It's not very often that Moz as a company openly advocates for a particular political position. While we've always supported our employees' choices to be vocal about the issues for which they're passionate and have done our best to live by the TAGFEE values (as imperfect as that attempt may be), we have rarely directed the attention of our customers or our readers toward a particular end. Today, we break with that tradition to join hands with countless organizations across the web in a Day of Action in support of net neutrality.
Net neutrality is a fairly simple principle: that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.
At face value, net neutrality seems to affirm the basic principles of free speech which most of us hold dear. If the FCC moves forward in retracting policies that protect the Internet in the interest of the public good, it is reasonable to suspect that these freedoms will be curtailed.
This curtailed freedom is often described in terms of small or independent content producers who will be cut out of this new caste-like system of Internet access. However, I would like to take a moment to shed light on different vital services which are likely to suffer without the protections provided by net neutrality.
1. 911 call centers
Over 65 million Americans rely on Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) for their home phone service, and in 2009, the Congressional Research Service called for 911 call centers to migrate to IP technology in modernizing their infrastructure. Both families and the call centers themselves depend on unfettered bandwidth. When you call 911, seconds matter, and the quality of that bandwidth determines that speed. Without net neutrality, that bandwidth and those seconds are put to the highest bidder.
2. Clinical Video Telehealth for our veterans
In 2016, the Department of Veterans Affairs served over 677,000 veterans in rural and under-served areas via telehealth. The VA's Clinical Video Telehealth (CVT) is a true innovation, connecting their best doctors with their neediest patients. Unfortunately, this critical health technology relies on the same network backbone as any Internet service. Who will pay the increased tolls to ensure that serving our veterans remains a priority on these networks?
3. Online education for K–12 students and their teachers
Finally, by 2014, 75% of all US districts offered some form of online education for K–12 students. More than 2.7 million students took advantage of this blended ed-tech, while 315,000 students were enrolled in full-time online education. The same technology you might use in your workplace to hold sales calls is used by teachers to meet with parents and students across the country, delivering education to those who are difficult to serve otherwise. It's annoying when Netflix buffers, but it is tragic when a child can't communicate effectively with his or her teachers.
These are just three of countless examples of how the Internet has come to provide vital services to our veterans, our children, and our communities. Without the basic protections net neutrality affords, these vital services, and so much more, are at risk. Net neutrality advocates are correct to be concerned about the free and unfettered speech of sites across the web if the Internet is left unprotected, but we should not pretend that only our words are at stake. Our safety, our veterans, and our children are on the line, too.
If you're interested in learning more and taking action, take a look at Battle for the Net.
Thank you for your consideration.
Thanks for posting this Russ, and for helping Moz to support net neutrality. As I noted in my WB Friday on the topic a couple months back, there's a real threat to all of us who build businesses on the web, and especially those who lack the resources of a big company.
I do take issue with one thing you said -- while net neutrality's fate is in the hands of some politicians who currently have power in the US, it's barely a "political issue," in the classic sense. More than 80% of BOTH Republican and Democratic voters in the US support net neutrality. It's a bipartisan cause for voters, but because a few corporations can throw millions of lobbying and campaign dollars at it, Ajit Pai and the Trump administration are biasing against the political will of the country. Let's hope today's actions can help reverse that!
Thanks for the reply. I certainly agree it is much broader than a political issue, however I think at this point we do have a clear "political position" to advocate, which is to prevent the undoing of Title II protections in August.
Is Moz doing anything other than this blog post? Some website owners (like myself and a few others I’ve been chatting with) are kind of ticked at how this is unfolding. We were all sold this grand idea that we were going to roadblock the internet with messages about net neutrality. We'd be standing side by side with huge tech companies like Amazon, Tumblr and Spotify to get the word out and let people know what they can do to preserve the web as we know it. We were all given some javascript code that would show visitors a modal asking them to take action. You can see it on my website, FastFoodNutrition.org.
