What You Can Do for Net Neutrality Day, Wednesday July 12th

Courtesy of http://www.PrivateInternetAccess.com

If you are reading this, then having Net Neutrality is important to you.  But most people don’t know what Net Neutrality is. So, I’ve asked my human, The Chief Geek, to explain.

What Is This “Net Neutrality” Stuff?

Think of Net Neutrality like the Bill of Rights for people who go on the Internet. Net Neutrality protects the right:

1. For people not to have their web-surfing information sold to marketing companies without consent.
2. For small web sites to be on the same playing field as big web sites.
3. Not to have the Internet provider (that you pay every month) dictate what sites you can get faster internet and how long.
4. To get the internet speed you paid for.
5. The right to share opinions (yes, even you Trolls).
6. For non-businesses to have an Internet presence just like corporations (ask your folks or grand-folks about the times when anybody with the knowledge could set up their very own Radio and TV broadcasts before businesses locked them out.)

How Can I Learn More?

HBO’s John Oliver has a good (if not wacky) explanation of Net Neutrality and its impact. You can find the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak .  

The OpenInter.net has a nice one-page explaining Net Neutrality as a neat graphic: http://www.theopeninter.net/

Internet search engines Reddit, Twitter, Facebook,Google, Firefox, and others have information on Net Neutality:

• https://www.google.com/takeaction/action/freeandopen/index.html
• https://www.reddit.com/r/MarchForNetNeutrality/
• https://www.wired.com/story/the-whos-who-of-net-neutralitys-day-of-action/
• https://advocacy.mozilla.org/en-US/net-neutrality

So What Can I Do?

LOTS! 

Call your Senator. You know, start it off with the old “I’m a U.S. taxpaying citizen and I demand that you” and fill in the rest.

Sent a letter to the FCC. You can eMail them at openinternet@fcc.gov, or eMail the FCC head himself at Ajit.Pai@fcc.gov . You can also fax the FCC at (866) 418-0232. or call them at (888) 225-5322 (8am-5pm EST)

Be part of a bigger group.  You can sign up at Battle For the Net https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/ . Or Google’s https://www.google.com/takeaction/action/freeandopen/index.html

So now get out there and let your voice be heard!

~ The Computer Cat