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So, it's official. Net Neutrality has been defeated in the house.

Some of you may be saying "Huh? The what?", while others are probably thinking "Who cares?". I'm sure there's a third group right now going "HEY! THIS ISN'T THE HARRY POTTER TENTACLE RAPE HENTAI SARAH SILVERMAN GO-BOTS PORN THAT GOOGLE LED ME TO BELIEVE!!" Well, I'm sorry, but this matters. I'm not going to go into too many of the details of this, because frankly it's too upsetting to me, and you can look them up yourselves from a more knowledgeable and reliable source.

Here's the deal with the internet. It's not simply a series of tubes as you may have been led to believe. Ironically, an older buzz-term may be more applicable. The internet is like a highway (an information super-highway, if you will). Granted, there are significantly more than 3, or 4 lanes. There are actually even more than 10. Now one of the things that has made the internet the great equalizer over the last decade or two, is that no matter who you are, as long as you can get on the internet you get to drive the same road as anyone else. Sure, you may be surfing the internet in a 1974 Pinto, and it's not a great idea to try to get over into the left lanes, but at least they are there for you.

What the defeat of the Net Neutrality bill means, is that it is now possible to for Internet Service Providers to prioritize what data flows to their customers. This leaves ISPs with no restrictions from prioritizing their sponsors' data, and for lack of a better term, shitting on the rest of us. This may seem like a small complaint, but let's face the facts people. The companies pouring their money into these enterprises already have teams of web designers, server maintenance professionals, and an army of tech personnel to make sure that their websites work fluidly and flawlessly already. They don't actually need a boost here. However, what's being done is a blatant "OK" for as many lanes of this little highway of ours to be designated as Corporate Carpool lanes. In fact, that's exactly what they're trying to sell it as. Net Neutrality has been destroyed by the idea that implementing these rules would be analogous to outlawing carpool lanes. Everybody loves carpool lanes, right? Considerate people that thought ahead and offered a ride to their friends instead of wasting space and emission on the freeway get a little boost ahead on their commute. HOWEVER, while this may seem a fitting analogy, the end result is not the same. You see, while carpool lanes allow the conscientious every-man a little boost for being considerate and trying to do his part for society, what these "internet carpool lanes" amount to is censorship. Now I'm sure you're thinking that I'm going too far here, and being reactionary, but hear me out...

Let's bring in a new analogy here. Let's talk about TV for a while. You love TV right? Of course you do. You're a lazy little shit on your computer with a TV on in the background just like I am. I bet you don't even know what's on, but there it is. Now, TV is a brilliant thing. It started off as a simple idea, you broadcast a audio/video signal through via a modulated electromagnetic traveling wave and people can buy a box that receives, translates, and reproduces those audio/video signals in their very own home. Not unlike the internet, where someone thought to themselves "Hey, what if we set up a network where I could allow people to take a look at something that I have on my computer by sending a request to my computer, which will then send a signal back carrying the information that was requested"

Now, television sold out a long time ago. First, corporations took over the range of broadcast frequencies. This left the content on television to be moderated by the sponsors of each individual station. (I'm not going to even get into the FCC) Then, in a brilliant move, television companies sold everyone on cable (and later, satellite) by saying "well now you can pay us for your signal and we won't fill it with commercials", which of course later became "well now you can pay us for your signal... for some reason..." While comparisons could be drawn here between licensing of broadcast frequencies and the fall of Net Neutrality, it gets hazy and confusing, so I'm not going to do it.

Here's comparison I'm actually trying to make... Cable companies, having strayed so far from the original frontier of human communication that berthed their medium, eventually were forced to settle the score by allowing some margin of their broadcast to public access. That's right, we generic citizen folk were allowed the right to broadcast a little A/V signal on at least one of the... 117, I think... channels available. We all know how often public access gets watched. I believe the most popular public access show involved an inflatable sheep. What does this have to do with the internet? Prioritizing data flow on the internet is similar to only allowing 1 out of ever 117 broadcast channels for public access. Sure, you're required to let those cheapskates use one of your channels for free, but you can stick them in the sea of home shopping networks so nobody will ever notice them, and they're non-profit so it's not like they're have equipment that could compete with you anyway.

On the internet, sure, those cheapskate sites run by people that aren't paying the ISP will be available... but when someone sends a request to see their site, that request will have to sit in the right lane while all the corporate 18-wheelers have the rest of the lanes of the highway reserved. Then, when your request gets to that computer, the information sent back will have to go through the same ordeal on the way back. This may seem blown out of proportion, but while cable companies have to make at least 1 out of 117 channels public access, the internet is more nebulous, and there isn't a minimum amount of bandwidth required to be reserved for non-sponsored data. So essentially, if there is a traffic jam in that right lane your data has to travel through, the cops aren't allowed to divert flow through any of the other lanes... and actually, that lane may be more of a bike lane, or maybe a dirt path that goes on a little detour through the woods.

So, while ISPs haven't been given the ability to literally censor content in the traditional FCC way, they have been given the ability to say "Sure, you can look at this... but we can make you wait allllllllll day if we want to."