Man Explains The Actual Dangers Of Net Neutrality Being Killed Off In Detailed Twitter Rant
Here's everything you actually need to know about why Net Neutrality is so alarming.
Nov. 18 2019, Updated 2:36 p.m. ET
Yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-2 to overturn net neutrality laws. The vote was split along party lines. Net neutrality ensures that all internet service providers treat data equally, meaning that a local businesses data is treated in the same way as data from a tech giant like Facebook.
Before net neutrality was introduced in 2015, Comcast and Verizon throttled their customer's connections to Netflix, forcing the streaming service to pay the two providers to restore speeds. Unsurprisingly, the repeal has lead many to believe that this kind of thing will happen again, and that businesses could pass the cost on to the consumer. People are really freaked out about the whole ordeal, and they really have every right to be: There's a lot at stake when it comes to net neutrality, but it's not the things you think you'd be concerned about. Despite the memes and posts about how you're going to have to start paying per tweets (where did these jokes come from, anyway)?
But Twitter user JTM, a data scientist from Paris, doesn't think that's going to happen. They're far more concerned about how this decision will impact new Internet businesses just starting out. Facebook and Google already make enough money to eat the cost themselves, but what about the little guy?
Didn't understand that? Here's a snail mail example to help you out... "Let's take a snail mail metaphor. Imagine the US Postal Service opening up and reading every single letter people send and decide that this one or that one should be sent slower or not at all because it doesn't use the brand of paper included in the base package," he tweeted. "This type of traffic surveillance is called DPI for Deep Packet Inspection is also what allows a nation-state, say, the US of A, to have the infrastructure in place at the telcos to read, filter, censor, or alter everything you write and everything you read."
Could this be the end of Internet innovation?
