Throw a rock in the air and you’ll hit someone who uses the Internet. Throw the same rock again and you’ll hit someone who has no idea what Internet neutrality is. That’s the thing with people. No one cares how it works as long as it works. But with some issues, caring only when the machine breaks down cannot and will not fix anything. Imagine that you’re living on a space station looking down at the Earth below, and your every breath is provided by machines pumping air into the little tin can you call home. You have instruments that tell you when there’s a problem, but you ignore them because you figure someone else can deal with it. You only start to notice something’s wrong when suddenly you can’t breathe deeply. You can only hold your breath so long. Without the Internet as a neutral playing field people plugging into the matrix will find a much different experience than they have known before.

Internet Neutrality makes the internet what it is, a worldwide connection whose roots and branches touch all aspects of human life either directly or indirectly by giving all cultures contact with each other's information about the human experience. The internet is a living thing now, a complex synapse that unites billions of people to each other’s ideas, businesses, services, images, music, embarrassing moments, and depraved sexual activities. You can say anything you want, post anything you want, be anything you want because no one judges you, they judge the machine instead. The Internet gives you personal freedom to express yourself in ways you never would if you weren’t using a keyboard and screen as a buffer between you and your experience. Have you ever wondered whether that ability to be a cyborg could be exploited, censored, or taken away?

The common carrier rule, a basic rule of the Internet, states that any information transmitted through the wire cannot be discriminated against by the service provider. This means that Comcast can’t stop me from saying that their rates are inflated and their on-demand is mediocre. Verizon can’t keep me from telling you that though they portray themselves as a reputable company, they are just part of the corporate scheme to make slaves of the American people. The point is that the Internet is living proof of freedom of speech. All the major telecom companies want that to change. Rather than preserve a people’s rights, they would prefer that we pay more for the privilege of surfing freely. They want to price smaller companies out of their markets so that only the strongest, most wealthy, and most uniform entities flourish. Their argument is that there is an increased demand for broadband and that people shouldn’t be able to use their pipes to carry their signals without paying more. That is like having a sidewalk stop you and demand that you pay a toll to walk on it. Internet Service Providers are not allowed to control the information in the pipes, just the pipes themselves. If Internet Neutrality is not preserved they will gain control of the content in the wires transmitting to and from your computer, as well as the efficiency with which it travels.

The larger issue this poses is that corporate control of the Internet will effect all of us – not just those who don’t want to or can’t pay for faster service, but those who want open access a variety of information. Myself for example; I’m an independent music artist and I use the internet to host my main website www.jordanpagemusic.com, my myspace page www.myspace.com/jordanpagemusic, my online press kit www.sonicbids.com/jordanpage and my email accounts. I do all my music business in the world by using the Internet. Well let’s say the telecom companies get their wish and they have complete control. They can now charge me so much to do business that I can no longer compete, and my fans and supporters cannot find me online because I’m not there. Or, lets say I’m doing well enough financially that I can keep up, but the big guys don’t like my political message because I make them look bad. Well, now they will be able to censor me and even shut me down completely. Think that’s a load of crap? It happened last summer to a little band I like to call Pearl Jam. AT&T was broadcasting a live performance at Lollapalooza and Eddie Vedder started railing against good ol’ Dubya. They bleeped out the audio of the band’s performance until it was safe for us to not make up our minds about whether we agreed or not. That kind of censorship can and will be commonplace without net neutrality.

This will affect us in our ability to have access to a variety of choices. People don’t realize that this has already happened to radio, and look how well it turned out. Corporations are trying to make money by taking away our choices, adding insult to injury. Not only that, but any average person who doesn’t comply with this new Internet procedure will be fed into a “slow lane” of traffic that will be as frustrating as dealing with dial-up. Those who pay higher rates will enjoy the “fast lane,” which is what all broadband subscribers currently have. The rhetorical question on this issue is “what if all paved roads led to the mall?” If you can’t afford to drive on the super-highway with an empirically approved dragster to shop at MEGASTORE dot com(e on people!), then you’ll be riding your uni-cycle down the rocky road to Dublin to buy a gallon of milk at 7-11. If you care even a little bit about your ability to have a voice on the internet, freedom of speech, your freedom to click on your favorite artist, Jordan Page, and not be re-directed to some big-money site selling the latest re-incarnation of Green Day meets Jessica Simpson, then sign the Rock the Net pledge at www.futureofmusic.org, and get involved with the Free Press and go to the National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis this June. Otherwise, the cold soulless interface you use to experience the world will never be the same.

Jordan Page is a young poet, singer/songwriter, guitarist, political activist, and social commentator. His songs call attention to issues most people would choose to ignore because of their overwhelming nature. With western culture so bombarded and enveloped by mass media and entertainment, Page's solution is to use music to break through the apathy and isolation these influences cause. To learn more about Jordan Page please visit his myspace page at www.myspace.com/jordanpagemusic .