Net Neutrality for Dummies

There have been two recent topics of debate that have been all over the news over the past few years, and I have little to no idea what they mean. Those two are fracking and net neutrality. I have started to understand what fracking is after having it explained to me on a couple (many) occasions. Now, with that being said, if you were to ask me right now "what is fracking?" I would skirt the question, so let's just move on to discuss net neutrality.

When the basic aspects of net neutrality were explained to me, I did not understand, because I just assumed that the internet is free, as long as you have a connection to it. Apparently, the internet is not as much of a wild west as one would imagine, and the future of free internet is in jeopardy.

According to an American Civil Liberties Union article on the topic of net neutrality, there are a few major service providers that dictate how the internet is run and which services remain free. The issue right now is that there is some content out in the world that those service providers want to slow down. A recent issue with this blocking of services is highlighted in a Common Dreams article that discusses how the pro-abortion-rights group NARAL had a text message subscription service for users to update them on information regarding the group.

It is absurd that the service was blocked, because that is taking a clear stance on the issue of abortion rights by the service company, and it is also blocking a service that was willingly delivered to users. This is another instance of corporate takeover, and something needs to be done to slow down this trend, in order to maintain the ethics of free speech untainted.

Since this is an independent media blog, the issue of how those independent media sites are affected by net neutrality is worth mentioning. Again, in this corporate world where the conglomerates set the agenda in the media, independent media is already an underdog strictly because they don't have the cash to truly make an impact on the general public. If this conglomerate power continues in the net neutrality game, then independent media sites will start to be harder to access, as the ability to set the agenda is so important for these media giants and if they can eliminate the nay-sayers, they will do it in a heartbeat.

Hopefully this helps with the issue of net neutrality, it is a big dog's game and the government is in charge of slowing down their power in order to keep free speech truly free.