curriebelle:

Quick Notes on Canadian Net Neutrality 

Ok, so I just fell into a misinformation trap out of my own panic, so I did some more research. Here are a few important notes on the Canadian Net Neutrality stuff, so people don’t get too confused or panicky:

It’s bad, but it’s not the same as what’s happening in the United States.

The US telecommunications regulatory agency is called the FCC. That’s where Ajit Pai and his two Republican cronies voted to overturn net neutrality in the US.

The Canadian equivalent is the CRTC. Unlike the FCC board, which is staffed by representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties, the CRTC is non-partisan. 

More on that here : http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/us-canada-net-neutrality-party-politics-fcc-crtc-fight-1.4447558

So, in the US, the Republican-controlled FCC decided to throw out net neutrality. That is why we all sent angry emails to Ajit Pai and the FCC.

In Canada, the CRTC has actually done a fairly good job of protecting net neutrality for almost 25 years. Remember, they’re not the bad guys here.

The bad guys are Bell, Rodgers, Cineplex and Shaw. These are the companies that are petitioning the CRTC to block access to websites that rely on piracy. Unfortunately, this is a “slippery slope” proposal in that it could basically lead to a blank check for internet censorship. This is NOT the same as what happened in the US – it’s not a case where you might have to pay more to access certain websites, it’s an attempt by these companies to block certain websites altogether. 

The CRTC hasn’t commented on this proposal or evaluated it yet, but keep your eye on the news. Most experts agree that Bell and co. are on extremely shaky legal ground, however – so it’s worth being concerned, but it’s not worth panicking yet. The CRTC have been pretty consistently fair about internet regulations in the past.

Still – it’s disturbing.

So what do you do? Well, for now, you keep watch. There is a petition to sign:

https://actions.sumofus.org/a/tell-canada-to-prevent-corporate-control-of-the-internet/

…..which is a good start, but I am extremely suspicious of online petitions. If you care about this, that’s where you start, not where you finish.

The post I reblogged earlier also had a major error in it. That’s the wrong CRTC petition! 🙂 As far as the internet knows, there’s no method to send comments to the CRTC directly yet (aside from phoning people who work there I guess?) but I will keep a lookout and double-check next time