Hey guys, thanks for stopping by.
I promise I won't take up too much of your time; I just wanted to talk about something that was incredibly important.
And not only to me, but to every single one of you.
Everyone that's watching this video right now is affected by what's about to happen to the internet.
And uh, you probably know about it already but earlier today, the FCC Chairman (Ajit Pai) announced a plan to repeal and draw
back a lot of net neutrality laws, and kind of change the way that we access the internet.
And, that sounds bad...
because it is bad.
And I'll provide links in the description not only to information, other people talking
about it, and ways for you to fight back on this,
but also I just wanted to mention why it was so important because if some of you don't know...
Like, "net neutrality" is simply a way of saying that the Internet is open and accessible to everybody.
You're able to go wherever you want on the internet, you're able to DO whatever you
want on the internet, you're able to have some semblance of
anonymity on the internet without all the companies trying to track your every movement, and it's not perfect,
but those are because of the net neutrality laws that
we have right now.
Now imagine... if these things were to come to pass, you go to YouTube one day,
and you find, instead of your videos:
you find this page that says,
"We're sorry, you haven't paid for the Entertainment package of your Internet plan.
Please pay five more dollars."
What they want is to make the Internet a more profitable place.
And that sounds bad on its face, but that's also just the first step of it.
Like entertainment, you may think like "ah that's okay, like that's totally fine"
But...
...if you allow something like that to happen, then, you put in the framework for
information to be controlled.
And when you do that you control what people see..
...and when you do THAT, you control what people think.
And I'm not saying this is gonna lead to a dystopian future where everyone's mind controlled
and doesn't think for themselves,
but it DOES ruin a lot of opportunities
that people have; to be able to do what they want to do on the internet.
You start down the path where this amazing thing that connects every single human on the globe together,
and allows for the free spread of information wherever it wants to go...
You lock down opportunities and ability for people to thrive;
both for themselves and for our future generations!
And I'm not even saying that you shouldn't have to pay for the internet...
I mean you still have to pay for water, but there's no
"Just Barely Clean Enough Water", and then the "Premium Water" for five dollars more that is
actually not gonna kill you!
But when you set up a system that allows corners to be cut
and allows businesses to prioritize profit over people,
that's when society starts to degrade and that's when innovation becomes stifled.
Because it's not profitable for everyone to make leaps and bounds; we as a species are not defined by profit...
...like, we're just better than that.
And I hope we're better than that.
I want to be better than that.
Bottom line is, the internet should be open and accessible to everybody.
There shouldn't be paywalls that control what you can see based on how much money you make!
There shouldn't be walls in general that control the information that you see, and,
there shouldn't be people watching your every move on the internet!
We can't allow this to happen.
And, thankfully,
there are ways to fight it.
In the description I have provided tons of links to not only information about this
that can explain it better than I just did,
but also ways that you can fight back;
where you can contact people that are making these decisions.
They're all down in the description: there's ways to contact your Congressman, your Senators, your government officials...
there's ways to write to the FCC,
like, even if they want to ignore...
...even if they want profit,
you can still make a difference.
These systems are only in place because...we just decided it.
The internet only exists because, we decided to build it!
So we have to take charge and remember that this is so important, that we need to protect it.
Because the internet's a beautiful thing!
Because of how open and accessible it is, and I want to keep it that way!
I want you guys to be able to enjoy whatever you want to enjoy.
I want you guys to be able to do what you want to do on the internet,
without someone telling you that you can't.
That's all I'll say for now.
Thank you everybody so much for watching, uh, if you
can please take the time to try to make a difference.
All the links are down in the description,
there's tons of other people talking about
it right now, and it's...
incredibly important.
So thank you everybody, so much for watching...and as always, I will see you in the next video!
Bye bye!
[Captions by Serrara Fluttershy, and edited by others listed below.]