Assignment 4: Thoughts on Network Neutrality.

Personally, I believe that there are more pros to net neutrality than there are cons. Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites. The pros to this is that people will always have an equal opportunity to use the information available on the web. Net neutrality has caused the Internet to grow significantly and without it websites like YouTube, Google, and eBay would not be nearly as successful as they are now. Net neutrality also allows its users to have creative expression and allows them to express themselves. The only con to net neutrality is that websites like YouTube and Skype are having a hard time keeping up with the instant demand and streaming  of videos. They would be able to provide these services quicker for a small fee, but if a fee is required then there is no net neutrality.

Recently, net neutrality has been in the news because a recent court hearing talked about getting rid of net neutrality. This would result in YouTube being allowed to charge a fee in order to stream a  video at full speed and sites like Soundcloud being allowed to stream their music at slower speeds than other music sites like iTunes. In a way, this effects a persons freedom of speech. If certain sites require you to pay a fee in order to use their site or service than some people might not be able to afford them, therefore, they do not have the same rights as someone who could afford to pay the fee. Lets say that someone is an avid blogger, who enjoys writing about equal rights, but one day net neutrality is taken away and that person is now required to pay a fee in order to use their blog. This is taking away their  freedom of speech because they can no longer express how they feel freely, unless they want to pay, which defeats the purpose.

I agree with net neutrality and I would be very upset if it was taken away. I love using YouTube, but I would never pay to use is. Taking away net neutrality would take away from the millions of activities I can do on the web. If the websites I currently use started charging fees and slowing down their servers I would probably stop using them because I would  not be able to afford them. The loss of net neutrality wouldn't really effect rich people, but it would have a negative effect on the middle class and poor. Personally, I believe that  by taking net neutrality away, you are also taking away a basic human right.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-101

I thought this website was valid because it was written by an organization that stands for universal and affordable internet. I thought that the information on the site was extremely helpful while working on this assignment.

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/open-internet

I thought this website was valid because it was written by the Federal Communications Commission. It also ends in .gov, so I know that it is an official government website. I thought the information written on the site was relevant and related to what I discussed in my article.