Buffer the Little Children
Written by: Brian Akerman, Matthew Alexander
“Why is my internet so slow? Geez, I won’t even be able to watch 30-minute-long cat vines anymore. Where else am I going to download my free music and porn? I guess I’ll have to use that other website I don’t like or log off and actually interact with real people now.” You might soon be saying this if something called ‘net neutrality’ isn’t enforced.
You may think that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) give us equal access to all websites: you can connect to YouTube just as easily as you can connect to Netflix. This equal access is called ‘net neutrality’. However, net neutrality isn't actually a law… it's just an ethic - and we all know how ‘ethical’ the corporate world is.
Shocked? Earlier this year, Verizon was involved in a net neutrality case after it was discovered that they were buying (internet-related) preferential treatment. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favour of Verizon, thus allowing different quality service to paying companies. Verizon (previously accused of illegally wiretapping its customers’ phones and gathering other personal information) have stated that the company ‘has long been committed to an open internet for a simple reason: our customers demand it’. I’m sure their customers never demanded to be spied on.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the agency in the United States of America that regulates and enforces fair use of international communications. You might be asking what the FCC is trying to do. Simply put, the FCC is letting businesses pay for preferential treatment. The websites of these businesses (that pay) have shorter loading times and are prioritised over their competitors – making their sites faster when users search for or access them. The FCC is trying to get legislation passed that makes the internet fall under Title II of the Communications Act. That would mean that the internet would become a telecommunications service rather than an information-providing service.
In 2007, at a campaign forum, Barack Obama made it clear that he wanted the FCC to be the champion of the quest for a ‘level playing field’. This idea to ‘level the playing field’ would still have to be thought up, but rest assured: “As president, I am going to make sure that that is the principle that my FCC commissioners are applying as we move forward,” President Obama said.
The FCC assures the public that regulations will be proposed to prevent discrimination against businesses that don’t pay a fee. As FCC chairman Tom Wheeler recently said: "There are reports that the FCC is gutting the Open internet rule. They are flat out wrong."
So nothing will change for those who don’t pay but those who do get an advantage?
I doubt it and so does Obama. In his 2008 campaign, he made his position on trying to control the internet very clear when he addressed a crowd at Google: “I will take a backseat to no-one in my commitment to network neutrality because, once providers start to privilege some applications or websites over others, then the smaller voices get squeezed out and we all lose.”
It seems the President is in support of the FCC and net neutrality. The FCC, however, is willing to allow preferential treatment, contradictory to his opinion.
Google argued in its 2007 submission to the FCC that ‘creating a new ‘fast lane’ is effectively a method of discrimination, where today’s fast lane becomes tomorrow’s minimum bar’, but Wheeler (who was appointed by President Obama last year) was asserts, “What we’re dealing with today is a proposal, not a final rule’, and that the FCC is ‘dedicated to protecting and preserving an Open Internet’. Along with Google’s submission, 189 other companies (including Netflix, Microsoft and Facebook) have signed a formal letter to the FCC demanding that net neutrality be maintained.
In an interview posted on the Huffington Post on the 22 of May 2014, an anonymous advocate shared his views on net neutrality. Going by the pseudonym of ‘Colin’, he said, “Net neutrality, as we hear it being discussed today, is a great deal about greed. It is tremendously greedy for anyone to provide unequal lanes in what should be a great digital information road towards equality.” He also stated that ‘the FCC has not been very good at acting in the public interest so far, and has not been responsive at addressing concerns of communities that transcend not only state boundaries, but national boundaries as well’.
Without net neutrality, your ISP (Internet Service Provider) could enter into contracts with businesses. These contracts could ensure that a business' website would get preferential treatment or a monopoly over the access to its kind of service/product - in exchange for a fee. To do this, ISPs may slow down or even stop access to competing sites of the contracted business, even though Wheeler assures us that this won’t happen.
Wheeler isn’t such a bad guy though. He’s agreed to open their plan (making the internet fall under Title II of the Communications Act ) to a public debate that will last for four months. Many people (obviously) have strongly disagreed to it as they just want to watch Game of Thrones on Netflix or are middle-aged moms who are forced to advocate on behalf of their 15-year-old Xbox-playing spoilt kid. Others, however, are individuals that really wish to keep the internet free and fair because they believe that information shouldn’t have a price on it.
If left alone, these developments could lead us down a path where our internet providers offers contracts to every website owner, so our information would be in the hands of those who can afford it. They’ll give preferential treatment to those who accept and if a site refuses the contract, connecting to that site may become difficult… or even impossible. For example: if a non-profit organisation cannot afford the extra expense of the contract, access to its information will be limited.
At least selfies would die out because they would be difficult to post. Instagram ‘models’ would have to get a personality. Tweeters (people who do nothing but tweet all day) would stop calling themselves ‘journalists’. Porn stars would have to get some real acting talent, even though faking an orgasm is impressive in itself. People would stop stealing music and might pay for their movies for a change… come to think of it, I don’t want an internet that doesn’t allow me to do the above-mentioned ‘activities’. This kind of pisses me off.
If the internet is successfully placed under the Title II of the Communications Act, thus removing the internet from the bracket of ‘free information, ISPs would have control over your access to information and sell it to the highest bidder. So you will only know what Big Businesses want you to know. This is how propaganda is created. The internet could become a tool for control.
Imagine the internet in the hands of a government that is rolling in public funds. The Espionage Act/State of Information Act combined with ownership of internet access could censor our freedom of speech.
Notice how the world always on the verge of coming to an end when America gets attacked by aliens or even filibusters (see our article on filibusters)? The FCC are the aliens and constant filibusters that seek to put a damper on our internet use.
If the FCC is successful in regulating the internet, or even if our country decides to implement the State of Information Act, conspiracy nuts would stop posting reports about Obama being the Anti-Christ and finally forget about global warming and other issues relating to the world. Not to mention we’d finally get to live in ignorance… I hear that it’s really blissful. We wouldn’t have access to free information about Nkandla either or get to see memes about Jacob Zuma - or even get to watch Solange Knowles act ratchet in an elevator.
I’m fairly certain that every selfie-taking, twitter journalist, compulsive masturbator, YouTube surfer, conspiracy nut, honourable revolutionary-activist, pyramid scheming, cat-vine-watching, spoilt kid, Dota-addict, wannabe Instagram photographer, small-business starter and illegal-download individual will find a common goal: the freedom of our beloved internet.