User blog:Kefke Wren/Today, I am an Activist

Do you live in the United States?

Do you enjoy using the internet?

Do you think Free Speech is important?

If you answered yes to any of that, then there's something I'd like to talk to you about. It's called Net Neutrailty, and it's kind of a big deal. If you haven't heard people talking about it before, it's about time you did. What it is, basically, is the internet as it is now. Blogs, lolcats, and Youtube. It's wikis like our own. It's people being able to put up what they want, and anybody being able to find out about it.

Right now, if you haven't heard about the issue before, you might be wondering why this is a big deal. After all, what's important about things being the way they already are, right? Well, if certain companies have their way, the internet might not be that way for long. The major ISPs would like to implament a new system - one that's great for them, but real bad for all of us. Under their new internet, the internet itself is "pay to win". Sites that pony-up for special fees get priority on bandwidth. The internet "fast lane", they call it. In practice, that means that bigger, corporately owned sites would get prioritized. There would be restrictions and wait times on everything else...if you could even find it at all. Some buisness models go so far as to talk about running the internet like a cable service. You'd have to pay for a package deal with the sites you wanted to use.

What about sites like this? Well, first of all, good luck getting SOG Wiki into one of those package deals. As for paying into the "premium internet" program...well, it's pretty unlikely. I'm sure Mutahar gets some ad money from his chanel, but the wiki is essentially a non-profit venture. He'd have to convince some sort of online network to pick up his channel, and get them to recognize the wiki as an essential part of what he does. I'm sure everyone reading this can think of other sites they love that would be in the same boat. Not to mention, when corporate interests control most of the trafic on the internet, it will be that much easier for them to control what voices get heard. Left unchecked, this could be far worse than SOPA.

That's why I've created a petition to the President of the United States, asking him to officially recognize that the internet, as it is now, is a vital conduit of human expression, which should be protected under the First Amendment, and to pressure Congress to pass laws to ensure that it is. So, I want everyone's help right now. Go here and sign the petition. Share it with your friends, your family, anyone you can reach out to. I'm not the first one to speak on this issue, and I won't be the last, but every voice we can get speaking is another one for the politians making the policies to hear, and more voices mean making it more difficult for them to ignore this issue.

If it seems like I'm spamming the link a bit (here it is again: http://wh.gov/l4MqD), it's because I am. This is too important an issue for us to ignore. We're all just some ordinary gamers, but voices like ours can be the basis for a movement, and I know we can make a difference.