|
created over 2 years ago | Tagged: |
Wi Fish
|
Perhaps the greatest freedom in a democracy is freedom of speech. Throughout our nation's history, people have died fighting not only for our right to speak, but for our right to be heard. The Internet is the greatest communications network ever created because it allows us to speak for ourselves without first asking permission from corporate gatekeepers. This is possible because of the principle called Net Neutrality, which prevents Internet service providers from discriminating against content online.
Guess who'll be able to pay that extra cost? The big corporations. Meanwhile, the small guy will be pushed to the digital margins. During his campaign, President Barack Obama pledged he would "take a back seat to no one" in his support for Net Neutrality.
"One of the reasons that I won the presidency was because we were able to mobilize young people ... to get involved through the Internet," Obama said during a visit to China last November. "Initially, nobody thought we could win because we didn't have necessarily the most wealthy supporters; we didn't have the most powerful political brokers. But through the Internet, people became excited about our campaign and they started to organize and meet and set up campaign activities and events and rallies. And it really ended up creating the kind of bottom-up movement that allowed us to do very well."
