In late 2017, the Trump FCC voted to repeal the “net neutrality” act. Ever since then, social media has been ablaze with outrage and confusion. What is net neutrality? How could the repeal of these rules affect your daily life? According to an article by ACLU “Network neutrality means applying well-established ‘common carrier’ rules to the internet… Common carriage prohibits the owner of a network... from discrimination against information by halting, slowing, or otherwise tampering with the transfer of any data”.

In other words, net neutrality was a very general set of rules that protected the basic rights of internet users. The main worry people have is that large companies will take money from certain sites to speed up their web traffic or slow down one of their competitors’ sites. According to Seth Fiegerman at CNN, “The net neutrality rules, approved by the FCC in 2015, were intended to keep the internet open and fair”. The net neutrality rules prevented internet service providers from manipulating, managing and analyzing data that is transferred from your device through their service. Without these rules, tech giants like AT&T and Verizon are no longer obligated to stick to these regulations. The fight to regain “net neutrality” has become a national movement, as American citizens we should have a right to free, fair internet access that is not restricted by deals made by companies to benefit themselves and not their customers.