Net Neutrality?

This would be funny if it wasn't for real. The above ad was created by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association to confuse and scare people. The fact that they have a man lying on a bed while money floats down on him when they mention “Silicon Valley” is in poor taste. And the Google font used over the stupid looking man to spell “Mumbo Jumbo” is just disgusting. The ad runs like any political mud throwing ad. It over-simplifies issues, leads you to believe that the other guy is pulling one over on you, and then tells you what you think. Why would an association of cable television operators make this ad? Does is make sense that they would want to save you money? Rationally, the only reason that the cable companies would make an ad as blatantly reproachable as this would be if they were afraid--afraid of losing money. The ad is intended to swing your opinion in their favor by making you feel like someone is coming to get you. The truth is that you won’t “pay” as the ad suggests; the only thing that will happen if Net Neutrality stays in effect is that the major telecoms won’t make as much money. For those of you uninformed about net neutrality, it's the belief that the bandwidth of the internet does not play favorites. You can look at google or you can look at slashdot and you will download the site to your computer at the same speed. The bill put forward in Congress to end net neutrality will allow the cable providers AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, etc. to determine which sites will download faster to your computer. The idea would work something like this (as put forward by Craig "craigslist" Newmark). Imagine that you tried to order a pizza and the phone company said, " AT&T's preferred pizza provider is Domino's. Press 1 to connect to Domino's now. If you'd like to order from another pizzeria, please hold for three minutes while Domino's guaranteed orders are placed." It breaks down to the higher paying client (Domino's) will get it's hits first and then the lower paying companies will get in slower. You are inconvenienced to the point of just accepting Dominos because it’s the easier thing to do. This seems kind of annoying with food, but now imagine it was information… The entire idea of the bill to end Net Neutrality is so preposterous that it needs attention. You have a right as a citizen to get the information that you desire at the same speeds. To have other information pushed on you is like walking to a library and being unable to get the book you want for weeks, but they have 1000 copies of Rush Limbaugh’s Biography. Sure, that would be okay because you would just go to another library, but what if this was the only library in the world. To abolish net neutrality is to remove a freedom granted to every person on the planet…the freedom to access information. It can be argued that the bill won’t control the information just the speed that you download it or the opportunity for you to view it, but this is just as limiting. To allow the highest bidder to show you their information first is a violation of your right to reality. Take the news for instance. Fox News could pay all the other major telecoms to get their news up first. You would be slanted to their view because it would be shoved down your throat. It makes me sad that for the first time, anyone, anywhere, has access to any amount of information that they want whether it’s porn or it’s professional, and now a group of corporations, already fat on money, wants to take it away. The internet should not be controlled. It was made by people for people. To protest the bill, please feel free to visit this link. Do not let the NCTA convince people that they should hand over their rights to information and reality. NCTA sucks