Today I woke up expecting to see this glorious thing in action, only to find that while I road blocked my site, these tech giants I was supposed to be standing shoulder to shoulder with did basically nothing. I went to Amazon 3 times before I saw their little plug. Spotify put nothing in their app. If Tumblr did anything, I couldn't find it. And where’s Facebook in all of this? What a wasted opportunity.
I put up the road blocking modal I was asked to. It is annoying my visitors and causing them to hit the back button. If they stay and read the modal, it’s prompting them to leave my site to visit another where they can learn more about net neutrality. This is hurting my website traffic, which is hurting my revenue; my sole source of income in life. Unlike these tech giants, I don’t have piles of offshore cash I can live off of. So it really chaps my ass that while I was fully committed to it, these big companies decided they couldn’t afford to REALLY participate. Instead, they’re all just basking in the glow of the positive media coverage. Find me one article about today’s Day of Action that doesn’t mention Amazon. And they barely tried.
I can't say that Moz as a company is doing more than having our employees write and edit a post and the social team promote it and putting up the banner on the homepage. I know our employees have been doing quite a bit on their own, though.
I, too, was a little surprised to see things like individual subreddits (/r/videos) doing a lot more (they literally blocked access altogether) than the site as a whole. In retrospect, I personally wish Moz had done a little more, but I will put that on my own shoulders for not advocating for it.
I do thank you for your active and sacrificial participation. Things change when good folks like you choose to shoulder an unfair burden to secure rights for all.
Great post, Russ.
For me, It means that another Flipkart has the chance to rub shoulders with Amazon.
In the USA, Trump doesn't issue an executive order overturning the net neutrality rules. I think the executive order isn't likely to have much effect.
BTW, I am from India. And here the conditions are just opposite. Net neutrality violations have been very common in India. For example - Aircel's free access to WhatsApp and Facebook, Airtel's free access to Google, and Reliance's Zero plans and many more. TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has done a great job, because India is a growing market and it's the right time to frame any regulations. But still need more improvement on this. Without Net neutrality, small businesses wouldn’t be able to compete against large businesses online.
Thanks.
Net Neutrality is quickly becoming one of my most passionate issues. From yesterday's search volume post, one can see how the traffic is flowing through fewer and fewer nodes. If the bandwidth also becomes restricted, small news outlets could completely disappear. I look at net neutrality as a First Amendment issue. In the years and decades to come, I believe it will be the free proliferation of information that will do more to fight tyranny and oppression than any other action or organization. This essential freedom can not be taken for granted.
Exactly, net neutrality has a greater effect on life in every sector and become a need of today and should be the most concerning point.
Well said, and a great reminder to get involved today - even a small step like emailing your concerns. I've already started sharing the message on social media, so hopefully more people will get involved.
Most good little progressives fail to see what George Soros is doing.
I think you have been misinformed. If you deregulate the internet it no longer becomes free.
Funny how that sounds right? Let me explain...
If your ISP does not like YouTube videos clogging up its pipes. It can then purposefully slow YouTube traffic down to a halt. If your ISP sees you affiliating with a site they do not agree with they can slow that site traffic down to a halt. If you design a cool new website that is used to promote education worldwide and your CDN and hosting provider does not agree with the contents. They can slow your site down to a halt.
If you like your privacy and prefer your ISP, CDN and hosting provider not sell your aggregate data for monetary profits. You're SOL once they deregulate.
Deregulation is a capitalist move to convert to private profits. Which hosts other ramifications like censorship and exploitation.
Free Our Internet notes that the Soros-Google funding is aimed at pushing big government allies to take control of the Internet in ways that benefit hard-left politics, with methods that include:
“This is the most important battle of our generation,” the Free Our Internet website insists. “It’s a fight against the tech-left, their corporate fellow travelers, and their big government allies to silence dissent and solidify their power once and for all.”
Thanks for sharing..It's a great way to provide these information,it's a nice & helpful..
You have a lot of good points there and I appreciate the research that went into this. Net neutrality is a complicated issue and there are 2 sides of it. I lean towards it obviously but at the same time I wonder what I could be missing on the flip side of the coin that could help me in the long run. After all, those reversing the neutrality think that it will help in the future. I don't know if they are right but I wonder. It is a lot to think about regardless!
