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Persuasive Essay On Net Neutrality

Decent Essays

I initially heard about net neutrality via an Instagram post. (Which is, by the way, the most millennial thing I’ve ever written.) It was a link to an online petition to protect net neutrality. In layman’s terms, or the terms from an anarchist teen’s photo caption, the government wants to control how we use the internet. They want to block sites that don’t support their agenda! They want to cOnTrOl YOU! Without net neutrality you will turn into a brainwashed government s l a v e. SIGN OUR PETITION! SIGN IT! Removing the emotional, angsty, and edgy tones from this plea, they essentially have the whole idea behind net neutrality correct. Except that the government doesn’t want to control the internet for no reason. There is one reason: money.
But to first understand the battle for an open internet, we must have an exact definition as to what net neutrality is.
Net neutrality: “the concept that broadband Internet service providers should provide nondiscriminatory access to Internet content, platforms, etc., and should not manipulate the transfer of data regardless of its source or destination.”
Basically, net neutrality stops internet providers from throttling your connection speeds and blocking certain sites and promoting others. This definition brought a few questions into my mind, as an internet fan and a fan of the government not meddling in my business like the Scooby Doo Gang.
Do we have a right to an open internet?
Is altering net neutrality a sort of censorship?

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