If you are so inclined, please read the following message from the president of the Iowa Library Association. If you would like your voice to be heard, you may click on the Take Action Now link at the bottom.
“Good morning,
We are in the closing days before the Dec 14th vote on Net Neutrality and all voices are needed on this issue. I encourage you to choose to make that call or send that email to Iowa’s US senators and representatives.
If you feel like you aren’t sure what this whole thing is about, here are some important facts:
- Net Neutrality is the basic principle that prohibits internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from speeding up, slowing down or blocking any content, applications or websites you want to use. Net Neutrality is the way that the internet has always worked.
- Without Net Neutrality, cable and phone companies could carve the internet into fast and slow lanes. An ISP could slow down its competitors’ content or block opinions it disagrees with. ISPs could charge extra fees to the few content companies that could afford to pay for preferential treatment — relegating everyone else to a slower tier of service. This would destroy the open internet; creating “fast lanes” on the super highway for those who can afford it and “slow lanes” for those who cannot.
- All people, but in particular people in the margins of society, small businesses, and rural communities, rely on the open internet to organize/communicate and to access economic and educational opportunities. The loss of Net Neutrality could devastate their ability to participate equally. Net Neutrality levels the playing field for all.
ALA has provided helpful links below, for more information.
ILA will issue a statement on Net Neutrality later today.
Rebecca Funke
President
The American Library Association encourages everyone to contact Congress as your most effective way to voice support for net neutrality.
Take action now! Contact your House and Senate representatives.
Background
Net Neutrality at the end of 2017: What libraries need to know.
Net neutrality protections eliminated in draft FCC order
Resolution endorsed by ALA Council on June 28, 2006. Council Document 20.12 (CD#20.12)
Internet/Broadband Fact Sheet (Pew Research Study)”