Democrats once again take up the Net Neutrality cause

Last Thursday, Democrats once again introduced the Internet Freedom and Non-discrimination Act before Congress. The Internet Freedom and Non-discrimination Act, originally passed in 2006, is a bill that would change America’s antitrust law to keep corporations such as Comcast, Time-Warner, and AT&T from, “…blocking, impairing, or discrimination against ‘lawful’ Internet content, applications, and services or charging extra fees for ‘prioritization or enhanced quality of service.’” (Anne Broache, Cnet.com) In other words, companies that serve as network operators will not be able to use their control of the networks to tilt the virtual playing field in their favor. This regulation is known as Net Neutrality.

Personally I think this is fantastic. The internet today is the only mass medium where quality of content alone decides the fate of websites, blogs, and other web content. Being a broke college student, there is not much hope that I will be able to start a television program, newspaper, magazine, or radio station that could rival those found in the main stream media. Even if I could manage to accomplish this, it would certainly not happen over night. This, however, is not the case on the Internet. Thanks to the web’s level playing field, I am able to create, lets say a blog, and in no time at all, be in competition with the most established blogs on the web. My success or failure would be determined by how interesting/entertaining/useful visitors found my content, and not whether I am backed by a powerful conglomerate. On the web, money, power, and control all take a back seat to quality of content and creativity. I for one, hope it remains that way.