Recently it seems everyone has been out to change the nature of the Internet as we know it. You might have heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or S.O.P.A, which aimed to prevent online copyright infringement, or the Protect IP Act, PIPA, the Senate counterpart of the SOPA bill. Despite titles that sound beneficial, details included in the bill caused huge online uproars. SOPA/PIPA was being supported by Hollywood in the interest of preventing torrenting (online downloads of copyrighted material like movies, TV shows, and music) but outlined troubling ways of doing so—forcing Internet companies to block access to certain websites for their customers, for example.
That was the least of it. Many realized the implications of the SOPA/PIPA legislation could be a huge blow to the Internet as it has existed so far. It wanted to prevent Internet piracy and allow companies to sue for infringement, but the terms were extremely vague, allowing companies’ broad use of what constituted infringement. As a result, not only could exclusive torrenting websites like Torrent Freak, Pirate Bay, and PutLocker be shut down because of complaining companies, but the wording could be stretched to justify closing down sites like Mediafire, Etsy, DeviantArt, SoundCloud, Dropbox, and more, which host tons of user-generated content. If you really want a feel for how far-reaching this law could have been, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, “had these bills been passed five or ten years ago, even YouTube might not exist today.”
Since the proposal of these bills in 2012, millions of people rallied against them, making thousands of phone calls to congressmen and organizing protests in cities nationwide. Sites like Reddit, Wikipedia and Google participated in a worldwide Internet Blackout in 2012 in protest of the bill, blocking users from their sites for 12 hours to emulate what might happen if SOPA was passed. Even President Obama said that if the bill made it to his desk, he would veto it, calling for a bill that defined its purpose and terms much more narrowly.
Thankfully, the bill was killed and shelved, so the Internet remained free and neutral as it always has been. But in May of 2014, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler, revealed a plan to allow huge internet providers like Comcast to make websites pay for its users to have full speed use of their sites, as in loading videos and pictures at the maximum speed. As of 2010, the FCC ruled that no providers could prevent users from using any legal website or discriminate between sites, but Wheeler’s new plan, if passed, could allow providers to make users and websites pay for that “equal” access. YouTube, Google, Sound.fm, Netflix and many other smaller websites would be fined heavily by internet providers, leading to extremely slow download speeds on sites that can’t afford it, or complete blocking of the sites, essentially picking and choosing which sites providers allow their users to visit.
Save the Internet, a site created to inform and expand a movement to prevent this new blockade to net neutrality, is counting down the days until the FCC holds a hearing that could decide whether or not internet users are entitled to free use and perusal of sites. It encourages visitors to pressure the FCC into solidifying net neutrality, rallying in front of DC, informing everyone you know about the proposal and expanding the movement across the Web itself, just as it did in 2012. If the internet saved itself once, it can save itself again. Here’s my part: Save the Internet!