Want to continue to see this and other blogs, local newspapers, YouTube, and all the other Internet sources of information that are not owned by the six companies that own 90% of U.S. media? Then you want the FCC to continue net neutrality, and you have until Tuesday to send written comments.

EFF has provided this handy form: Dear FCC. Please go there and comment. You’ll thank yourself later.

-jsq

PS: This is what I wrote. The form fills in that “I live in” line, thus my clarification.

Dear FCC,

I’m John S. Quarterman and I live in Valdosta, GA.

Net neutrality, the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) treat all data that travels over their networks equally, is important to me because without it there’s no free press left.

A pay-­to-play Internet worries me because we already have cable TV.

Actually, I don’t live in a city; I live in unincorporated Lowndes County, which makes the Internet even more important to me and other rural people.

As a witness since the beginning (first used ARPANET 1974) who wrote a book on the creation of the Internet (The Matrix, 1989) and who was a party to a lawsuit all the way to the Supreme Court about the Communications Decency Act, I think the Internet is the last bastion of the First Amendment. With 90% of U.S. TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines owned by six companies, the Internet goes around that to independent local newspapers, blogs, YouTube, reddit, and a plethora of other information participants. Participation is what the Internet has always been about. Don’t let Comcast and Time Warner turn it into cable TV. It’s time to reclassify the Internet back as a common carrier and enforce real net neutrality.

Sincerely,

Name John S. Quarterman
3338 Country Club Road #L336
Valdosta, GA 31605

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