FCC vs. Internet Neutrality: The Scoop
The FCC or Federal Communications Commission, the organization that puts regulations on television programming, is attempting to gain a foot hold in the free and open internet. By doing so they will potentially allow for larger companies to pay for their data to be served faster than other smaller companies.
Obviously this is a big deal because up until now the internet has been largely unregulated and open to anyone who wishes to post content online. At no time in history have aspiring entrepreneurs been able to have such extremely lucrative careers on such a global platform. And since the advent of the internet, it was never possible for the average Joe to have the same chance as a famous television star to be noticed by a wide variety of people. However, these new regulations which are being decided on are going to put all that in jeopardy. Small businesses will not have the funds necessary to pay the high taxes that internet service providers will charge to serve their data at a faster rate.
Interestingly enough the FCC allowed anyone interested to comment on these new regulations and this resulted in more comments than their website could handle. The deadline for the comment discussion was supposed to be Wednesday, July 16th however masses of people flooded their website with comments. Around 780,000 comments caused the FCC website to crash which made the FCC extend their deadline for comments to Friday, July 18th. The FCC even had the nerve to say that they had more complaints from the Janet Jackson, Superbowl wardrobe malfunction incident. If the FCC’s website had the capacity to handle all of the comments that flooded in however, I’m sure that the number would speak for itself.
It is widely obvious that the people DO NOT want these FCC regulations on the internet, however media giants are in a race to monopolize the internet. Hopefully the people win this debate because in this day and age, small businesses simply require proper access to the internet.
Taxes On The Internet?
Also up for debate this year, many people are pushing for taxes on internet sales. Another harmful tax which will most likely put a damper on small business sales if passed.
Obviously politicians have realized that with all of the online sales that happen, it’d be great to take a cut of that money for themselves. One slimy politician, even tried to hide the internet tax in a bill called the “Internet Tax Freedom Act.”
For this reason, it is imperative for not only small business owners, but everybody to stay vigilant in this fight for internet neutrality and equality. For it is the internet which has become the great equalizer, giving both small and large organizations the same amount of say and power. Without it our freedom of speech would be greatly stifled and our world wide reach would be cut short.
Thank you for reading! Please leave your questions, comments and concerns in the comment box!