Net Neutrality

About

Net Neutrality is a network design principle and digital rights movement which advocates Internet service providers (ISPs) to treat all Internet traffic equally in order to maintain an “open Internet.” The principle is in opposition to a “closed Internet” in which providers restrict access to content, filter content or use “traffic shaping”^[3] to degrade access to specific web services.

Online History

Although the basic concept of net neutrality is often credited with the open access movement and political activist Lawrence Lessig^[4] as early as 2001,^[2] the term was first coined by Columbia law professor Tim Wu in a 2003 paper titled “Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination.”^[1] The paper proposed that legislation be drafted to ensure ISPs allow unfettered communication between network applications and Quality of Service (QoS) traffic.

Principles of Network Freedom

In February 2004, United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Michael Powell announced a list of “Network Freedom” principles, stating that consumers be given four freedoms, including “freedom to access content,” “freedom to run applications,” “freedom to attach devices” and “freedom to obtain service plan information.”^[6] On November 8th, 2005, Google^[8] published a blog post containing a letter to Congress promoting net neutrality by computer scientist Vinton Cerf.^[9]

Dear Chairman Barton and Ranking Member Dingell,

I appreciate the inquiries by your staff about my availability to appear before the Committee and to share Google’s views about draft telecommunications legislation and the issues related to “network neutrality.” These are matters of great importance to the Internet and Google welcomes the Committee’s hard work and attention. The hearing unfortunately conflicts with another obligation, and I am sorry I will not be able to attend. (Along with my colleague Robert Kahn, I am honored to be receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Wednesday at the White House for our work in creating the Internet protocol TCP/IP.)

Save The Internet

In April 2006, the Save the Internet^[5] online activist organization was formed by the Free Press advocacy group, which includes a coalition of businesses and non-profit organizations aiming to protect net neutrality with a proposed “First Amendment” for Internet rights. On May 11th, YouTuber Ask A Ninja posted a video in which a man dressed in a ninja costume humorously explains the basics of net neutrality, gathering more than 1.1 million views and 600 comments in eight years (shown below, left). On June 5th, the YouTube channel Politicstv uploaded a video titled “Save the Internets,” in which the electronic musician Moby attempts to confront uninterested people on the street about net neutrality (shown below, right).

Net Neutrality Squad

On November 5th, 2007, the Net Neutrality Squad^[10] activist group was formed to enlist Internet users to report any actions by ISPs deemed threatening to net neutrality. On November 14th, president Barack Obama gave an address at Google announcing his commitment to preserving network neutrality (shown below, left). On June 8th, 2008, YouTuber AtheneWins uploaded a video promoting the protection of net neutrality, gaining upwards of 3.06 million views and 4,200 comments in the first four years (shown below, right).

Proposed Internet “Fast Lane”

On September 23rd, 2011, the FCC released rules stating that ISPs must disclose all network management practices, refrain from blocking any lawful content or discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic.^[15] On April 23rd, 2014, the FCC announced their proposal to change net neutrality rules to allow content companies to pay Internet service providers for special “fast lanes” that would deliver content at increased speeds.^[17] The following day, a petition was created on the White House website We the People^[19] urging the Obama administration to reject the FCC’s plans to allow preferential treatment to content providers (shown below).

On May 3rd, Redditor dydorn submitted a post urging viewers to sign the petition and contact the FCC to fight the “fast lane” proposal to /r/technology,^[18] where it received upwards of 12,000 upvotes and 560 comments in the first 48 hours. On May 5th, YouTuber CGP Grey uploaded a video titled “Internet Citizens: Defend Net Neutrality,” which explained the basics of net neutrality and urged viewers to contact the FCC to reclassify broadband Internet as a “title II common carrier telecommunications service.” That day, Redditor Igore34 posted the video to the /r/videos^[7] subreddit, where it accumulated over 22,100 upvotes and 790 comments within 10 hours.

Barack Obama’s Endorsement

On November 10th, 2014, The White House YouTube channel uploaded a video in which President Barack Obama urged the Federal Communications Commission to “do everything they can to protect net neutrality” and classify home Internet as a public utility (shown below).

