14 DAY TRIAL // Next week is going to be a pretty interesting one as the fight for net neutrality is to pick up some speed and to gain some visibility.
In a move that resembles many that have taken place over the past few years with the purpose of fighting off legislation that would damage the fiber of the Internet, Fight for the Future, as well as other activist groups, have created the Battle for the Net coalition.
The coalition is organizing, on September 10, the “Internet slowdown day.” Worry not, however, things aren’t actually going to get much worse than they already are for most US Internet users.
“Cable companies want to slow down (and break!) your favorite sites, for profit. To fight back, let's cover the web with ‘loading’ icons, to remind everyone what an Internet without net neutrality would look like, and drive record numbers of emails and calls to lawmakers,” reads the announcement.
On the aforementioned day, sites across the web will display an alert with a symbolic “loading” symbol that we all know so well. This will promote a call to action for users to send their messages to the FCC, Congress and even the White House.
There are major websites that have promised to include the loading button on September 10, hoping to gain the attention of the audience. The entire process starts at midnight eastern time on September 10 and runs through midnight on September 11.
One of the buttons that website admins can include on their sites features the loading icon, as well as instructions to tell lawmakers “Stop discrimination. Defend net neutrality,” while stating that the Internet and free speech would never be the same if cable companies get their way. Others ask the visitors if they’d still be on the site if the page were still loading, which is a high risk if ISPs are allowed to create the so-called fast lanes.
As we’ve written before, such lanes are impossible to create without actual infrastructure upgrades. The only way to create these fast lanes that ISPs talk about so casually is to slow down everyone else just so a speed gap is created to justify why some companies are asked to pay for access.
The FCC is waiting for additional comments by September 15, while additional public roundtables are to be organized by the end of the month, before a decision is made on whether or not to go on with the plans sketched out by Tom Wheeler, which would allow the companies to create fast lanes.
Over a million people have contacted the FCC and told the commission that such a move is completely against the very concept of net neutrality. It should be interesting to see whether the FCC chooses to go against so many people or not.