Hello All,
Today I’m here to talk about Net Neutrality. I’m sure this must be a topic dear to some of you! But before I open up for the stage for debate, let me touch upon the basics of Net Neutrality for those who are unaware about the topic.
So, what is Net Neutrality? Net neutrality is the principle that Internet Service Providers(ISP) must treat all data on the Internet the same, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication. For instance, under these principles, ISPs are unable to intentionally block, slow down or charge money for specific websites and online content. On Nov. 10, 2014, President Obama announced a new plan to preserve “net neutrality”. “No service should be stuck in a ‘slow lane’ because it does not pay a fee,” he wrote in a statement. “That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth.” The debate of Net Neutrality became the order of discussion again
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There are controls in place for illegal activities, but companies like Comcast or AT&T wouldn’t be able to change how a customer’s data is delivered to them. This means an ISP under net neutrality cannot block access, change services, or alter the flow of data simply because there is something that goes on which they don’t like. Also, net neutrality helps to protect innovation. Just image had Google's search results been throttled by any of the ISPs, then Google would not have been what they are today. Also, it protects United States First Amendment. Independent voices and political groups are especially vulnerable. Costs will skyrocket to post and share video and audio clips, silencing bloggers and amplifying the big media companies. Anti-government publications could be slowed by the handful of ISPs who in turn receive favors from the
The author is this article is Kalev Leetaru, he is known as an American internet entrepreneur and academic. He is also a contributor to Foreign Policy, where he discusses current political events worldwide. He was appointed adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown university which is ranked #6 internationally and is an extremely well respected university in Washington DC.
Although the net neutrality debate didn’t come into the spot light so long ago, it has sparked controversy in the communications world. This concept provides a positive impact to the consumers, competition and network owners/internet service providers. It broadens the aspect of equality, which the open Internet was first based on. The profound effects on the aforementioned players provide a supported purpose to regulate the notion of net neutrality.
The internet is a place where people can freely express their political or other views for people to see. A recent study, Freedom of Net, by the activist group Freedom House shows both the immense censorship of information around the world and the declining freedom of information around the world, “Two-thirds of all internet users, 67 per cent, live in countries where criticism of the government, military, or ruling family are subject to censorship” (APF & Bell). The report by Freedom House digs into the censorship of government criticism, military criticism, and negative views on the ruling family in two thirds of countries studied in the report with governments around the world are silencing the voices of people and their publications. By censoring the people's voices, the governments are able to control the population and their views on not only their own government, but also countries around the world. Governments around the world are stepping up their censorship of public information posted on social media by taking actions to suppress the publications before they even begin. The report by Freedom House shares how police around the world are arresting and punishing those who have taken to social media to complain about a topic that makes the country look bad. The report states: “Social media users face unprecedented penalties, as authorities in 38 countries made
Net Neutrality requires to give everyone access to everything on the internet. This means that your internet provider won’t charge you for using specific websites. But with this, companies will have the ability to charge you for using basic things such as email, Spotify and even YouTube. Fast and slow lanes will also be included which may vary depending of what packages you paid for. But that is just the beginning, being that with this they will be able to control what you are able to see and not, ending Freedom of Speech in the
SOPA aroused public attention from a wide range of protests though it originally aimed to help online business damaged by piracy. On January 18, 2012, websites like Google, Reddit, Wikipedia were all blackout and drew great public attention. According to the announcement left on Wikipedia’s website, they were in protest against Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which “has the potential to significantly change the way that information can be shared through the Internet.”(Wikipedia, 1) SOPA is designed to tackle the problem of websites that provide illegal download of pirated movies, music and other products. For websites consist of user upload materials like Youtube and Facebook, they are responsible for all the materials on their web...
A recent and hotly debated topic among businesses, politicians, and internet users in the United States is that of net neutrality. With the rise of the internet over the past few decades, laws and regulations have struggled to keep up with the ever changing environment. As such, the problem of whether net neutrality should be enforced, and to what extent, has been a dividing issue. This problem has come into the public’s attention recently due to infringements and controversy surrounding policies by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). In the following paragraphs, I plan to first define the concept of net neutrality, related topics which are crucial for an informed ethical discussion of the topic, and also related cases in which net neutrality
Tim Wu is known as “the father of Net Neutrality” for first coining the term “Net Neutrality”. He is a professor at Columbia Law School and the director of the Poliak Center at Columbia Journalism School. He commonly talks about other topics such as copyright, private power and free speech. Wu believes that net neutrality can prevent companies and carriers to offer “special” treatment to one specific provider instead of another. According to Wu, Net Neutrality benefits anyone in some way and believes that Internet transparency is critical because carriers fail to tell what services they provide for the user. At the core of Net neutrality, there is a free speech principle. It allows speakers and innovators to reach people that they would not
...s article “Ma Bell’s Revenge: The battle for Network Neutrality” shows us in a just a few of the hundreds of arguments which have been brought up over the proposal of network neutrality. Network neutrality essentially means that all data gets treated the same by an ISP or service, whether it be an incoming email or a gigantic video file, it’s is based on the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they choose to use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days. In other words, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet in terms of overall speed. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online.
The article “Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible: Three Radicaly Democratic Internet Policies” by Robert McChesney provides us with a look into the world of corrupt internet policies and explains why they should be reformed. McChesney argues that internet policy is determined by a small percentage of the wealthy population and is not a free enterprise (92). He insists that the policy be amended so that the internet can become a force of democracy (93). He suggests change by proposing three policy ideas (93). According the McChesney, in order for the internet to become a platform of true democracy we must end the ISP cartel, treat monopolies like monopolies and treat journalism like a public good (93).
One of them is having citizens fear the exchange of ideas centering new, controversial, or deviant topics. Government surveillance makes people question the content of their conversations, and people, fearing accusation and punishment, may simply refrain from engaging in such conversations. Surveillance does not simply induce fear on people, it also indirectly limits people’s basic civil
Schmidt, E. E., & Cohen, J. (2014, March 11). The Future of Internet Freedom. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from
Internet restriction has become an alarming issue throughout the last few years because people want to be able to post whatever they want without any government
Thus, one remedy to our struggle is to tell every mother, especially every Black mother, since we are on a mission to prevent our extermination and uplift especially our people, to: 1) Starting pre-natal, the first day home or as early as possible, to hold the baby, hold a book and read for 5 to 10 minutes every day. This will fix the child so that for the rest of its life, every time that it picks up a book, it will get a little warm feeling in its heart. The baby will have the mother’s love and heartbeat mixed up with the book and this will produce a “lock” that no amount of negative peer pressure or inadequate education can break. The child easily will learn to read and will do very well in school. Now, if started early enough, the effectiveness
The Internet provides a gateway for an individual to speak freely and anonymously without being targeted to what he or she said. With this said, one of the biggest issues concerning the Internet today is freedom of speech. The issue of free speech on the Internet has been a topic of discussion around the world within the past years. It is a unique communication medium and is powerful than the traditional media[2]. Because the Internet can not be compared equally to other mediums of communication, it deserves the utmost freedom of speech protection from the government. The restriction of speech on the Internet takes away from individual's rights and freedom from experiencing the Internet's benefits and uses. Information found on the Internet is endless and boundless and this poses the question, "should the government be allowed to regulate the information and content being transmitted or posted online?"
While the liberty of speech on Internet strengthens the democratization, it also provides political dissidents with channels and arranges to undermine. McLaughlin (2007) reveals that in Middle East, the Internet offers non-state dissident actors a potentially potent tool to accomplish their political objectives. Consequently, without the nation-imposed constraint... ... middle of paper ... ... ool, the public even the nation might suffer inestimable disasters.