That day, Republican Senator Ted Cruz from Texas posted a tweet^[20] calling net neutrality “Obamacare for the Internet” (shown below). In the first 24 hours, the tweet gained over 2,700 retweets and 1,200 favorites. Many Twitter users mocked Ted Cruz for the tweet, arguing that the comparison made little sense.

Also on November 10th, The Oatmeal webcomic posted an explanation of net neutrality directed at Cruz (shown below).

Reclassification of Broadband Access in the U.S.

On February 26th, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)^[21] voted 3-2 in favor of reclassifying broadband access as a "telecommunications service under Title II, thus recognizing high-speed Internet as a public utility and enabling the implementation of new federal regulations that strictly prohibit the ISPs from pursuing paid prioritization agreements for the so-called “fast-lane Internet” and give the governing body more regulatory powers over business activities of the broadband industry in the United States. Among many other legal implications of the ruling, the new rules explicitly ban the following practices:

No Blocking: broadband providers may not block access to legal content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.
No Throttling: broadband providers may not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.
No Paid Prioritization: broadband providers may not favor some lawful Internet traffic over other lawful traffic in exchange for consideration -- in other words, no ‘fast lanes.’ This rule also bans ISPs from prioritizing content and services of their affiliates."

The FCC’s decision, which broke down on party lines with all three Democratic commissioners voting in favor and two Republicans voting in opposition, was immediately met with ecstatic responses and cheers from the Open Internet Coalition and other supporters of net neutrality on Twitter and elsewhere in the social media.

John Oliver Segments

On June 1st, 2014, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver devoted roughly 13 minutes of his show to explaining net neutrality. At the end of the segment, he encouraged viewers to visit the FCC’s commenting site and voice their concerns. Oliver’s call to action was so successful that the FCC reportedly received more than 4 million responses and their website crashed.^[26] As of May 2017, the segment (shown below) has over 12.8 million views on YouTube.

Following the appointment of Ajit Pai to chairman of the FCC, concerns about the future of net neutrality again arose. Within months, he had unveiled plans to reverse the net neutrality rulings and re-classify it legally, thus removing it from Title II.^[31]

On May 7th, 2017, John Oliver again devoted a majority of his show to explaining the fight over net neutrality, as well as the plans Pai has for the future of the internet. Oliver instructed his viewers to comment on the FCC’s website, however, because the commission had made it more complicated than in the past, he bought the domain GoFCCYourself.com,^[27] which redirects visitors directly to the comment site. According to The Washington Post,^[28] within 12 hours of segment’s airing, “the page to leave a comment on the website loaded intermittently -- sometimes not at all, sometimes just slowly.” Within the first 24 hours, the video had over 700,000 views on YouTube.

On May 8th, Redditor bitbybitbybitcoin posted the TIME article “NeutralityJohn Oliver Is Calling on You to Save Net Neutrality, Again” to the subreddit /r/Technology. Within five hours the post had more than 31,000 points (81% upvoted) and 1,200 comments.^[29]^[30]

Internet Protests

On June 6, 2017, it was announced that there would be a major protest by major internet companies similar to the ones against SOPA but this time in support of Net Neutrality on July 12th, 2017.^[33] Among the notable firms protesting in favor of Net Neutrality included Amazon, Reddit, Mozilla, and the ACLU.^[33]^[34]

Trump Administration Policies

In January 2017, Ajit Varadaraj Pai was appointed the new FCC commissioner by the Trump administration. In April, Pai proposed a repeal net neutrality rules enacted under the Obama administration. In July, protests were held against Pai’s proposal. In mid-November, the FCC revealed plans to hold a vote in December to end the Obama-era net neutrality rules. On November 17th, Slate^[37] reported that more than 22 million comments were sent to the FCC regarding the removal of net neutrality restrictions. On November 18th, Redditor hornuser submitted a post urging viewers to call Congress to vote against the repeal to /r/listentothis,^[38] where it gathered upwards of 112,000 points (89% upvoted) and 3,000 comments in 48 hours. On November 19th, The Young Turks uploaded a video about the upcoming vote titled "R.I.P. The Internet, 1983-2017 (shown below, left). On November 20th, YouTuber Internet Comment Etiquette uploaded a video about Net Neutrality in response to the proposed changes (shown below, right).

