Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality allows Internet users to freely search information on the web, upload content and create their own websites and blogs. This is ideal for students like myself, because as I mentioned in earlier posts, I have a place to voice my opinions on matters just like Net Neutrality. Unfortunately, many companies wish to make profit on the information we access online, controlling the content we want to use. Telecom companies such as AT&T and Verizon Communications are limiting the freedom of the Internet by aggressively campaigning to control what will be available to us online.

I strongly disagree with this elimination of Internet freedom because it provides us with information at our fingertips. Richard Whitt from Google’s Public Policy Blog, agrees that, “The Internet was built and has thrived as an open platform, where individuals and entrepreneurs -- not network owners -- can connect and interact, choose marketplace winners and losers, and create new services and content on a level playing field.”

As Lawrence Lessig, author of Free Culture explains, “the Internet has made communication faster, it has lowered the cost of gathering data, and so on. These technical changes are not the focus of this book. They are important. They are not well understood. But they are the sort of thing that would simply go away if we all just switched the Internet off” (Lessig 7). If the Telecom companies succeed by controlling the information we can access for free, these technical changes would not exist and our culture would not be as knowledgeable about varieties of subjects and occurring issues in the world. 


Works Cited:
Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture. New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 2004.

Bateman, Justine. “We Need To Put Our Foot Down On Net Neutrality”. The Huffington Post.
. Nov. 23. 09