What is Net Neutrality?

Net neutrality is the basic principle that protects our free speech on the Internet. Right now, the FCC is planning to dismantle Title II net neutrality protections that prevent companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T from controlling what Internet users can see by throttling, blocking, and censoring sites and apps, or charging special fees that get passed along to consumers. Big Cable companies are pouring a ton of money into lobbying, misleading ads, and astroturf campaigns in an attempt to confuse the public. If they succeed, the Internet will never be the same.

Why is Net Neutrality Important?

Without net neutrality, Internet Service Providers will be able to charge you for web packages the same way cable companies package television shows. For example, you might be charged an "entertainment and other" package for sites like Reddit, Imgur, and Youtube. So on top of things like Netflix premium and youtube red, you'll have to pay for access to those sites also. Not to mention that the costs of those things will increase. Companies will be charged for high speed access. Netflix would have to increase the cost of it's service just so that it can afford to send you the data. This is bad for everyone, except for the ISPs.

Small Businesses

Insert Joe Shmoe. Joe is starting a new company that aims to provide cool new image hosting technology through his revolutionary front page algorithm. Joe starts picking up some traction but hasn’t figured out a solid way to make a lot of money from his website yet. The ISPs start knocking, demanding a premium for high-speed service to certain customers. Customers have to pay extra for Joe’s hip new website. Now, instead of creating a successful image startup, Joe is priced out of business by the ISPs because:

• He can’t afford to pay the ISPs

• Customers decide to pick the Netflix-Youtube package over his Image hosting package

• Customers who don’t buy the high speed images package doesn’t have fast enough access to see his images faster than dial-up

And now Joe Shmoe’s company dies. If we deregulate, nobody has fast access to Joe’s website. Joe has to pay a premium for the same speed that everyone else was getting.

Legislation

Funny, it seems that the ISPs are the ones that were lobbying for this reversal. The Verge has a list of 265 congress members who sold out to ISPs.

PERHAPS YOU THINK THE INTERNET'S BEING DRAMATIC?

If you think I’m being dramatic or the internet as a whole is overreacting, let me remind you that some of these things have already occurred. Today, Time Warner Cable is being sued by New York for interfering with League of Legends and Netflix bandwidth. Right now, what they did is considered Fraud. They provided a service that was significantly slower than what the customer was paying for. Riot Games provided packet data for this which can be read here. Time Warner was also pressuring Riot for some extra money to ensure the packets arrive and for work on their infrastructure.

You can find a brief list of these Net Neutrality violations here. Educate yourself because Information is power.

So what can you do to help?

• Email and Call your elected legislators (U.S. Only)

• Send a comment "Stating that you specifically support strong Net Neutrality backed by Title 2 oversight of ISP's." (U.S. Only) 4 steps to writing an impactful net neutrality comment

• For a fun piece of info, http://gofccyourself.com leads directly to the FCC page for reporting a comment to their website. (U.S. Only)

• Spread awareness: Like to bump threads? Next time you bump the positivity thread, why not do it with Battle for the Net's Video Bumper.. Do you ever visit other sites on the internet besides Steamgifts? I don't, but maybe you do :D Spread the word across the internet far and wide. The only way we win this is by resisting. (Everyone)

• Help support the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and their efforts.

  • What is EFF?
    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) defends civil liberties in a digital world. See More...

  • How Humble Bundle users can help EFF?
    If Net Neutrality is important to you and believe digital communications should be free from censorship, surveillance and corruption, then log into the Humble Bundle store and select EFF as your supported charity.

  • Support EFF on AmazonSmile
    While this does not make a big impact to donate to EFF - or any other charitable cause since Amazon only donates 0.5% of the purchase price (e.g. you would have to spend $100 for a $0.50 donation, $1,000 for $5 donation, $10,000 for a $50 donation, ad nauseam), it doesn't hurt to give to charity when buying off Amazon. Just log into AmazonSmile and click on Change Your Charity located under Your Account, then type Electronic Frontier Foundation Inc in the Search field and click Select when found.

• EFF's easy way to comment to the FCC here

What will happen on July 12th?

