How Major Websites Are Protesting For Net Neutrality Today
The internet you know and love is under attack. Today, no matter which service provider you're stuck with, you still have the same access to the series of tubes as anyone else. Tomorrow, well, that could change.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai appears set to roll back the Obama-era reclassification of internet access as a Title II "common carrier." That classification moved the internet towards being regulated as a utility, which gave the FCC the ability regulate the ISPs, preventing the providers from offering preferential treatment to certain website and content types, creating a tiered-internet.
What does this mean? Under current regulations Comcast can't deliver sites it owns or invests in (like the Vox Media sites, for instance) more quickly than other sites. But if Pai is successful in repealing the current regulations, there's no stopping ISPs from making other sites load faster, some load slower, and worse yet, blocking others entirely โ all in the interest of their own bottom lines.
In response to Pai's plans, July 12th was declared a day of action, and sites around the internet are protesting in favor of strong net neutrality regulations. Here's how some major sites from around the web are speaking out:
Netflix
Imgur
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The EFF dropped a clever two-parter:
Amazon
Internet Archive
Airbnb
Spotify
The Verge
ACLU
Ars Technica
BoingBoing
Yelp
Yelp went subtle, adding the loading icon (which clicks through to a statement on net neutrality):
And, Of Course, PornHub
You can check out a full list of participants over at Battle for the Net.