Net Neutrality, or in particular Title II, requires that "common carriers" not "make any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services for or in connection with like communication service"
Those who fall on the other side of the debate tend to make a couple of arguments...
1. Such restrictions will unduly burden Internet providers from innovating.
2. The FCC might unfairly interpret this rule to demand further government intrusions into privacy.
I fail to see how #1 is the case unless Title II is interpreted in ways that it historically has not. And, while I am concerned about privacy (#2), it seems to me that the government has plenty of tools already to influence governmental data sharing, and Title II hardly improves on that tool set.
While you've provided some great examples of why an open internet is so important, I notice that you don't provide a single example of these things happening prior to Net Neutrality. Nor do you make a case for the government being a better protector of a free and open internet than the free market.
It amazes me that people are so willing support a cause that allegedly protects against things that "might" happen. And it amazes me that people who don't trust "evil corporations" seem to have complete trust in the government. Why? The government is also run by people who are tempted do things that benefit themselves at the expense of others.
We've had a free and open internet for decades. And the result of that has been pretty spectacular IMO. Why hand that over to the government?
My Senator tells me that there will be public hearings on this matter soon and that i should let the FTC know my position on this matter. I encourage everyone to do the same. We all stand to lose if we lose our right to a free and open internet for all. In view of history ATT did the same for telephones and they became expensive and controlled by ATT. FANG is not going to do anything to help our predicament because they stand to benefit as do the big media conglomerates.
Indulge me here, but aren't these all reasons against net neutrality? Under net neutrality, traffic for 911 call centers and NetFlix would be treated equally. Is that what we want, or do we want 911 call centers to get preferential treatment over NetFlix when there's an emergency?
Hey Josh,
Thank you for the thoughtful question. It is important that we get a good grasp of what Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 actually says...
"It shall be unlawful for any common carrier to make any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services for or in connection with like communication service, directly or indirectly, by any means or device, or to make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, class of persons, or locality, or to subject any particular person, class of persons, or locality to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage. "
Notice that the language begins with "unjust" or "unreasonable". Title II does not prevent ISPs from creating novel service offerings that appeal to customers (both subscribers and publishers). However, it requires that those service offerings meet the standards of being neither "unjust" nor "unreasonable", and gives the FCC regulatory authority to interpret what that means. It is highly improbable that the FCC would consider offering prioritization of 911 calls, telemedicine for veterans, or public school video feeds as "unjust or unreasonable discrimination", especially if that prioritization were offered for free. What is of concern is what telcos can do if they are allowed to be unjust or unreasonable.
Let's give an example of what things might look like under Title II or not.
Scenario: AT&T and Verizon, two of the largest landline phone providers, decide that they want to earn extra revenue from VOIP traffic in order to shift users to their landline business. Thus, they require a new premium of 20% extra to have VOIP enabled Internet access.
With Title II, a customer or a VOIP business or the local municipality's 911 Call Center could file a claim with the FCC and have it considered against this language of the "unjust or unreasonable". The FCC can then require the organization to take "action[s] necessary or desirable in the public interest".
Without Title II, a complaint can still be made, but the legal framework would largely disappear.
Finally, it is worth noting that nothing about Title II prevents Congress from passing other laws which protect vital services like those I mentioned above, and I (although not speaking for Moz here) would support such an endeavor.
Love the loading banner at the top. ... well.. I love it and I hate it ;)
I heard that in China you can't have a blog. You are only allowed a website if it is a licensed business. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I would be up a creek without my site and other blogs to follow as well. 99% of my information comes from other blogs. I just thought I would throw this out there.
That's not entirely true. Some blogging sites are blocked. But you can have a blog in China.
Great illustration of the problems of not having net neutrality in our day-to-day. It's important to know to which extent will it hurt apart from freedom of speech. Thank you for that.
I see the Net Neutrality is quite a serious problem. Definitely need to read the Battle for the Net!
Great points made in this article! Very well written. Everyone needs to understand what net neutrality is and its impact on the future of the internet.