If this Wednesday you have visited any of the following popular websites such as Tumbrl, Reddit, Etsy, Vimeo, Tinder, Pornhub and etc., you probably did not miss the striking red banner with white slogan – “RED ALERT FOR NET NEUTRALITY”. While at first this alert might look like some sort of ad, it actually has a more benevolent cause behind it.
To put it briefly, on May 9th, various websites, internet activists has started a protest by putting on the ‘red banner’ to encourage people to take action and request their senators to vote for keeping the Net Neutrality protection on June 12th. That day Senate will vote for or against the current FCC’s (Federal Communications Commission) aim to strip internet user Net Neutrality protection. All 49 democrat senators and one republican has promised to support the idea of Net Neutrality bill. While the bill can pass with the majority of votes, democrats have been trying to convince one more republican to their side, to make at least 51 votes total.
After a long battle winning Net Neutrality protection in 2015 allowed internet users to be in a full control of their browsing activity and content they see, rather than giving access to online marketers to dictate virtual world for their own benefit. Federal Communications Commission legally executed the victory of public interest against the greedy marketing corporations with a Net Neutrality law.
New president – New rules
In 2017 Trump’s administration changed the main FCC chairman to Ajit Pai, who from the start of his new career stated the intention to annul 2015 Net Neutrality protection. It’s not a secret that Ajit Pai prior to becoming a FCC chairman was working as a lawyer for one of the major phone company – Verizon. Therefore his decision and intentions behind it are pretty clear. Despite the lack of support even by republican internet users Pai tried to base his actions stating that the blocking of intrusive commercial content slows down the innovation and investment but failed to give a reasonable evidence.
Net neutrality has allowed everyone to equally access the internet without getting targeted offers by service providers, modified search results and etc. It gave the freedom of use knowing that no major corporation is behind trying to influence you in any way.
Tim Berners-Lee (known for creation of the ‘World Wide Web’) himself addressed the issue posting his statement on Twitter:
And TimBL is not the only one against the repeal Net Neutrality. More and more websites, small businesses and people are joining the ‘red’ movement to make a positive change, because it can be their last chance to preserve net neutrality.
You can take part at the Official Fight For The Net website.
