What if I told you that no longer could you visit any website you want? What if internet providers controlled your internet experience to include blocking any content or websites as they see fit. Well Net Neutrality stops this from happening but Donald Trump’s appointed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wants to obliterate Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality allows all users of the internet in the United States to freely use the internet. Without Net Neutrality we will lose freedom of speech and internet service providers can discriminate against content that traverses their networks.
How does this affect us as African Americans? Imagine a world where an internet service provider can block the traffic of political opinions they didn’t agree with. Let’s say you wanted to set up a protest against Donald Trump. What if all traffic pertaining to that was blocked on the internet? If the change occurs, each service provider can limit the speed of one website or search engine to whomever pays the highest fees. The internet would be like a cable company and you would now have internet packages. Let’s say a standard package would get you the use of one search engine and maybe Facebook and other social media. ISPs can now put a cap on your monthly data and can charge you for going over it.
Imagine how crippling this could be for communities of color as we would be limited in how we can organize to fight oppression. Now movements such as Black Lives Matter could be discriminated against, not allowed to organize against systematic racism and could lose access to educational and economic opportunities. Think about how the media controls the narrative for the Black community. Well ISPs would now be able to do the same thing and not allow people to share videos displaying social injustices done to Blacks.
What would the happen to small businesses in the Black community without having the ability to advertise and reach customers? Small businesses are already at a disadvantage in comparison to large companies but this could completely cripple smaller companies.
Black people are in danger of losing a vital platform. The FCC is proposing legal discrimination against anything ISPs don’t agree with. Now ISPs could control and limit access to sites such as
www.webuyblack.com and other sites that our community depend on. The FCC will vote on Net Neutrality on December 14
th.
Join the fight and resist the end of Net Neutrality.
http://act.freepress.net/letter/internet_faces_nprm_nn/
http://protectourinternet.org/]]>
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