Net Neutrality – The Most Important Issue

Net neutrality is more than just protecting consumers but small businesses as well. In order for many small businesses to stay open, they have to sell their products online. Companies like AT&T and Comcast would be able to slow down internet speeds to specific websites if the website pays the internet providers for faster speeds. Smaller businesses wouldn’t be able to pay these fees and suffer.

 

What exactly is net neutrality? 

Net neutrality is regulations set by the FCC (originally) that ensure that internet providers cannot change broadband for certain websites. The regulations also block providers from creating fees for websites for faster speeds. Now, the whole idea is that businesses would have to pay more money for faster speeds to keep consumers on their site. As someone who has experienced DSL internet where you had to choose between using the phone or the internet, I know exactly how annoying slow internet speeds are.

The regulations have been repealed by Ajit Pai and the jurisdiction of regulating such issues are now run by the FTC rather than the FCC. The problem with changing jurisdictions is that the FTC has less rule-making power and more responsibilities. This means that creating laws would take years and less focused than the FCC that specializes in telecommunications.

Many people protested in the streets last June in order to get the votes to block Ajit from repealing the Obama era regulations. But, the regulations were repealed and jurisdiction was handed over. Several states have started passing laws and suing the Federal Government to reinstate the regulations to protect consumers from slow internet speeds and future sites from being slowed down by large telecommunications companies.

I have been following this topic since Ajit Pai was in the news talking about repealing the regulations in 2016. There are several reasons to keep net neutrality like helping small businesses keep their internet speeds, large telecommunication corporations make money off “fast lanes,” and giving the right government agency the right jurisdiction to regulate laws.

The fight for equal opportunities is not over. Support local legislation of net neutrality in your state, and ask your representative about their stance on net neutrality.

Government Regulation of Social Media

As we saw Mark Zuckerberg being questioned in front of Congress, we saw that the government had no idea how social media actually functions. It was quite clear that Congress had no idea how social media companies made money or what questions to ask Zuckerberg in order to get the right information.

Lately, there have been discussions about the regulation of social media with the debate of free speech infringement. The problem that I see with this is that the government does not have the knowledge to properly regulate social media.

Radio and Television are regulated by the FCC (Federal Communications Commision), an independent agency from the U.S. government. Now, what I suggest is that we have a regulatory agency for social media. Then the people who actually understand social media companies can regulate it.

Free speech would not be infringed upon by the same way that Radio and Television are regulated and changed in order to protect people. The regulations would include taking away hate speech that would directly encourage violence and filter out any fake articles that are published.

The reason that Zuckerberg was questioned was that fake accounts were trying to produce fake articles about the presidential election in 2016. Out of all the fake news, it tended to lean towards putting Hillary Clinton in a negative light. The political party that was associated with Cambridge Analytica was the Republican party.

Facebook sold people’s information, as they usually do to make money through advertisements, to Cambridge Analytica and came into fire about that. Regulations of this would create better due diligence to where people’s information gets sold as well as creating a safer space for people to share their opinions and ideas without being attacked.

This may sound like “Oh, he’s just trying to make snowflakes,” but being able to share your thoughts and ideas with other without attacking one another creates a space of real conversation that can actually show people other people’s perspective on life.

With regulation from either the FCC or another independent organization that has the knowledge to regulate social media, people will be able to share their opinions without trolls coming to a post and saying things just to make people angry and deter cyberbullying.

Let’s regulate social media to help people share their ideologies and take the fake news out.