Blog About Staying Neutral on the Net

The opportunity to access unlimited information is what makes the Internet so popular. If service providers regulated connection speeds consumers would cease their desires to access the Internet. The factor that attracts so many users online is the quick and simple access Internet provides to anyone seeking information. The Internet is an encyclopedia holding current and past information about anything imaginable. If the Internet’s speed was regulated, it would be similar to flipping through the pages of encyclopedia only to find that some pages were harder to turn than others. These cumbersome pages would contain the most important and unique information and gaining access to the information would be tiresome.

If this were the case, as a user, I would close the encyclopedia all together and enjoy the physical world. In the world of instant access, consumers would not tolerate waiting. Consumers would diminish their use of the Internet as a primary information source.

Net Neutrality keeps the Internet quickly accessible on all levels. From a small forum that receives one or two posts a year to a banking website that probably has at least 400 users at any giving time; net neutrality keeps access speeds equal for the entire Internet. As a citizen of the new millennium, the Internet has provided me with countless data and creative opportunity for the last twelve years of my life. Net neutrality has provided me with the ability to meet and stay in contact with friends all over the world, pursue job opportunities and entertain myself with all kinds of media experiences. As a human I have no need for net neutrality, in fact I have no need for the Internet at all. If the Internet did not exist information exchange would proceed at a much slower pace and I would learn fewer facts and lessons. It could be thought however,that the information that I did learn would be much more exclusive and inaccessible to others.

It could be surmised that the Internet has made the world a more challenging place to navigate for enterprising people. Many people in the world don’t have access to a computers or the Internet. While sharing information online may help to give a voice to people who may never otherwise be heard, it also silences the people who can’t get online. The digital divide between those with or without a computer creates a wide opportunity gulf between economic action or inaction. Privileged countries have the opportunity for rapid world-wide communication and monetary transaction while third world countries are still pretty much left out of the loop when it comes world economics and monetary and political policy and power.
In an article about arguments for and against net neutrality Freedom Works, a group which advocates lower taxes and less government, urges Americans to just "say no to net neutrality." Freedom Works feels that as the Internet grows and innovation takes place, pressures on bandwidth capabilities will slow down the Internet for everyone. Freedom works purports that streaming high definition video and hour-long pod casts will require that internet service providers make substantial financial investments to ensure that the basic internet infrastructure continues to run smoothly. Freedom Works President Matt Kibbe said, “What is clear is that 'Net Neutrality' is a government expansion masked with populist rhetoric." He feels that it is not part of the government’s role to regulate the Internet.
Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska argues that by not giving Internet service providers the right to create a two-tier system, the consumers are the ones that lose. He feels that by keeping access abilities neutral among all websites, heavy Internet users will slow up the Internet for practical uses. He feels that net neutrality has slowed up the Internet and has limited Internet service provider’s ability to grow and secure access to low bandwidth websites like an e-mail address.
An argument for net neutrality is located just below Senator Stevens streaming recording. Bill Herman argues that the Internet is not just made up of consumers. The Internet is made up of editors and consumers. Herman believes that people against net neutrality don’t see the Internet as a way to deliver and receive information they see it as a way to gather information.
In another argument for net neutrality, Illinois Senator Barack Obama posted a pod cast about the freedom of being a United States citizen and how that relates to our ability to access the Internet. In his statement he sums up his argument for net neutrality. “It is because the Internet is a neutral platform that I can put out this pod cast and transmit it over the Internet without having to go through any corporate media middleman. I can say what I want without censorship or without having to pay a special charge. But the big telephone and cable companies want to change the Internet, as we know it. They say that they want to create high speed lanes on the Internet and strike exclusive contractual agreements with Internet content providers for access to those high speed lanes,” stated Obama.