Why Net Neutrality Is Important
I’ve been following the debate about Internet neutrality as a consumer who wants more choices, rather than fewer, and someone who automatically distrusts big corporations that want to control more of my choices. I’m still influenced by the distopian views of William Gibson and the cyberpunks because too many of them are disturbingly close to reality today. Think Snow Crash and YouTube—except that Stephenson imagined people getting paid at least something for their work.
Anyway, I was reminded this morning by a Wired article just how important Internet neutrality really is. I need to get active—and so do you!
There’s a lot of activism in Europe right now focusing on getting EU regulators to support Internet neutrality. The New York Times did a article on this topic earlier in the week. American corporations are lobbying the EU because if they influence policy in Europe, they’ll be able to force their agenda on us here in America. According to the Times, here’s what’s at stake:
For consumers in Europe and the United States, the outcome of the debate could influence whether they will continue to be able to download unlimited data using their flat-rate broadband plans or be forced to pay higher rates related to the amount of data they download.The outcome could also legally empower operators to focus on users of file-sharing software that can be used for illegal downloading.
This is important to all of us, not only because it affects what we can and can’t do at home, but because it has the potential to limit what we can and can’t do at work. The post that inspired the Wired article, reporting on a presentation to Parliament, succinctly reveals the stakes:
He [Robert Topolski, chief technologist of the Open Technology Initiative] suggested that if those administrators had had access to data filtering technology, like that becoming popular with companies and governments today, they would have used it to exclude Berners-Lee’s invention, and kill off the World Wide Web.
I, for one, vividly remember when Gopher was getting the same kind of attention that Second Life got and that Twitter is getting now. And I, for one, am glad to be working in the era of Web 2.0 (or is it now Web 3.0: I forget!), rather than talking about Gopher 4.0 and looking at websites that look like this:
More resources on Internet neutrality at SavetheInternet.com. Learn more and get active today!
Image: Gopher Screenshots
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