Net Neutrality Video Analysis

428 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Opposing viewpoints on net neutrality essays

Just under 3 years after the Obama-era regulations, the FCC, under the Trump administration, repealed the Net Neutrality regulations. Even though 83% of Americans support the enforcement of Net Neutrality (Scarborough), the FCC still went through with the repeal. The actions of the FCC, and its chairman, are brimming with deception and mischaracterization. In an unprofessional video released shortly before the repeal, Pai presents himself, dressed as Santa Claus and toting a fidget spinner. The video has amassed 267,000 dislikes, compared to the 10,000 likes, and the comments are, needless to say, vitriolic. At the start of the video, he describes how he has a plan “to restore Internet freedom”; this is just the first of many inaccuracies in the video (Pai, “PSA from Chairman of the FCC Ajit Pai”). …show more content…

He repeats another common talking point, “...we have gone from email … to high-definition video streaming … innovators guided the Internet far better than the heavy hand of government ever could have” (Pai, “PSA from Chairman of the FCC Ajit Pai”). The idea that Net Neutrality regulation affects the Internet itself is a recycled opposing point and is misleading. What is deceptive is that the regulation did not affect the Internet itself, merely the corporations that provide access to the Internet. This is an important distinction, as the Internet should be a free market. In order to have a free market, however, there must be an even playing field which is what Net Neutrality is supposed to do. With Net Neutrality regulation, “Verizon was not allowed to favor Yahoo and AOL, which it owns, by blocking Google or charging the search giant extra fees to connect to customers” (Fung). The “hypothetical harms and hysterical prophecies of doom” (Pai, “The Future of Internet Freedom”) that Pai denounces are not hypothetical; they did happen and could happen

Show More
Related

  • Federal Communications Commission (FCC) v. Fox Television

    1970 Words  | 4 Pages

    As the technologies associated with communications have evolved, so have the messages that are being transmitted. In an effort to shield citizens from offensive speech, the United States government passed the Communications Act of 1934, which created the rules that a broadcaster would have to obey to remain on the air and restricted broadcasters from “utter[ing] any obscene, indecent, or profane language by means of radio communication” (Scalia 2). This ban on obscene language was only to be in effect from the hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. in an attempt try to limit children from hearing the offensive speech. Congress created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate this act and in 1975, the FCC implemented the statutory ban on indecent broadcasts when the comedian George Carlin did his “Filthy Words” piece during a daytime broadcast. In FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, the Supreme Court found the ban to be both good law and constitutional. The FCC said...

    Read More

  • Net Neutrality

    1150 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Internet Censorship: Annotated Bibliography

    278 Words  | 1 Pages

    Schmidt, E. E., & Cohen, J. (2014, March 11). The Future of Internet Freedom. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from

    Read More

  • Ethical Issues Of Net Neutrality

    1891 Words  | 4 Pages

    They assert that failing to uphold it endangers rights of free speech and allows ISP’s to push their companies’ agendas, whether political, monopolistic, or otherwise detrimental to the consumer in a real or perceived way. Politically, an ISP might be within its current rights to throttle political opponents websites. Monopolistically, it is within the realm of possibility for an ISP to throttle competitors and discourage customers from moving to a different ISP. Additionally, users are known to have an intolerance for slow-loading webpages, thus, throttling of any website will most likely decrease the traffic to that service noticeably. This side of the argument tends to apply a Laissez-faire philosophy in describing their vision of how the internet should

    Read More

  • Google: Don’t Be Evil

    1273 Words  | 3 Pages

    Since its creation, the Internet has continuously grown in importance as a means to obtain information. This is due in part because it is not censored like the rest of America’s mainstream media, such as television, newspapers, and the radio. Nevertheless, the issue of censorship has raised many controversial issues, not only in the United States, but also throughout the world. In the debate by Intelligence2 (2008): Google Violates its Don’t be Evil Motto, it is argued that Google has violated its self declared motto that it wouldn’t be evil, thus putting people’s interest before their own corporate financial interests. While Google has committed certain questionable acts I do not believe they have violated their motto. Harry Lewis, Randal Picker, and Siva Vaidhyanathan argue that this violation is exposed in Goggle’s agreement to cooperate with the Chinese government in exchange of a larger monetary market and in its advertisement market (Intelligence2, 2008). Nevertheless, Esther Dyson, Jim Harper, and Jeff Jarvis argue that while such actions have occurred, the good it has brought to the over all population exemplifies their don’t be evil motto.

    Read More

  • Censorship Will Destroy the Internet

    1553 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...among other things, an experiment in anarchism: a group of independent, free individuals acting without coercion and defining their own rules. The internet is exciting because there is no central authority to decide what is and is not allowed, who can talk and who cannot. This freedom is one of the intangible features that makes the internet a wonder of the modern world. Senate bill 314 seeks to destroy that freedom with artificially imposed guidelines; it seeks to impose an authority where there has been none and where the citizens do not want or need one. This is perhaps the most destructive feature of Senator Exon's proposal: it would corrupt the atmosphere of freedom that many net users find so enticing. If Senator Exon spent some time on-line, perhaps he could understand how precious this experiment really this, and perhaps he would not be so quick to end it.

