Want more independent journalism? Sign up for The Nation Daily.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue.
Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Travel With The Nation Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits.
Fight Back! Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can each week.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Net neutrality is the First Amendment of the Internet. It guarantees that speech is equal on the network of networks—whether the words come from Walmart, the corporate behemoth that identifies as the largest retailer in the world, or Walmart Watch, the movement that “seeks to hold Walmart fully accountable for its impact on communities, America’s workforce, the retail sector, the environment and the economy.” Ad Policy
Net-neutrality protections assure that the essential democratic discourse on the World Wide Web cannot be bartered off to the highest bidders of a billionaire class that dominates the political debate on so many other media platforms.
Citizens love net neutrality. “The overwhelming majority of people who wrote unique comments to the Federal Communications Commission want the FCC to keep its current net neutrality rules and classification of ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act,” Ars Technica reported in August. How overwhelming? “98.5% of unique net neutrality comments oppose Ajit Pai’s anti–Title II plan,” read the headline.
The media monopolists of the telecommunications industry hate net neutrality. They have worked for years to overturn guarantees of an open Internet because those guarantees get in their way of their profiteering. If net neutrality is eliminated, they will restructure how the Internet works, creating information superhighways for corporate and political elites and digital dirt roads for those who cannot afford the corporate tolls.
No one will be surprised to learn which side Donald Trump’s FCC has chosen.
FCC chair Ajit Pai, who does the bidding of the telecommunications conglomerates with the rigid determination and focus of the former Verizon lawyer that he is, has been racing to eliminate net neutrality. Pai plans to have the FCC vote on December 14 to overturn the safeguards that were put in place during the Obama administration. If Pai and the Trump-aligned majority on the five-member commission succeed in gutting the existing Open Internet Order, they will alter the future of communications in America.
OPSIMYTH on November 24th, 2017 at 17:10 UTC »
Do you want pirate internet providers? Because that's how you get pirate internet providers.
Mazerty on November 24th, 2017 at 16:21 UTC »
Elites already rule the world and the future, more heavily commodified internet access is just another tendril in their web of exploitation, ideally this net neutrality battle helps raise class consciousness and people start to recognize the real problem.
Lanhdanan on November 24th, 2017 at 15:35 UTC »
Control the medium, control the message.