In this current day of age technology has been striving and evolving at a rate so fast we can hardly keep up with it, this has given us new, helpful, and cool technology that we use on an everyday bases. Almost everything we do online has been made possible by one invention that we honestly take for granted, this invention is called the “internet”. The internet has been a source of mass entertainment while also being used for utility purposes ever since it was popularized in the early 1990’s when the world wide web went global. After it started getting more users around the globe, we started to expand the use of the internet. We created a way to purchase almost anything off the web and stream hours of videos to communicating with others all around the world or people that live around the corner.

With something as great as the internet, there will always be someone trying to take advantage over it, and these people are called the “FCC,” or Federal Communications Commission. That’s right, there is a discussion of repealing something very dear to the public, and it’s called “net neutrality.”  According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, net neutrality is: “the idea, principle or requirement that internet service providers should or must treat all internet data as the same regardless of its kind, source or destination.” Net neutrality is vital to our everyday lives as it brings us access to view whatever we want, whenever we want, hassle free. Your ISP, Internet Service Providers, have to show all websites that are deemed lawful by the government. Net neutrality means that ISPs aren’t allowed to censor anything that isn’t selling or showing anything illegal, nor are they allowed to restrict the time you spend on certain websites. To put this in perspective, when you buy or pay for cable and/or home WiFi, the internet and most of its website’s are free to the consumer, free of conditional fees. However, if net neutrality is repealed, then your ISP will be able to charge you extra fees for viewing websites and even throttle your access to certain websites, such as their competitor’s websites.

Net neutrality is vital to have in this modern day of web browsing, in 2015 the FCC made broadcast providers such as Verizon, Comcast, Century Link and AT&T  common internet carriers. ISPs are just medians of exchange, they are carriers of information which means, these companies have to give the consumer what they search for on the internet as long as they are under a payment plan. If the FCC repeals net neutrality, they can censor anything they wouldn’t want us to see. Your ISPs’ job is to give you equal access to all websites deemed legal for viewing, this means they can’t censor anything nor toggle access to certain websites. So if net neutrality gets repealed they can shut off anyone’s access to any website as long as they see fit. This doesn’t mean they’ll block our viewing privileges to big name websites like YouTube or Netflix, but smaller websites or websites that they view less important or controversial are more likely to be blocked or ran at a speed so slow you can’t even load the front page. If net neutrality is repealed then we would basically be at the mercy of our internet service providers and truth be told they would take full advantage of it.

The man who made the decision to repeal net neutrality is Ajit Pai, and he is the head chairman of the FCC. He made his case more than clear that he wants to not just repeal, but destroy net neutrality. Before we go deep into why he wants net neutrality gone, we need to know a little about him before he was appointed head chairman. Pai used to be a lawyer for Verizon, the fourth largest internet provider in this country and once he became chairman, he made it his goal to restrict the American public’s availability to the internet. He is well known for being anti-regulation and called things by leftists which I can’t say on a school paper. He said and I quote, that he wanted to “take a weed wacker to current FCC rules,” and said “net neutrality’s days are numbered.” Doesn’t he just sound like a bundle of roses? He believes that killing net neutrality will “set the internet free,” which makes no sense because, if the repeal does go through we’d actually have to pay more money for using the internet while having less access to certain parts of it. However, he also believes that getting rid of net neutrality is a good thing in the sense that it would give ISPs more room to change the political footing that the current internet is standing on. He says “the job of the government is not to dictate how the market (internet) is structured or to say who wins and who loses, that’s up for consumers to decide. From my perspective at the least, if we set the rules right and we adopt President Clinton’s approach from the 1990’s and update it for the digital age, we’ll see unparalleled investment for the internet moving forwards.” And when he said by “Clinton’s approach”, he was referring to the internet not being super regulated. So he sounds like he’s trying to do some good, right? Well just keep one thing in mind when taking this man’s words over reason. He was a lawyer for Verizon, the fourth largest internet provider in this country. He runs with all the current internet providers that have monopolized the internet industry. Once net neutrality gets repealed, they will have the power to charge whatever they see fit as there is hardly any real competition between these ISPs. 

Now do not worry, there are many people who are trying to prevent the repeal of net neutrality, and there are even things you could do to prevent the FCC from getting their way. There are many websites such as: www.battleforthenet.com, which is a website all about putting the FCC in their place. If you really wanted, you could take a direct approach and send a letter to the FCC and inform them about your opinion. Rest assured, you will not have to worry about net neutrality repealed as millions have already taken action!