That is Charlie Dean, a 13-year old filmmaker, designer and storyteller who
creates stuff here in an apparent attempt to make everyone over 30 feel like an underachiever. He recorded this net neutrality primer—and FCC call to action—for Films on the Fence, where
other kids are making us feel rather bleak about our own accomplishments.
Charlie makes some very good points here, like this:
It's actually a pretty big issue. The made the internet what it is today because start-ups like YouTube and Facebook get noticed, and become big. […] How are internet start-ups like that going to get noticed if they're going to be slowed down or blocked by Comcast or Verizon in favor of the bigger companies? Hint: they're not. […]
Right now the internet is classified as a Title I communications service. This is called an information service. That's like television, something being broadcast at you. That's probably not the best classification of the internet, which is why we need to push for the FCC to reclassify broadband services as Title II communications. Title II classification is stuff like telephones, where information is going both ways and both parties are contributing equally. The FCC would then have the power to regulate net neutrality. Which would be good.
Before the internet, people didn't have a way to share the things they make with everyone because it was just television, and television is difficult to get on. But now that the internet's here, any film student can share their terrible student film with everyone. And I think that's important. Everyone has the power now to share the things they make. But now the ISPs are trying to take that way from us, which is why we need the FCC to reclassify the internet. Okay, bye.
Kid's got a great future ahead of him. Even more so if he still has a free and open internet available to him. If you haven't already, send your comments supporting net neutrality and broadband reclassification to the FCC. You can use the
FCC comments page; the inbox they set up specifically for this issue,
openinternet@fcc.gov; and
with Daily Kos's petition.