President Obama took a stand on net neutrality last week fully supporting a proposal to classify broadband Internet service as a Title II utility and throwing gasoline on an already burning topic. Obama's comments directed at the "Independent" chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler, come on the heels of protests taking place in more than 20 cities that was organized by a nonprofit advocacy group called Fight For the Future.
These protests were in response to comments made by Mr. Wheeler that the FCC is discussing a "hybrid plan" to deal with the net neutrality issue. In a letter dated June 30, 2014 Wheeler noted "the Commission is also seriously considering moving forward to adopt rules using Title II of the Communications Act as the foundation of our legal authority" to regulate Internet Service Providers and the Internet itself.
The “Pay To Play” Plan
The hybrid plan, apparently, would free Internet Service Providers to make financial deals with content providers like Netflix subject to some sort of FCC regulation. These deals would provide companies that pay, faster service than companies that don't pay, so long as the FCC determines the financial arrangements don't hurt competition in the industry.
Net neutrality is an extremely hot topic. Earlier this year the FCC asked for public comment on a proposed rule change and a record setting 3.7 million comments poured in over the four-month commenting period. The overwhelming majority of the comments urged regulators to keep the Internet open. Many are concerned that if net neutrality is not protected innovation will be hurt as small startups will be decimated by their inability to reach a larger audience because of their inability to pay for the much-needed bandwidth.
As is often the case these days, the "transparency" word is being thrown around by both sides of the argument. Some argue the ISPs are already being transparent in their actions while others argue the FCCs rules would make certain that ISPs are transparent about the Internet traffic they handle and whether they are blocking otherwise legal content in favor of content companies are paying for. Without some sort of regulation, the argument goes, the Internet could become an incredibly expensive place resulting in content sharing being limited to only those who can afford to pay for it.
Porn Stars Speak Out
With all this talk about net neutrality taking place and the issue coming to a boil, who better to explain the importance of speaking out on this issue than a team of porn stars? After all, there's been about 2 billion searches for pornography since the start of 2014 and by 2015, mobile adult content and services are expected to reach $2.8 billion per year, according to statistics reported by CovenantEyes. One may assume a gigantic percentage of Internet bandwidth is taken up by porn. In 2013 it was reported that 30 percent of all data transferred across the Internet is porn.
So, adult film stars Alex Chance, Mercedes Carrera and Nadia Styles came together for Funny of Die to explain the importance of net neutrality. It's just a guess, but it's possible more people saw this explanation of the importance of net neutrality than saw President Obama's comments on the issue. I'm just saying …
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Image by Funny Or Die
