The internet is a place where anyone can share their ideas and creations with the world. It makes across-the-world connections that would be otherwise impossible possible. It is also the home to many esoteric or small communities, much like Se7enSins. Many of these connections and communities are possible due to something called Net Neutrality. Unfortunately, Internet Service Providers (ISPs for short) have found a way around Net Neutrality.The lack of Net Neutrality greatly threatens many sites and could even lead to the death of sites, including Se7enSins!

Now you may be thinking to yourself, Shouldnt there be some sort of regulation already in place?. The answer is yes, the FCC should be regulating this sort of nonsense, but it seems as if they really dont want to. One of the scariest and most questionable parts of this whole situation is that the head of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, is a former lobbyist for the cable industry. Let that sink in. A man who used to dump money on the government to get them in bed with ISPs, is now supposed to regulate ISPs. He is now supposed to regulate exactly what he has been known to do in the past. Its like hiring a serial killer to regulate another killer (and we all know how well that turned out for Dexter), its completely ludicrous.

Now if for some reason that wasnt enough to get you worried, wait until you hear why Net Neutrality is currently being bypassed. The written law on Net Neutrality can be found in Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. Title II states that common carriers must not discriminate internet traffic. Well whats the problem then? ISPs technically consider themselves information services and therefore the discrimination rules technically dont apply to them. All it would take for the FCC to save the internet is to re-classify ISPs as common carriers. The FCC actually does have the power to do this but, so far they have decided not to do this.

Rather than simply re-classifying ISPs, the FCC has proposed some rather preposterous ideas. The current idea they are supporting is something they are calling internet fast lanes. The FCC claims that fast lanes will allow companies to pay ISPs for faster speeds. The sketchy thing here is that there is no real clarification on what faster means. The FCC says that ISPs have to offer commercially reasonable speeds for free, but there is absolutely no value for commercially reasonable speeds. This means ISPs could just postulate any low speed, and then just charge for realistically reasonable speeds.

Unfortunately, speed lanes are already possible and there is even some cases of it already. If you're a typical Netflix watcher, you may have noticed that your speeds were a bit lackluster a couple of months ago (Its also possible your speeds are still crap, but this is really a whole separate issue). This is because major ISPs such as Comcast, Verizon, TWC, and AT&T were intentionally throttling Netflix speeds. The only way that Netflix could deliver reasonable speeds and quality to their customers is to pay the ISPs to stop them from discriminating against Netflix traffic. John Oliver, the host of the popular show Last Week Tonight made a rather great analogy to the current situation, accurately comparing it to a mob shakedown.

Fortunately, we all have the power to potentially prevent these mob shakedowns and stop ISPs from hurting the internet. There are already a lot of major corporations such as Netflix that are voicing their pro-net-neutrality opinions, but you can personally take action and help fight against the FCC. One way is to directly let the FCC know how you feel by leaving a comment here. You can type how you feel personally, or use a well formulated template such as this one. You can also go to your local government officials and tell them to weigh in on the situation.

While voicing your opinion to the government can make a difference, spreading your knowledge to friends and family can be just as, if not more, helpful. There are plenty of people out there that have no idea what is going on. These people are the real victims, as they are getting screwed over by services they are paying a lot of money for. One way to spread the word is to share this article or the information it contain) with your friends, family, classmates, and co-workers. You can also join many sites such as Netflix and even Se7enSins in an event called the internet slowdown on September 10th. Even though it sounds bad, all it requires participants to do is to upload simple banners and loading logos to a website they control. The actual speed of the site is not affected, but it effectively shows what sites might turn into if net neutrality goes away.

By now, I hope Ive made it clear that the internet is going down a road is should never traverse. Unfortunately, there is little the government wants to do, but if we voice our opinions and share our knowledge, we may just save the internet.

Unfortunately, this is just a small portion of the problems with the industry. I encourage you to look into the anti-competitiveness, congestion, lying, lack of infrastructure, monopolization, and the overall corruptness in the industry and government. There is many more problems that go beyond net neutrality and threaten the freedom of the internet.

I also want to make it clear that this issue does not just exist for those residing in the US. If net neutrality is lost, the entire internet will be negatively affected as a result. I highly urge you to actively defend Net Neutrality, no matter where you live.

While Net Neutrality is just a part of a larger issue, it is definitely the biggest problem. If we all join together to form one large voice, we might just be able to make the internet a better place.