Net Neutrality
The internet might not continue working as it has always worked. This is because of the principle called “Net Neutrality.” This principle is the idea that all data on the internet must be treated equally, and the information should not favor anyone. Net neutrality allows the internet to be an unbiased medium where people can express their ideas, inform and access all of the information that the internet has to offer. Within the principle of Net Neutrality Internet Service Providers cannot interfere with the data that is being moved through the internet.
According to Marguerite Reardon in her article “The net neutrality fight isn’t over. Here’s what you need to know” she says that the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) led by Ajit Pai voted to repeal net neutrality policies in the United States after the Obama administration had advocated for net neutrality. It is ironic that Ajit Pai mentioned that this repealing of net neutrality was “to protect a free and open internet.”
Internet should be kept neutral from any influence from internet service providers not only because it will probably affect the prices of the internet but also because the information that goes through the internet could also be interfered by Internet providers and would affect the impartiality of the data. One of the important characteristics of the internet is how open is to any type of content. Limiting the access to certain content could end how objective the platforms on the internet are. The information that goes public will only be whichever information the ones in control of the internet want to. This video by the Wall Street Journal does a great job doing analogies on how is it the net neutrality works.
An important thing to highlight about net neutrality is that Internet Service Providers can do two important things to the internet service. The first one is that they have control over the speed of the internet, they can control whether someone accesses a website in one second or ten seconds. The second thing that they also have control of is the content someone accesses, whether is social media, journals, email or any type of content. It is important to highlight this because these big companies will probably use this to their advantage. They are able to charge more for what the user had already access to in the past.
The freedom of speech could also be defied with the censorship of content, it wouldn’t let the people express completely freely because it might not be convenient to some of the companies that the people express anything that comes to their minds.
Some of the counter-arguments that defend the repealing of net neutrality are mainly the ones that say that the net neutrality policies restrained internet service providers from innovating in the field of the internet. Keith Collins reports that the FCC said that “it had repealed the rules because they restrained broadband providers like Verizon and Comcast from experimenting with new business models and investing in new technology”. I don’t think this is the right way to approach the topic. By saying that it is difficult for this companies to invest more in innovations because of net neutrality is ironic. I believe that getting rid of net neutrality is only inciting the big companies to become even bigger because now they have more power over the field of communication than ever. In addition to this, another argument n favor of repealing net neutrality is that with the net neutrality laws in action the investment into the internet service providers has decreased, so in order for the investments to grow to repeal net neutrality seems like the best option to improve the internet service. However, there is little or no evidence that repealing net neutrality will be attractive to investors because usually when a market begins to be regulated a lot of investors see it as a risky deal.
Net neutrality should be seen as a right to all the internet users because it is a medium that they can express themselves and also it is not fair for the user to be controlled by big companies. Knowing that the argument in favor of net neutrality tends to favor more the big corporations economically, there should be no good reason for the users to be satisfied with this decision. Users should try to press the FCC and the ones that have the power to stop this law from doing damage to them.