The current internet that we all operate on is known as an “open internet”. Making the internet an even playing field for both companies and consumers. Unfortunately, on Dec. 14 there will be a vote in Congress on whether or not we should keep Net Neutrality laws around which means that the internet will be changed forever.

So what is Net Neutrality? Well to put it as simple as possible, it is a law created by former President Barack Obama that protects us from paying extra fees for internet services. Without Net Neutrality your internet provider would be able to charge you extra fees for certain websites to run at a normal or faster speed than other websites.

If Net Neutrality were to be to be taken away, your internet provider would charge you money to watch Netflix or Youtube, to read The New York Times or the Chicago Sun Times, to use steam or any other gaming website, or even for using Google. All this would make you spend hundreds of dollars a year maybe even thousand’s, as opposed to spending 30-50$ on a monthly basis as usual for the current internet you already have. Your internet bill would end up looking a lot like your cable bill.

The fight for Net Neutrality has been going on since 2014 and earlier this year on July 12, 2017, big name companies protested online against the removal of Net Neutrality. A few of those companies where Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, Google, Reddit, and Facebook. Also joining the fight for Net Neutrality are YouTubers like independent media news reporter Philip DeFranco, gamer Markiplier, sketch comedians H3H3 and sketch comedy Collegehumor. All of them have asked many of their viewers for their support on keeping Net Neutrality laws around.

All of this should be reason enough for everyone to take a stand. No matter what your political party is, we should speak up because this is one thing that we can all agree on. The networks only want to get rid of Net Neutrality because once it’s gone they can gain more profit from consumers. We need to make sure our internet providers don’t take advantage of us. We need to tell our representatives and the FCC that we don’t want to get rid of Net Neutrality.

If you care about your internet rights then I urge you to join the fight and talk to your state representative by going to callmycongress.com  to speak with them and let your voice be heard.