Net Neutrality

Net neutrality is something that I think we could all agree needs to be put into place so that the big telecom companies don’t get the opportunity to basically choose what the consumer sees on the internet by making some sites load slower than others. There are all kinds of videos and information out there for the uninformed person to learn more about net neutrality, but one of the things that was interesting to me in the readings was toward the end Reilly article. Ben Scott, advocate for the net neutrality movement, says that he has a simple message, which is that everything that people love about the web is “threatened”. This statement kind of goes along with what Nancy Snow says about the penguin video in the Al Gore video article. It sounds like it is a part of “Propaganda 101”, containing no factual information or anything like that. It is just a statement made to scare consumers into joining the side of net neutrality. The advocates of net neutrality need to stay away from the propaganda like that penguin video and make sure that factual, useful information is used to bring users over to their side.

The thing I don’t understand about the telecom companies is why they think that they should get to charge for faster access to different sites. Most companies, like Verizon and AT&T, make money from other resources besides internet, such as mobile phone service, television, etc. Maybe once they get our internet connection speeds caught up to all the other countries that offer faster access at cheaper prices, then they can think about charging for ridiculous things such as selected sites that load faster than others.