From the L.A. Times
Do you want to decide on the web sites you visit on the internet, or do you want someone else to control your choices? “Net neutrality” is more at risk now than ever before. Powerful economic interests want to limit what you see on the internet and your freedom of internet choices will be restricted. Read the “Net Neutrality is Dead” article linked below.
Let’s say one of your favorite web sites is Granny Smith’s Favorite Recipes up in Minnesota. Then one day her site is incredibly slow (it’s been throttled), or you can’t access it at all. Granny Smith (I made her up) is just an ordinary person with a recipe blog and she couldn’t afford to pay the powerful ISPs to make her site available, so it suddenly becomes virtually invisible to you. And you discover you can no longer freely access that photography in Ohio (i.e. mine – *wink), or your favorite political blog coming out of Washington state, or that daily southern humor blog in North Carolina. The internet will become like cable TV. You will only get to see the web sites your ISP wants you to see.
This is not some distant doomsday scenario. This is going on right now in Washington D.C.
It is time write to the FCC and your elected representatives (links below). As this L.A. Times article puts it:
“The only course is for public pressure to overcome industry pressure. That’s a tough road, but there’s no alternative. Do you want your Internet to look like your cable TV service, where you have no control over what comes into your house or what you pay for it? Then stay silent. If not, start writing letters and emails to your elected representatives and the FCC now. It’s the only hope to save the free, open Internet.”
Links
Read Net Neutrality is Dead at the L.A. Times.
Ready to go online petitions and letters:
Sign the ACLU’s Petition to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler
Send a message (via Common Cause) to your elected representatives
Do it yourself contact info: