PICTORAL.

(Steve, Flickr.com)

This picture, in essence, summarizes the biggest issue with Net Neutrality as it stands right now -- and that problem is that it is a split issue in Congress.

Typically, Republicans vote against Net Neutrality while those for it line with the Democrats.

This shouldn't be an issue of politics, but given how intertwined with business the American political system is, it is.

DIARY ENTRY.

February 22nd, 2015.

Okay, okay, okay.

I know this is supposed to be about my project.

Thing is.

Only you are going to see this blog, so I figure I can be a teensy bit liberal with what goes here.

It can be our little secret.

: )

Anyway, I have to admit I had a lot of trouble doing things for this project.

Not that I don't have a concrete stand on Net Neutrality -- you know what it is.

Or not enough knowledge on the subject.

I could talk at you for hours about the various business sins Comcast has committed in the past year let alone in their entire history.

This is an English persuasive project.

It's supposed to get you on my side.

I feel like I probably already did that the moment you started reading this blog.

Of course you'd want to agree with me, right?

Well.

I had a gasping thought a few days ago.

Why don't we just boycott businesses that are unsupportive of Net Neutrality?

I thought hard about it.

Boycotting is practically the next American dream these days.

Don't like something? BOYCOTT!

Problem is, nothing is accomplished by boycotting besides using economically violent tactics to disavow those that don't agree with us.

That's why we have to educate the big wigs that sit in their high rise condos in NYC just how much opposing net neutrality would harm them in the long term.

Because showing a man the merit to a right than punishing for a wrong has three times the impact.

GUIDELINES FOR HOW TO APPRECIATE YOUR "FREE" INTERNET.

( officially sponsered by the Kaylas for a Better Internet Commission! )

What are your daily activities over the Internet?
Blogging, texting, calling, writing angry posts about the evils of Comcast (proudly guilty!),  completely forgetting about the need to read a book over break (not so proudly guilty!), and just generally enjoying a world full of connections?
If so, great! You are officially protected with your interests under Net Neutrality! -- which is awesome, by the way.
So why do companies want to take away those liberties?
It's a complex question to ask, but here are some guidelines to better appreciate your Internet while fighting for the sake of Net Neutrality being upheld by the FCC:

1. Post, don't just relate! The world needs your voice and your opinion. It's what makes the Internet the Internet.
2. Stay informed! There's nothing worse than a case of terrible misinformation to crudely sway you to any one side -- but this is obviously a pro-Net Neutrality blog.
3. Peruse everything you can find about the topic! There are so many fascinating things going on with the Internet, and how unique it is in comparison to any other media system currently in existence today.
4. News about the standard of Net Neutrality comes in almost every day! Just this month, the FCC announced their planned reforms for their regulations, including rebranding the Internet as a communications service.
5. And finally ... Be involved! Net Neutrality is quite possibly the biggest debate that will perhaps be answered in 2015.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Hey, YOU!
Yes, YOU! The person sitting right here! The person reading these letters and words! YOU!
How would YOU like to sign up for the wonderful, most stupendous, greatest ever ...
NET NEUTRAL INTERNET?!
Just think about it! You'll have fair pricing, fair coverage, actually usable customer service that doesn't blatantly lie to you (thanks, Comcast), and most of all...
... UN-THROTTLED SERVICE!
Now you won't have to count your lucky stars whenever you're able to get Netflix to stream properly, listen to the music you like on Spotify, being able to access any webpage you so desire at blazing fast speeds!
But there is a caveat.
One, tiny, little, microscopic caveat.
Net neutral Internet is at STAKE!
You could see a world haunted by throttled Internet forcing you to divulge your news from FOX News, a place where you must buy everything and anything from Amazon (even when it's cheaper on camelcamelcamel), and so many more Internet HORRORS!
How do we stop this from happening?!
Write to your local senator to uphold the FCC's ruling on Net Neutrality today!
THE FATE OF THE INTERNET IS IN YOUR HANDS!

A KINGLY DEBATE.

There is something I haven't delved into yet, and something I should discuss.

I should discuss it, yes. But the answers -- up to you; this is a debate, after all. It requires you, and it requires me. I already have my answers -- that isn't the point. But what are yours?

1. What do you think of Comcast? Have you even heard of them before this?

2. Comcast aside, which Internet Service Provider do you pay for?

3. How would you rate their service? Any outages?

4. How do you think the Net Neutrality ruling by the FCC might affect your browsing of the Internet or even your monthly bill?

5. What's your stance on Net Neutrality? For, against, completely ambivalent?

These are all good questions. You can answer them in the comment section below when you read this. We can talk about it in-class too.

SOME COMMENTARY.

The world is boasted by its seemingly infinite share of cosmic irony.

Recently, and by "this month recent", the 'good fight' in the name of net neutrality has reached a breakthrough. Tom Wheeler, resident misled head of the Federal Communications Comission, has finally decided enough is enough of relentlessly pandering to Internet Service Providers and is currently spearheading changes to their policies that would redefine providing Internet service a "telecommunications service" instead of an "information service."

How influential is this decision?

To put it kindly, enormous. (1)

By classifying the Internet, and allowing access therein to the Internet a telecommunications service, Internet Service Providers are now "common carriers" in legalese, that meaning they fall under the same policies for other common carriers which is a huge step towards net neutrality being enforced. (2) 

Who wants this to happen? Us.

Who doesn't want this to happen? Go on, gander a guess.

And it's not just Comcast.

All of the big names are opposed to this decision in some way or another - AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, et al. Tom Wheeler, on the other hands, is particularly adamant that he isn't going to pay the lobbyists -- or the bribes -- any heed in his pending decision with the FCC, which is set to reach its final decision late this Feburary.

For the rest of us, we can only wait in quiet trepidation that all will be well.

AN OPEN LETTER TO COMCAST'S CEO.

Oh dearest Brain Roberts(1),

May I suggest something to you, One and Glorious of the Comcastian Internet Empire(2)? I dare not offer a challenge to your mighty autocracy of cable among us here in the US of A - that would be only left to the foolish and the shortsighted. No, no, I will do away with all that. Consider this, your Glory, a most honest, a most truncated and straightforward collective opinion of your peoples in your vast swathes of dominion on the basis of your rule.

Your people despise you.(3)

Now, now, I can see it your eyes. I tell you, your Glory, to not be infuriated. I am but a most beset messenger, whose words scathe me to hear them come forth from I as much as it scathes you. I give you a simple resolve, more a placid suggestion, to help curtail the ignorance of your peoples in this manner. You own so much(4), your Glory, in terms of land and your cables, to connect this country with the gift, yes, the most valued gift of your Internet. It is troubling to those that consider it a tyranny,(5) an injustice on this free-bearing nation that you own so much. It gives you freedom to be benevolent, they affirm, but also the freedom to be no more than a sacrilaged dictator of prices and vanquished competition. 


Beyond that, your Glory, it also happens that you are almost unanimously voted the worst company in America by the heresy of Consumerist(6) this previous year - heresy that I do admit is fairly popular among your peoples. Because of the prevalence of freedom of speech, much like your freedom to dictate, we cannot simply be rid of Consumerist and its heresy, not quite; perhaps at another time, but their voice must be considered with the influence it has on your peons. Then I say, your Glory, that consumer value has more merit to it than previously decided.

Your peons' voice in these affairs, of what they so demand from you, your Glory, is becoming fairly clear, is it not? They wish for a land of options between their Internet Service Providers, a tested freedom from price gouging and anti-competitive leverage(7) and then too the ability to have genuine customer service without it becoming a paraded about "horror story" among the analogues of Consumerist and other sites of heresy to your rule. And, too, a freedom of being able to access what they wish on your Internet that you so graciously provide. A suggestion it may, but a suggestion I do believe is very much warranted.

Sincerely,
A Consumer of Verizon FiOS

Footnotes:
(1): Edwards, Haley Sweetland. "The Man Who Wants To Remake The Internet Does Not Wear A Hoodie." (par. 1)
(2): Edwards, Haley Sweetland. "The Man Who Wants To Remake The Internet Does Not Wear A Hoodie." (par. 3)
(3): Edwards, Haley Sweetland. "The Man Who Wants To Remake The Internet Does Not Wear A Hoodie." (par. 7)
(4): Edwards, Haley Sweetland. "The Man Who Wants To Remake The Internet Does Not Wear A Hoodie." (par. 3)
(5): Edwards, Haley Sweetland. "The Man Who Wants To Remake The Internet Does Not  Wear A Hoodie." (par. 4)
(6): http://consumerist.com/2014/04/08/congratulations-to-comcast-your-2014-worst-company-in-america/
(7): Edwards, Haley Sweetland. "The Man Who Wants To Remake The Internet Does Not  Wear A Hoodie." (par. 17)

O NEUTRALITY, MY NET NEUTRALITY!

The question has been defined: What is Net Neutrality? Why should I care about it?

Both of those questions are essential for understanding both the concept itself and the ideas that it embodies - often, the public knows what net neutrality is but is unable to form an opinion on it due to stilted information, blase assumptions, or even merely not giving it their time to begin with. Here is the definition for net neutrality that will be referenced to throughout the various posts within this blog: net neutrality is the concept that all data accessed over the Internet should be treated equally to all other data -- and, by extension, no specific data should be closed off if it is available for normal access.

But what does that mean?

