Scary Net Neutrality Stories

"[FCC chairman Ajit] Pai's plan to kill the Internet as we know it ..."-- from an email from Kurt Walters of Fight For the Future

"Donald Trump and his corporate cronies are about to destroy the Internet." -- from an email from Eden James of Democracy for America

"Pai is paving the way for monopolistic ISPs to block and censor what we see online, and push anyone who can't pay extra fees into 'internet slow lanes.' The impact on free speech and innovation online will be devastating." -- from an email from Carli Stevenson of Demand Progress

"Without net neutrality, the Internet will look more like cable TV — where the content we see is controlled by corporations like Comcast and Verizon." -- from an email from the RootsAction.org team

"Dear Tom, When people start having to trudge through molasses to read Rational Review News Digest, KN@PPSTER, or the Garrison Center websites, or worse, get 405 errors (that’s the one for forbidden content, isn’t it?), e-mail me and let me know how successful you are at appealing and/or how much squeeze you had to pay to get things normal again. If your e-mail still works, of course." -- from an email from a friend who's upset about "Pai's plan to kill the Internet as we know it."

My reply to the last one:

From the birth of the web until October of 2015, the "Net Neutrality" rule that is being repealed didn't exist.

If its absence is going to cause the End of the Internet now, why didn't it before?

In point of fact, getting rid of "Net Neutrality" will likely mean that my sites are more accessible [and] faster, because Big Data may start having to pay Big Telecom for those fat pipes it wants instead of using the government to force my 73-year-old neighbor who checks her email once a day to pick up their infrastructure use tab.

As far as "forbidden content" is concerned, I've already explained that "Net Neutrality" CREATES that possibility by referring to something called "legal content" and leaving it up to the FCC to decide what is and is not "legal content." Do you want the Trump regime deciding what content may be served and what content may not be served? Because the rule you're demanding be kept gives them that power.