Staff Editorial: Online freedoms being compromised

 

Do you surf MySpace everyday? Check in on your messages or picture comments on an hourly basis? How about youtube?

Do you take breaks every now and then to see what you missed on your favorite show the night before?

These seemingly basic freedoms we enjoy on a daily basis are being threatened.

Many Internet surfers and website owners are crying foul as their “net neutrality,” a type of First Amendment that makes small websites as easy to access as larger, mainstream websites, is being threatened. Internet companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are actively trying to implement restrictions on your web surfing, choosing which websites will run faster, slower or not load at all. They want to create a tax for small websites.

The tax is meant to ensure faster connections and easier loads while discriminating and slowing down others. This battle between large Internet services and small website owners has been raging for several years now and has been continuously fought by smaller websites.

This is a ridiculous tax that may affect hundreds of thousands of websites just getting their feet off the ground. Youtube started out as a small, indepedent website, as well as myspace.com, livejournal.com, and even internet search engine giant, Google.

All these websites started at the bottom of the Internet food chain and worked their way to the top without having to pay internet services to allow their websites to load or become easily accessible as another larger website.

Over the winter break, give the gift that keeps on giving and keep your Internet a free roaming space.

Don’t allow corporate giants to decide which websites you get to see and what you don’t get to see. Many small website owners are rallying together and creating a campaign to stop the amendment dead in its tracks.

Don’t trust companies like AT&T and Verizon to choose which websites they think you should see for their benefit and gain. Write to your local representative and let them know why you think they should be fighting for net neutrality to stay.

Visit savetheinternet.com for more information about this war of net neutrality and what you can do to help stop the madness of Internet control.

Whether you’re a simple MySpace blogger or an advanced website designer, you are a part of this fight.