Will the Internet remain free?

Thus far, those of us who use the Internet have enjoyed free access, as long as we have a phone line, cable line or Wi-Fi connection. We can communicate what we want without it having to pass the muster of the government or some corporation. But that could change.

What we have enjoyed is called “net neutrality,” which is “the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment and modes of communication,” according to Wikipedia.

Net neutrality: There has been much debate about whether net neutrality should be required by law. The Federal Trade Commission (FCC) has been considering a rule that would allow ISPs, such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, to offer content providers a faster track to send content. This would end net neutrality.

In her article “Can We Keep the Internet Free?” (Yes! Magazine), Candace Clement expresses alarm about this possibility. If the FCC rules in favor of the ISPs, she writes, it would give them “the freedom to favor their own offerings over those of their competitors.”

She quotes from a New York Times editorial: “In this new world, smaller content providers and startups that could not pay for preferential treatment might not be able to compete because their delivery speeds would be much slower. And consumers would have to pay more because any company that agrees to strike deals with phone and cable companies would undoubtedly pass on those costs to their users.”

The rich get richer: This follows a pattern observable throughout history: The rich get richer, the big get bigger. The smaller and those without get poorer and smaller.

Many have seen the Internet as a democratization of communication. The previous, one-way media—broadcasting, print and cable—were supplanted by the two-way, networked communication style fostered by the World Wide Web. As Clement writes: “It’s not about one company or one wire or one tower sending us information. It’s about all of us communicating directly with each other.”

Fast lane: The basic idea of net neutrality is this: When you visit a website, the phone or cable company that provides Internet access shouldn’t get in the way. Information should be delivered to you quickly and without discriminating about the content. With changes, ISPs could split the flow of traffic into tiers, offering priority treatment to big corporations who would pay higher fees. That would mean a fast lane for the rich and a dirt road for others, harming small businesses and other users.

Net neutrality does not necessarily mean complete freedom. The adoption of net neutrality law usually includes allowance for discrimination in limited conditions, such as preventing spam, malware or illegal content.

Chile became the first country in the world to pass net neutrality legislation in 2010. But that law allows exceptions for ensuring privacy and security.

Public comment: Once the FCC releases its official proposal, there will be much public comment. “If the initial reaction is any indicator,” Clement writes, “millions of people will weigh in.”

The solution, says Brian Knappenberger in the New York Times, is simple: “We should classify broadband access as a utility. Internet providers should be considered common carriers, just as cellphone companies are for voice access, which they are not allowed to block or degrade. The Internet should be a level playing field.”

Is the Internet unsafe for women?

Many hail the Internet as the ultimate democratic tool. Everyone has a voice and has access to information and to others they wouldn’t have otherwise.

But many women are finding the Internet an unsafe place and have experienced terrible abuse and threats for stating their opinions.

In the January/February issue of Pacific Standard, Amanda Hess exposes this reality in her article “Women Aren’t Welcome Here.” 

She begins the article by telling about receiving messages from a Twitter account set up, it seemed, for the purpose of making death threats to her.

I cannot recount the entire text here, but the writer says, “I am 36 years old, I did 12 years for ‘manslaughter,’ I killed a woman, like you. … Happy to say we live in the same ­­state. Im (sic) looking you up, and when I find you, im going to rape you and remove your head.”

Hess is a journalist who writes about sex (among other things). She dialed 911. The police officer who showed up two hours later didn’t know what Twitter is. But Twitter, for Hess, is where she spends much of her time.

She offers other examples of abusive language and threats but notes that she’s not exceptional. She gives examples of other women writers who have been threatened.

And it’s not just professional writers, she says. “According to a 2005 report by the Pew Research Center,” she writes, “women and men have been logging on in equal numbers since 2000, but the vilest communications are still disproportionately lobbed at women.”

That survey also reported that 5 percent of women who used the Internet said “something happened online” that led them into “physical danger.”

Another study showed that simply appearing as a woman online can inspire abuse. “In 2006,” Hess writes, “researchers from the University of Maryland set up a bunch of fake online accounts and dispatched them into chat rooms. Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7.”

While there are laws against cyberstalking, the Internet is global, and law enforcement jurisdiction is local. And the abuse has become so prevalent that women are often told to ignore it.

But this carries a cost, Hess writes. “Threats of rape, death and stalking can overpower our emotional bandwidth, take up our time and cost us money through legal fees, online protection services and missed wages.”

Police often tell women who’ve received threats to go offline, but that has costs as well “as the Internet becomes increasingly central to the human experience,” Hess writes.

Another study found that Internet harassment is routinely dismissed as “harmless locker-room talk,” perpetrators as “juvenile pranksters” and victims as “overly sensitive complainers.”

The justice system, Hess says, tends to treat Internet threats as less real and don’t follow up.

She notes that while American police forces are overwhelmingly male, “the technology companies that have created the architecture of the online world are, famously, even more so.”

Hess, understandably, is interested in finding solutions to this problem. It affects her every day.

But all of us need to be aware of this alarming situation and look for ways to make every part of our world, including the Internet, safe for everyone, particularly women.