Internet Neutrality

Words: 759
Pages: 4

" As a person born in the year 2000, it is hard to imagine life without the internet. When my parents tell me how they had to flip through the pages of an encyclopaedia to find information, use a typewriter to type essays, and apply to colleges through the mail, it makes me realize how fortunate my generation is to have the internet widely available to us. But, in recent years, this freedom that is given to us by internet access has been questioned. How much freedom should we actually have? Should the government at the federal and local levels be allowed to control what we see and should they have control over the telecommunications companies that provide us with this internet access? I believe that the government should not be heavily involved …show more content…
Net neutrality is a protection that was set in place by the Federal Communications Commission that prevents telecommunications companies, such as AT&T and Verizon, from manipulating and analyzing the data that we send or receive over the internet. In theory, this seems like a great idea right? The government is using its power to protect our freedom on the internet. But, there was no clear threat to our freedom in the first place and this regulation actually does more to hurt the consumer than to protect them. These regulations were first put in place by the FCC in 2015, several years after the internet was created and functioning perfectly fine with no regulations on these telecommunications companies. Without government regulation, competition between companies is encouraged, providing the lowest prices and best speeds for consumers. Since the employment of these regulations in 2015, companies have reduced their investment in broadband innovation which only hurts low-income and rural areas that are in the greatest need of broadband innovation to catch up with the fast developing technology in the rest of the world. To sum up, net neutrality sounds like a beneficial idea in theory to prevent hypothetical dangers, but when put into effect, it provides harmful unintended consequences. SInce there was nothing wrong in the first place, this form of government intervention is unnecessary and