against overwhelming objection, they passed the proposed action. Because big business wanted it!!!!!!!
and as Congress passed a UN-Constitutional Bill that FORCES Americans to buy a shady, shoddy product with no price caps!
MONEY is behind ALL this crap and Fascist, Corporate Communist Control over our lives!!