Story about how the internet is going to die.

The bad guys in suits have come to claim our internet.

Ashif Shereef
The Startup
7 min readApr 20, 2018

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On Dec. 14, 2017, the FCC’s Republican majority approved Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to gut the Net Neutrality protections.

They have come, in their fancy cars, to privatize one of the most powerful tools that has ever existed in the history of mankind. The internet. The ISPs (Internet service providers), the politicians and the lawmakers are in cahoots, having met each other behind closed doors, for putting an end to the free and open internet as we know it. Even if they offer misguiding fancy stuffs like free internet (Just like Zuck’s internet.org facade), and reiterates over twitter that this is not harmful for the people or the internet itself, we know that this is a wolf at our door, and it is a sinistrous plan masquerading as social reform. We know there are no free lunches. Not in this world. Especially not in this century.

They have come to ration the internet, shred it to pieces and make us access it like the North Koreans do.

The world is in the final frontier of knowledge collection. One who has it all, becomes the emperor of planet earth. The beginning of the end doesn’t necessarily be nuclear warheads, but knowledge restriction and information privatization. It has already begun under Trump’s America.

Internet was designed in such a way that no people can have monopoly on that. The complex protocols separated out into weird layers that governs the internet, connecting billions of computers into a complicated giant nexus of free information, were created with a kind if thinking which was much liberal in nature. If someone could just dominate internet, he could dominate the world. In a nutshell, this simple rule that prevented perverts from taking over complete control of internet is known as net neutrality.

Now, the billion dollar question. How are they going to take away our internet and why?

Why:

This century is called the information super-highway for one main reason. The internet. Now, why would internet be so important? Because it has made it possible for billions of people to come together — people who would otherwise be separated geographically, politically, ideologically and culturally- and share information- that would otherwise be inaccessible. Internet transcends all language and cultural barriers. All the world’s knowledge, accumulated throughout centuries of mankind’s existence, spread across thousands of miles, are suddenly accessible to everyone. History, research, medicine, literature and porn, you name it. It’s all there.

This collective brain is in peril. The Teleco-Political-lawmaker triangular nexus will rip net neutrality apart.

How:

Most likely, at first, they come to us, making us an offer that we can’t resist.

Like Facebook did with internet.org in India two years before. But the people and Indian Telecom regulator authority smelled the danger from a mile away and made sure that internet.org never took off. The evil scheme had one hell of an enticing public face.

Free internet.

Yeah. Freebies again. It’s such a shame that after all these countless scams for countless decades, people still fall for freebies. Everything comes with a cost. Sometimes the cost is damn too high that we can’t reverse the damage it brings along with it. Just like the SETI receiving friendly transmission from outer space in the Species film. What it turned out to be, is Hollywood history.

Millions of us freeloaders will fall for it. But only a little among us will notice that their catchphrases ends with ominous, conditional asterisks that we would be so rejoiced to ignore. Honestly, who goes behind all these Conditions apply section that has so purposefully small font size and outright revolting font style? Then we learn that we don’t have access to the entire internet, but an infinitesimal portion. Like 100 websites among the one billion. But it’s okay. We have access to Facebook, whatssap, BBC, Gmail and such premium sites. That’s all we could ever ask for. We are happy and satisfied. We got all what you need. For free. Right?

Now, what just happened is that, we just lost access to billions of other web pages. Informative blogs. Alternate news media. Thousands of free online courses ranging from web designing to rocket science. Materials of Tens of thousands of universities providing free degrees and research programs. Online petition platforms. Unbeknownst to us, we just lost contact with our chance for evolution. Within months of usage, we are okay with all those things that we are missing. But it’s fine; we are happy. We become accustomed with the current version of restricted internet we are dwelling in, and our brain automatically becomes convinced that this is the only internet out there. “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to Joseph Goebbels, a ruthless Nazi minister who lived in Hitler’s Germany. Among psychologists something like this known as the “illusion of truth” effect. At this point, we don’t even know, or don’t care that we are living inside that version of internet the super-villains has created for us. We are only knowing what they want us to know. We are only debating in the very narrow spectrum of medium that they provide and we don’t know that. We have become brainwashed fools. It’s just like a phone company deciding whom we should call and what we should speak through phone.

They have created an intranet inside the internet and we have been programmed to accept it, because we are so much in love with freebies.

The problem is, we all are representatives of millions of other people. They also have chosen this freeloaders package, and now, billions of people are inside this pseudo-internet, having completely forgotten that there is an original version out there. This is total submission. Being hardwired for collective wisdom, our evolution stops all of a sudden. Knowledge is blocked. The world has become a matrix, and we, its experimental programs. This is the pinnacle of warfare. This is how ultimate control will be established on humanity. Tailor fit algorithms will decide who should know what and when and how. This is how we becomes slaves to our masters. This will instantly undo humanity’s growth as a collective species, and bash us back into the Stone Age from which we escaped millenniums ago.

What will this do? Whenever someone has to reach the masses, with new inventions, new research, new information or revelations, the ISP’s such as AT&T and Verizon can cut them down and make sure that the information never reaches your internet.

They can cut their competitors websites and block political views they disagree with. If the big shots pay enough, they can selectively cut off competitive start-ups. For instance, oil companies can pay more to block news about a green energy start-up. They can selectively block out parts of history that they are not proud of. They can block out new treatment methods that droves down the profits of the Big Pharmas. If some people running a medical research out there invents a cure for cancer, their channel to the world can be blocked because it can drive down the profits of billion dollar cancer industries. Revolutions will not reach people. Protests will not reach people. Any ideas the masters doesn’t agree with will not reach people.

Everything will be controlled, manipulated and programmed.

Politicians are already paid for by the ISPs and telecos.

Wonder why Comcast paid him to tweet? These are the companies that are owned by ISPs including COMCAST.

Those who control the internet, will be in ultimate control. The internet is the culmination of efforts of millions of people over time. They wanted it to be free and open. It took decades and billions of other people to populate it the way we see it now.

Free internet is NOT the problem. Free internet with restricted access is the problem. Selectively blocking internet is what shatters net neutrality.

Abolishing net neutrality is the last nail on our coffin as a species striving for advancement through our collective wisdom.

P.S: It’s your task to filter and do your research about what to trust and what not to. The internet is here, as maybe one of the most revolutionary concept mankind has ever devised, as you live and breathe. It is a critical lifeline of human evolution.

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Ashif Shereef
The Startup

Engineer | A.I Enthusiast | Entrepreneur | Tree-Hugger | Programmer | Writer | Running a tech start-up