14 DAY TRIAL // Reddit Cofounder Alexis Ohanian is deeply concerned by what’s happening with the Internet in the United States and is looking to place a huge billboard right in the FCC’s backyard to protest the potential changes to net neutrality rules.
It’s been reported over the past week that the FCC is about to impose a series of serious changes to its rules that would impact net neutrality.
According to reports, the changes would see the FCC allow Internet service providers to charge extra for access to the Internet fast lane for companies that desire it in deals that would echo the one signed by Netflix and Comcast.
Unfortunately, this would impact users quite heavily because smaller companies would not have the necessary funds to make sure their service gets special treatment from ISPs. These Internet giants would also basically end up syphoning money from their own users and the content creators of the world, while providing the service they were supposed to provide in the first place.
Alexis Ohanian is having none of that and is now trying to raise money to place a new billboard, as he’s done back when SOPA and PIPA were trending topics both online and in the US Congress.
To this end, Ohanian has created a CrowdTilt campaign hoping to gather up the $20,000 (€14,500) needed to protest any changes to net neutrality rules.
So far, the campaign has raised $5,860 (€4,238), but there are 17 days left until the deadline.
“On May 15, the FCC plans to kill the idea of net neutrality and replace it with a ‘cable-ized’ version that costs more for consumers, enables discrimination across services that make use of the net, and makes it harder to access the stuff that we access each day today (from video streaming to file saving and sharing). On top of all that, it'd have a chilling effect on entrepreneurship -- all for the benefit of a few cable companies,” Ohanian writes in the description.
He’s joined in this effort by Sam Altman, Reddit and third parties in order to place a billboard in Washington DC that says “Keep the Internet free & open for all!” If anyone else comes with a better slogan, they can tweet him suggestions and something else may be chosen.
Ohanian understands that not everyone has the spare money to help fund his effort, but he’s urging everyone to at least spread the word and call their state representatives and the FCC and tell them to protect the Internet.