Let’s put it into perspective. You want to watch Netflix - everyone considers the prospect at some point in their lives, correct? In order to access Netflix from your computer, you need to be connected to the Internet. The company you pay for Internet access is known as your Internet Service Provider. For the context of this example, we’re going to use Comcast as your Internet Service Provider. You mosey on over to Netflix’s website, log-in with your (hopefully not mooched off of) credentials, and decide you want quality time with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, so you load up some BBC Sherlock. You load up “A Study in Pink”, it loads, and then ...

...

...

The video quality is terrible, choppy, and constantly buffers every three seconds! How are you supposed to be able to enjoy the complicated entanglement of Sherlock’s hand waived, entirely circumstantially immaculate logical deductions like this?! You pay good money for this! You, like millions of other Netflix subscribers accessing the service through Comcast fire off an angry email to customer support. Eventually, the matter seems to resolve itself. All is well. Except, well, it isn’t. For a customer of Comcast, nothing is wrong. For the executives of Netflix, everything is wrong. This was the very scenario of Comcast’s under the table deal with Netflix(1) where Comcast forced Netflix to pay upwards of millions of dollars in order to secure reliable connections to Netflix through Comcast’s service, under the threat of Netflix facing a huge drop-off of Comcast-using subscribers if they did not.

This was the first large scale infringement of net neutrality, and it had to have been Comcast.

Because Comcast forced Netflix into a position of paying up to secure reliable data connections, Comcast was effectively installing a premium for what it perceived as the “privilege” of having decent service to secure its subscriber base that were connecting to it through Comcast. With that door opened, the rest lie in terse uncertainty. If Comcast could make Netflix do it, what say that it wouldn’t force Google to do the same for its services? Or any other high-scale Internet based company? Suddenly, the Internet stands on the precipice of becoming the very embodiment of “hail Corporate”, for ISPs would demand rates from anything and anyone to have a stake in the Internet as “equal” as the big leagues. Startups would be unable to cope with the changes as the Internet before the corporate revolution was a breeding ground for innovation with its absurdly low entry prices compared to other industries(2). The Internet, in its untouched form, is a haven of website competition based on merit and usability instead of who can pay the ISPs the most for the best access.

That’s what net neutrality is.

It keeps the Internet the Internet.

Footnotes:

(1) Edwards, Haley Sweetland. "The Man Who Wants To Remake The Internet Does Not Wear a Hoodie”, par. 20

(2) Ammori, Marvin. "The Case For Net Neutrality." par. 9

WITH ONE INTRODUCTION TO RULE THEM ALL...

I am going to admit something very important.

So important, in fact, it could possibly change the world forever. Okay, well, maybe that's a fairly lofty assumption, but hey, a girl can dream, right?

The modern world is powered by the Internet.

If you listen closely, you can hear the golf-clatter creak and groan of old men and women rising up to roar in unison, WE DON'T NEED THE INTERNET! WHEN WE WERE KIDS THE BEST WE HAD WAS THE RADIO! WE HAD TO LEARN HOW TO DISCERN WORDS FROM TINNY STATIC! AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY!

Thanks, Grandma, but this blog isn't for you. It's for people like me - but not too close to like me because then I'd just hate them - and those people are young adults who are genuinely aware of the hustle and bustle of the world around them. With us, we were born with the Internet. The Internet has become our go-to for anything and everything that we could need, and we're all the better for it ... when it's used properly, that is. But not everything about the Internet is so ho-hum. In order to access the Internet, you have to pay for the service through an Internet Service Provider - your Verizons, your AT&Ts, and (god forbid) your Comcasts, among others. Your money, their pockets, and you get the Internet. Sounds like a fairly good deal, right? I mean, the Internet is the Internet. Personally, I'd pay a small fortune for access to it.

But, alas, we live in America, land of the business empire and industry.

Their latest target for sucking away all individuality, uniqueness, and innovation from?

The Internet.(1)

Now, I feel as if I were a mother bear with one of her cubs being threatened. NO! NOT THE INTERNET, YOU BASTARD HUNTERS! YOU CAN'T SWINDLE THE INTERNET AWAY FROM ME! And, quite, they haven't - yet. But they have tried numerous times. The idea that keeps the villainous corporate barons at bay from devouring all they can from the Internet to line their already seemingly infinite coffers is one single idea. An idea so simple yet so profound it ought to ring true in both the ears of every consumer of the Internet. It doesn't take an activist to understand its importance. It begins with an N, and ends in a Y...

Face the wrath of NET NEUTRALITY!

Net neutrality has been the core essence of all that makes the Internet the Internet, and with it comes the profound sense of that it will protect us from those that seek to infringe upon it all for the sake of good business. But then that begs a very certain question, now doesn't it, dear reader? Well, yes.

If Net Neutrality is so important, then what the hell is it?

I'm glad you asked.

Footnotes:
(1): Ammori, Marvin. "A Case for Net Neutrality," par. 8