the future of net neutrality: what's at stake for canadians

The future of net neutrality

What’s at stake for Canadians...

StopSpying.ca● ~200,000 Canadians spoke

out online against Bill C-30.

● Would have given warrantless access to your private data through a government-controlled online registry (i.e. open to threats by hackers)

StoptheMeter.ca● 500,000+ Canadians spoke

out against metered Internet access

● The Prime Minister ordered the CRTC back to the drawing board

● The CRTC reversed its decision, allowing independent ISPs to survive

- Telecommunications Act: forbids telecoms from “controlling the content or influencing the meaning or purpose” of communications on its network.

- In 2009, after revelations that ISPs were controlling content on their networks (i.e. blocking access to blogs by the union during a labour dispute, throttling the CBC’s “Next Great Prime Minister” show) the CRTC decided to look into the issue of “net neutrality”

Public opinion on net neutrality- During the 2009 hearing, over 11,000 people submitted

a letter to the CRTC via OM.ca - this was unprecedented at the time

- Over 1300 people wrote their own letters to the CRTC in support of net neutrality

- ⅔ of Canadians disagreed with allowing ISPs to charge extra fees / create a “fast lane” (Leger)

- 86% agreed with keeping the Internet open (Ipsos-Reid)

The CRTC ruled in favour of net neutrality - but with a complaints-based system.

Excellent, but incomplete...

What the end user experiences...

but they often don’t know why.

We need audits, & penalties for net neutrality violations (including special deals & data exemptions for ISPs own content) - basically, if net neutrality is a spectrum, we need more of it, not less.

If you’re slow on the Internet, you basically don’t exist.

Big gatekeepers have the ability to keep you from your audience if you can’t afford to pay.

Threats to net neutrality are threats to democracy- A non-neutral Internet harms public

interest advocates like OpenMedia.- When government willfully disregards

public opinion, that further erodes faith in our democracy.

- The next iteration of democracy -- a better democracy -- will depend on the development of innovative online tools, and the ability to get these tools to Internet users.

Agora - Used by the Spanish Green Party to crowdsource votes on a transparency bill

DemocracyOS - Used by the Argentinian Internet Party, & by Tunisian activists for input on the new Tunisian constitution

Democracy <3 The Open InternetThe evolution of these ideas and technologies (which are inextricably bound together) are threatened by a non-neutral Internet.

Internet users should be empowered to decide - and they overwhelmingly support net neutrality, and the great potential to democratize our politics and culture that it brings with it.