Is restricting internet access protection of the young minds, profit for the wealthy or the silencing of those who speak with their first amendment right?
What is net neutrality? It is the principle that internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking products of websites.
The internet is much more than a few social media sites and political updates. It is a realm that is far too vast to truly image. You can find a site for everything. You have mommy and me blogs and videos that teach you how to change your laundry. You can look up your favorite band or you can make your website as a young aspiring artist.
Younger generations grew up with a screen in their hands with the knowledge of the world. At this point what would the damage be if that was stripped from the population?
When you buy cable you are given the option to bundle your channels, saying, do you want freeform and Hbo or MTV and HGTV? If you do not buy the biggest package, you are not given basic channels. Ones you didn’t even realize you needed are not included. The same concept will flood over into internet. You will be asked to bundle your websites. Do you want unlimited access to Tumblr and Instagram or Facebook and Pinterest?
People are not going to be willing to pay for a site that has hidden authors such as http://archiveofourown.org/ or music sharing sites such as SoundCloud. Imagine you are now asked to pay for every YouTube video you watch.
Facebook has transformed social media from an idea into one of the biggest ways to connect. As of 2015, Facebook had 1.581 billion users that were active monthly. 1.038 of these users signed in at least one time each day.
CNBC states that eight in ten Americans are in debt. With that in mind, who would be willing to pay for every YouTube video they watch or every time they log into Facebook? By putting restrictions on websites this is silencing the voices of those creators while breaking the first amendment: freedom of speech.
The internet is one of the easiest ways to be heard and to find people who are willing to listen.
Over the years the internet developed into something that was an infinite well of knowledge for those who had access to a computer. Why stop the process while the internet is still growing as a resource?
