Yes to Net Neutrality

     After a heated debate between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and two unofficially cooperative half-monopolies Comcast and Time Warner, the FCC passed net neutrality with a vote of 3-2 on Thursday, February 26th, 2015, establishing internet service as a regulated utility much like that of electricity or water. Cristina Maza, a staff writer for The Christian Science Moniter, in her article, FCC passes net neutrality: what this means for America, discusses the issues addressed in this ruling. Net neutrality is a term referring to the concept that internet service providers (ISPs) cannot speed up or slow service based on the content of data and that all data is to be treated indiscriminately. This is important to the internet and those that use it because the world wide web is an important tool and knowledge database that provides common people with a tool for achieving things that would otherwise be ordinarily difficult to accomplish. For example, the online company Kickstarter allows people with creative ideas and a limited budget to acquire funding by receiving pledges from people who would like to see that idea come to life. So far, its reported that over 200,000 (thousands of) creative projects have been funded by more than 7,800,000 (millions of) people, with upwards of  $1,500,000,000 (billion!) being pledged. That's a lot of little people making big differences!

     The internet should be an equal opportunity utility, unbiased in use and ease of accessibility. With increasing numbers of companies offering job applications only online, and many of those jobs requiring internet usage, it has become a necessity for much of America's workforce. While the big names in internet service provision argue that this ruling infringes on their right as a free enterprise, it is apparent after examination that the legal action they want would infringe on the freedom of the people to voice and listen to the ideas openly discussed and easily accessed through the use of the internet. This is important to the people of not only our generation, but of our time, here and now, and to the future people of the United States of America. The internet is meant to allow the free exchange of ideas over distances both vast and adjacent. The internet is meant to bridge the gap between people of every socioeconomic class, level of education, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and combination of possible differences, highlighting the similarities that exist within and between each and every one of us. The internet is a web of connections. It would not be the internet if we, the people, let big business separate it, separating us from each other in the process.