Pros And Cons Of Net Neutrality

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Everyone in this room uses the internet, probably daily, but many of you may not realise a threat which could harm the way our internet works, net neutrality intends to protect us consumers from the threats. Net Neutrality is often mistaken to be related to censorship, or other seemingly unethical act, that's just a small part, the idea of Net Neutrality is, in a nutshell, that all data carried over the internet should be treated equally. This means that any organisation, government or corporate, cannot control the way data is shared. You should be able to access Youtube, Facebook, and all your favourite websites at the same speed as fast your Internet offers.

In America an atrocious act by two of the largest internet providers is taking place, these companies are Comcast and Time Warner Cable. These two companies have basically eradicated all competition taking half of the US for their own. This lack of competition allows them to do anything they want without the risk of a boycott. These complications have brought innovation to a halt and allowed the customer experience to reach new lows and nobody can stop them.

Just last year Netflix was deliberately attacked by Comcast. Comcast intentionally reduced the speed that users could download and watch their movies at, this legal crime heavily reduced Netflix’s traffic. Comcast told Netflix that they only way they could earn their traffic back was by accepting their bribe in which they were forced to accept after suffering a large hit in sales. The worst part is that they were not protected by the law, it may be a shady business practice and it is against the principle of net neutrality but unfortunately Netflix was not protected from Comcast’s abuse of power. The internet, as a whole, should be treated as a utility, after all the United Nations has considered the internet as a human right for the past 12 years. Besides, you wouldn’t expect your water to charge you more, or give you lower quality water, because you decided to use that water for coffee rather than washing your dishes. Dictating how you use your water would be wrong, and internet providers today wish to do essentially the same thing for their service, so why should they away with it? It’s because companies have ultimate power over their customers due to the lack of competition and enforcement. ISP giants of America have decided to create their master plan, a mix of false advertising and greed. They plan to implement “fast lanes” and by “fast lanes” they mean “not fast lanes”, because in reality the plan is to slow down everyone down while those who can afford the premium are returned to the speed they already had. In fact, Ramesh Sitaram and S. S. Krishnan, two computer scientists, have done extensive research to find that fast lanes are actually a psychological trick using user intolerance of slower loading times, people will still pay more and more to regulate the same speed. The reason we need Net Neutrality is not just to protect us from the cruelty of corporations, but it would also maintain competition and innovation between companies. Having control over their users ISPs could slow down their competitions websites to a halt, making it difficult for users to find information and sign up to competitors. The Internet would break down into an Internet revolving around deal making, much like when Netflix had to make a deal with Comcast. SaveTheIntenet.com argues that ISPs would be able to block any websites or reject services that threaten their own offers. Net neutrality will make sure that everybody is placed in equal terms. Many services want to dictate what you
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PayPal founder Peter Thiel says that the Internet has "functioned quite well for the past 15 years" the Internet is "not broken" and it got here because of the "lack of Government regulation" but let me ask you this, do you think the government cleansing the Internet from child pornography is bad, do you think stopping piracy is bad, do you think protecting people's privacy is bad, because the government's been doing plenty of regulating over the years and the Internet hasn't functioned

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