Meanwhile, YouTuber Cr1tikal uploaded a video criticizing the FCC’s planned repeal, which called for “half of the attention” from the Electronic Art’s Star Wars Battlefront II controversy to be driven toward preserving net neutrality (shown below). Within 24 hours, the video gathered upwards of 200,000 views and 2,600 comments.

On November 21st, the FCC published a press released titled “Chairman Pai Circulates Draft Order to Restore Internet Freedom and Eliminate Heavy-Handed Internet Regulations,” officially announcing a proposal to repeal the Obama-era restrictions:^[43]

“Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the Internet. Instead, the FCC would simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices so that consumers can buy the service plan that’s best for them and entrepreneurs and other small businesses can have the technical information they need to innovate.”

Battle for Net Neutrality

In response to the FCC’s planned repeal, Battle for Net Neutrality^[44] launched a campaign urging internet users in the United States to call their congressional representatives to vote in favor of net neutrality.

On November 21st, posts linking to the Battle for Net Neutrality website reached the front page of /r/xboxone,^[39] /r/NintendoSwitch,^[40] /r/PUBATTLEGROUNDS^[41] and /r/PS4.^[42] Over the next day, posts promoting the Battle for Net Neutrality campaign dominated the front page of /r/all (shown below).

Ajit Pai Memes

On Reddit, numerous image macros condemning FCC chairman Ajit Pai as greedy and beholden to corporate interests were submitted in the coming days, many of which reached the front page of the /r/dankmemes and /r/memeeconomy subreddits (shown below).

Verizon Protests

Meanwhile, the VerizonProtests.com website was launched to organize nationwide demonstrations outside of Verizon stores to protest the telecommunications company’s lobbying erfforts to kill net neutrality regulations.

Online Presence

On September 30th, 2009, the /r/netneutrality^[11] subreddit was launched for discussions related to the controversial topic. On December 22nd, 2010, designer Mike Ciarlo^[12] created the website The Open Internet,^[13] containing an animated presentation arguing the case for net neutrality. Two days later, Redditor rednightmare submitted the site to the /r/technology^[14] subreddit, where it gathered over 2,500 upvotes and 370 comments prior to being archived. On April 3rd, 2013, the website WhatIsNetNeutrality.org^[16] was created, which contains an interactive timeline outlining the history of net neutrality.

Notable Issues

Data Discrimination

One of the most frequently debated issues in network neutrality concerns data discrimination, or the selective filtering of information by an Internet service provider. Proponents of the net neutrality assert that one class of customers should not be favored over another in treatment of traffic, as such prioritization would constitute a form of censorship and inequality in access to the Internet.

Consumer Rights

Yet another major point of debate in network neutrality addresses the issue of “double-dipping” by network owners, or the act of charging consumers twice for Internet access, at first by charging individual consumers for access to the network and then incurring additional costs by charging the service providers with a separate fee for their Internet access, the burden of which is usually passed onto the consumers in the form of price hikes.

Innovation

The issue of innovation has often been brought up in discussions of net neutrality, as proponents of the principle argue that startups and small-time entrepreneurs would have to face higher entry barriers and costs under the framework of tiered-networks, which would ensure big companies and service providers to monopolize the “fast lanes” of the Internet.

Privacy

Infringement of privacy has been another growing concern among the proponents of network neutrality. Because the current lack of legal safeguards enables the Internet service providers to directly control a user’s Internet connections and access the devices, some speculate that the profit-driven network providers could easily analyze what their subscribers are viewing and sell that information to the highest bidder.

Related Memes

A Series of Tubes

On June 28th, 2006, former Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens told the world, “The internet is not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes,” among other odd choices of wording while trying to criticize an amendment that would have prohibited ISP’s from charging for a tiered Internet structure.