Net Neutrality

In simple terms Network Neutrality can be defined as the guiding principle that preserves the free and open internet. This means that the net provides no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents internet from blocking, speeding up, or slowing down web content on the basis of its source, content or ownership.
Our generation takes the internet for granted. Since we basically grew up with the internet we have certain expectations as to how we want the internet to work. We expect access to all web sites and we expect them all to load at the same speed and to provide us with the full content that the page has to offer. But are these reasonable expectations? Does the future hold a world where the internet is tailormade to fit the criteria of the providers and not the users? It is these issues that have sparked the controversy over net neutrality.
In my mind net neutrality is extremely important. I feel that the large internet providers have no right to manipulate internet content in order to serve there own personal agendas. The ability of the internet to remain neutral is what has allowed it to become so popular amongst every single group of people. The internet has been a driving force for economic innovation, democratic participation in government, and free speech online. If we lose the neutrality of the internet we are losing far more than a little content from certain webpages. When the internet was created it was meant to be used as medium for sharing information, and for nearly for the last two decades it has been used as just that. No matter who you are you can use the internet to find information that is beneficial to you. If we lose the neutrality of the internet we will lose it's democratic aspect. For an exmaple of how net neutrality could damage the public I conducted a small experiment. I went to google (who happens to argue for net neutrality along with ebay, amazon, yahoo, and the creator of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee.) and typed in "issues surrounding verizon." Google had hundreds of hits for this search which makes it very clear that verizon has had there fair share of problems with employees, competitors, and even subscribers. But think about what would happen if we lost the neutrality of the internet and companies like verizon got to decide what information was acceptable for the internet. They would have the ability to influence the public much the same way as mass media but to an even greater extent. If all the information on the internet was subjective then people would not have the option of seeking out information they wanted because the major corporations would control all the content. Say for example that I wanted to find negative information about Barack Obama during the election but corporations that supported Obama controlled the internet. These corporations would have the ability to block the information or just make it incredibly hard to access. They could make it so that the pages slandering Obama take 5 minutes longer to load than the pages slandering McCain. This kind of corporate interference is completely against democracy and goes against the free speech provided for in the 1st ammendment of the constitution.
The internet has always been and should always remain a place for objective discussion and sharing of information. If we lose net neutrality we will lose the democratic nature of the internet that has made it what it is today.