Anyone who has watched the news lately has probably heard about it, but what exactly is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is the idea that internet service providers, such as Xfinity or CenturyLink, should treat all content found online equally. That is without blocking or especially slowing down specific websites on purpose. This is to prevent companies from paying for special treatment to make their websites faster. Basically, all internet service providers must provide equal access to apps, content, etc, regardless of what website it is coming from.

An example would be if a person had an Instagram page they would not be allowed to pay Instagram to make their page run smoother than any other Instagram user for the purpose of gaining more followers.

That sounds pretty fair, doesn’t it? Well, unfortunately, it is predicted to be going away by the end of January 2018. If the bill is passed as expected, internet providers will be permitted to charge websites to reach users at faster speeds.

This puts websites who cannot afford to pay for those faster speeds at a significant disadvantage. According to Slate “Local restaurants or hair salons that have their own websites, for example, might start to rely even more heavily on sites like Yelp to reach new customers, since their websites may load slower than those of large internet companies.“

The Federal Communications Commission will vote to repeal the current net neutrality rules on Dec. 14 of 2017. This could mean there is a dramatic shift in internet usage. Without net neutrality, large internet providers could give special treatment to their own business interests.

For example, CenturyLink could demand hefty fees from Netflix in exchange for faster streaming services. If Netflix does not want to pay those fees, CenturyLink would be allowed to make Netflix so slow that their content becomes unwatchable.

Reversing net neutrality makes the internet a monopoly. Those with more money can enjoy the luxury of high-speed internet, but those who cannot afford to pay the fees will only have a limited experience on the web.

Net neutrality has been something that has been talked about for several years and with its reversal, it provides an uneven playing field that will skew what the internets users are able to access.

This is an issue that will affect so many people in the United States and people should be encouraged to stay informed on the decisions that the government is making, broader than net neutrality, to know how it will affect the public’s day to day lifestyle.