Net neutrality

And it has a very boring name, but it's super important.

Net neutrality.

I have a position on this and I always label when I give you my opinion on it, you're welcome to disagree with it.

Let's first talk about what it is.

Net neutrality is a pretty simple idea.

The idea that your internet provider carries all the traffic the same way.

So it doesn't matter if you're a behemoth like Google or if you're just a kid in San Luis Obispo with a skateboarding blog.

Same access, same speed, no blocking, no throttling, which means throttling means slowing traffic down on purpose.

You know, part, part of an editor-in-chief's job is to assign responsibilities to people and make sure the work gets done.

Um, and I, I, I may be misremembering the details, but I, I remember wanting to-- It was kind of surprising to me that at the time there was no dedicated technology section in the newspaper.

[laughs]

Um, you know-

Correct.

Yeah.

But it, it-- to, to take us back in time, you may remember this, but, um, there was, there was this technology, uh, kinda re- legislation that was being debated called, uh, the Net Neutrality Act.

And net neutrality is, like, inherently this political concept, right? It's, it's about the regulation of com- internet broadband access.

How do we want to go from here?

Net neutrality.

The other thing in here to work up my blood pressure.

Yeah.

So California spent years fighting their net neutrality, state net neutrality rules.

Well, so first they were fighting for the national rules.

Yeah.

And then everyone sued the FCC and California was like, no, no, no.

This is coming by way of Catherine Trendacosta and Chow Luu.

Over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the EFF, California tell the governor to stand up for net neutrality, affordability, and public safety.

The federal government has inserted a provision into a funding deal with the state of California that would make the state a its gold standard net neutrality law, broadband affordability laws and public safety protections.

Doing so would be a huge step back for California and would actually end up being more expensive for Californians in the long run.

And they've got some links on what to do for contacting the governor's office and contacting local elected officials.

And this is the next step of the twist of the knife.

We keep playing the stupid game with things like net neutrality, where we bat it back and forth between presidential administrations.

If you're conservative and you vote Republican, then you're going to pay more for the same service.