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Internet Neutrality Essay

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The term net neutrality has a lot of meaning behind it, at its core it means an open and free internet for everyone without discrimination from Internet Service providers (ISP). It means that all legal data on the internet must be treated equally and can not be sped up, slowed down or blocked for any reason including monetary compensation for increased speeds also known as “internet fast lanes”. It means that the internet must remain a level playing field with a low barrier for entry to keep the internet the place of business and innovation it is today. It means that the internet must remain a place of free speech without ISP deciding what content can be viewed by the people.
In March of 2015 the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) released a new set of rules and regulations that classified broadband internet as a utility and a Title II Common Carrier, just like phone companies("FCC Releases Open Internet Order"). This allowed the FCC to place more regulations on ISP. These rules are known as “The Open Internet Rules” include 3 major rules known as “bright-line rules”. ISP can not block any legal content on the internet. ISP can not speed up or slow down legal internet traffic based on content. ISP can not prioritize any legal internet traffic …show more content…

The idea that net neutrality was being voluntarily being followed by ISP is wrong. There are examples of ISP starting to do practices such as the ISP Comcast slowing down the sharing of peer to peer files also know as bittorrents (Kang, Cecilia. "Court Rules for Comcast over FCC in 'net Neutrality' Case.") before these new FCC rules were made. AT&T was lobbying for a bill that would make it nearly impossible for local municipalities to create their own public ISP that would compete with private ISP in their area(Farivar, Cyrus.). With the new rules put in place by the FCC, ISP must now follow this rules or face legal

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