Websites, Internet users, and online communities will come together to sound the alarm about the FCC’s attack on net neutrality. This is the ultimate goal. To spread awareness and to inform people that the internet as we know it is under attack. This isn't the first time we've had a "day of action" set before. There was The Internet Slowdown Day and The Internet Blackout Day and even if we win the fight this time around, we can probably expect more "days of action" in the future. We need to participate in every one.

Companies participating include Amazon, Kickstarter, Etsy, Reddit, Netflix, Mozilla, Vimeo, Y Combinator, GitHub, Private Internet Access, Pantheon, Bittorrent Inc., Shapeways, Nextdoor, Patreon, Dreamhost, and CREDO Mobile, Goldenfrog, Fark, Chess.com, Imgur, Namecheap, DuckDuckGo, Checkout.com, Sonic, Brave, Ting, ProtonMail, O’Reilly Media, Discourse, and Union Square Ventures. Organizations participating include Fight for the Future, Free Press Action Fund, Demand Progress, Center for Media Justice, EFF, Internet Association, Internet Archive, World Wide Web Foundation, Creative Commons, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Greenpeace, Common Cause, ACLU, Rock the Vote, American Library Association, Daily Kos, OpenMedia, The Nation, PCCC, MoveOn, OFA, Public Knowledge, OTI, Color of Change, MoveOn, Internet Creators Guild, and many others. GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK HAVE JOINED THE FIGHT! :D

UPDATE TO WHAT WE ACCOMPLISHED ON JULY 12TH

Historic day of action for Net Neutrality breaks records:

• Tens of millions of people saw the protest messages on participating websites

• Over 5 million emails to Congress (which will be delivered over coming days)

• More than 2 million comments to the FCC

• 124,000 phone calls to Congress

• #NetNeutrality trended on both Facebook and Twitter

• Protesters went in person to more than 20 Congressional offices

• More than 125,000 websites, people, artists, online creators, and organizations signed up to participate in the initial call to protest

• Celebrities flocked to support the effort including Pearl Jam, Wilco, Wil Wheaton, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Blues Traveler, Steven Fry, Mark Ruffalo, Laura Jane Grace, Kendrick Sampson, Amanda Palmer, Ted Leo, Samantha Bee, and many more.

• Broad participation from every corner of the Internet: from online gaming communities to librarians to real estate sites to grassroots organizations to independent musicians. See a gallery here.

• NOTE: The volume of participation was so high that the FCC has been “rate limiting” submissions into their docket – there are an enormous number of comments queued up that will be submitted into their system before the July 17 deadline, as fast as their system can handle them. The same is true for emails to Congress members, which will be delivered in the days to come.

• Facebook, Google, and Dropbox three of the largest Internet companies, came out publicly with strong statements in support of the current FCC rules. This is significant – especially given Facebook’s previous opposition to certain net neutrality rules, notably in India.

• Battle for the Net Video Comments

You can read the full update here!

See what some of the companies did to support NN!

Helpful Videos

John Oliver's Video: Net Neutrality 2 - Last Week Tonight Part one here

A 3 minute Net Neutrality "TL;DR" video

Why we need Net Neutrality

Total Biscuit's Video: What is Net Neutrality? and he's made a second one :D

Net Neutrality in the US: 2017 Update -Vihart

Extra Reading

Here are some excellent articles for additional depth. They cover the issue, its political history, the struggles we've overcome, and the fight ahead in Congress and at the FCC.

Comcast May Have Found a Major Net Neutrality Loophole Wired

Verizon's mobile video won't count against data caps—but Netflix does Ars Technica

HOW WE WON Battle for the net

The FCC's Net Neutrality Order Protects Internet Freedom by Restoring the Law Medium

Title II hasn’t hurt network investment, according to the ISPs themselves

Broadband speeds have soared under net neutrality rules, cable lobby says

If you have any more information or useful websites or videos, please comment and I will review and add them to the post.

Edit: If you believe this doesn't impact you because you don't live in the U.S. and therefore don't care about the situation, let me remind you Valve's headquarters are located here in the states. Which means that if you use Steam as a gaming platform, which I'm assuming we all do here at SG, then yes this does impact you. Get angry. Get motivated. Help us fight this.

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