Net neutrality is the basic premise that on the Internet, all packages of data are equal no matter where they come from. It lets me or you compete with the big corporations and start the next Google if we wanted.
For a couple of years now, the big American Internet Providers and some corporations have tried to create a two-tier Internet by lobbying the Republicans in the government and have managed to make great headway. This of course would hand the Internet over to the big corporations and the network society would no longer be flat or equal.
The last couple of weeks have turned the tide. Firstly the election of Obama means that someone who has actively spoken out in the defence of network neutrality is now in power. Only two days after being elected he said “A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way,” Obama’s agenda states. “Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.”
The second is that Senator Ted Stevens is no longer involved. This guy was a senator from Alaska who was in charge of the Senate committee on e-commerce and wrote a bill attacking the principle of Net Neutrality. Only in America would an 83 year old man be in charge of creating the laws about the Internet.
On October 24th this year he was found guilty on 7 charges of not disclosing gifts from an Alaskan oil pipeline company. On November the 4th he ran again for senate in Alaska and only yesterday did we find out that he has lost his seat. The corporations attacking net neutrality have one less powerful friend in Washington and net neutrality is safe for another 4 years at least.
The following videos are from the excellent “Daily Show” from 2006. the first explains what net neutrality is and the second and third introduce Ted Stevens and his knowledge of the Internet…