    Read More

  • Howard Stern

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

    Unfortunately, because of this new motivation to control our programming to the FCC?fs liking one avenue of our freedom of speech is being taken away from us. The public programming we currently have is perfectly acceptable and almost to conservative. It?fs not like we have one TV or radio station that everyone is forced to watch. If you don?ft like what your watching or listening to you can just change the channel or turn it off.

    Read More

  • Last Week Satire

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    The United States believed that the FCC would consider bending the rules allowing internet service providers or ISPs to violate net neutrality principles by making it easier for Internet users to access certain content. This problem was explained by John Oliver the host of Last Week Tonight explained that,

    Read More

  • Net Neutrality In Canada Essay

    873 Words  | 2 Pages

    The United States only recently introduced net neutrality legislation. Prior to these regulations, the internet functioned in a healthy and fair manner. The rules put in place in 2015 by the Obama administration were attempting to fix a problem that didn’t exist. These rules have limited consumers options rather than protecting them. The FCC under the Obama administration used legislation from the 1930’s and the 1990’s to regulate modern telecom companies. These rules are outdated and ill fitted to regulating modern telecom companies.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Net Neutrality

    502 Words  | 2 Pages

    Net neutrality was the big talk towards the end of 2017. Taking away net neutrality would cause chaos in my opinion. Making schools and other organizations pay to use technology only discourages them from doing so which is a major step backwards in such a technological point in time. The world is constantly creating new ways to implement technology to our everyday lives and charging us to do so is not a step in the right direction. Saying that getting rid of net neutrality will do away with discrimination is absurd. Discrimination was around way before the internet was but instead we once again have one political party trying to undermine the other by playing the victim. I do agree that it isn’t right that such huge corporations such as

    Read More

  • History of the Internet

    1850 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...t those that seek to censor some of the information found on the internet. Nunziato (2009) concludes that in order to fulfill the Internet’s promise of being “the most participatory market-place of mass speech that this country-and indeed the world- has seen,” the companies that serve as gatekeepers for free expression need to be regulated to ensure that they fairly administer any censorship such that it “does not detract from the free speech values that are necessary to facilitate the public discussion and informed deliberation that democratic government presupposes and the First Amendment requires”.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Internet Censorship

    2484 Words  | 5 Pages

    The technological advancements made within the last decades have undoubtedly changed the way today’s society operates as a whole. People are more dependent on computers and the internet than they have ever been, so their prevalence in general life has been greatly inflated. Such an important and prominent tool could never go unregulated by governmental authority, however. Government censorship of the internet has been an extremely controversial issue, even from the point where “net neutrality” was first discussed. Governments generally argue for the use of censorship for the purpose of discouraging and disallowing the access to inappropriate material and other harmful practices, but further extend their censorship’s reach to affect many other facets of the internet; including politically sensitive material and discussions. There are several techniques which may be used to restrict the content deemed offensive by a government. This means that the authority in a given country can effectively restrict access to any material which they deem to be offensive. This is almost unavoidable for the citizens affected and so the resources which their internet holds are quite limited by these restrictions. As the internet has become such a valuable resource, people are not happy about its restriction. There has been much protest and backlash against internet censorship throughout the world. The morality of internet censorship has been in question countless times as it - in many cases - is stifling freedom of speech and expression, as well as limiting the resources available for the public. The purpose of this report is to prove that Internet censorship has a negative impact on the general public and global community.

    Read More

  • The Negative Effects of Censorship

    3203 Words  | 7 Pages

    " Time for the Supreme Court to End FCC Indecency Censorship. " The Huffington Post. N.p., 11 Jan. 2012.

    Read More

  • Digital Media Analysis

    628 Words  | 2 Pages

    This work seeks to analyse the cohorts born in the late 1990s and beyond, concerning crime rate in America in relation to the ones born before these ages. In this attempt, the main preoccupation is to investigate the effects of digital media on children. According to the recent findings, the people born around these ages have dominantly engaged in various crimes, meaning that the crime rate witnessed among the youths have gone in these young generation compared to their predecessors (Farrington, Ohlin & Wilson, 2012). It is real that an age group would influence each other to develop a similar pattern in life. For example, the cohorts of the 1990s and beyond are prevalent in homicides and drug takings than before. In fact, the negative picture is evident in the juvenile courts where many young people are accused of murder and engagement in drugs. This is evidently through the use of digital media with its contents that share violent information that these children can access and share.

    Read More

  • Freedom of Speech in Cyberspace

    2593 Words  | 6 Pages

    Free speech on the Internet is a very controversial subject and has been the key problem surrounding the Internet today. The attempt to regulate and govern the Internet is still pursued by government officials. This subject has been intensified due to terrorist attacks against the United States and around world within the past years. The government believes that by regulating the Internet, it will protect the general public from criminal actions and eliminate the exposure of children to pornography or vulgar language. Senator Jim Exon of ...

    Read More

More about Net Neutrality Video Analysis

Open Document