Ajit Pai, the Donald Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and his fellow decision-makers voted to repeal net neutrality, the open-internet regulations set in place during the Barack Obama administration.
Net neutrality allowed the free flow of information across the internet, establishing an even platform for all users. With the overturn of these laws, telecommunications companies will now be able to charge for certain websites and types of traffic as they see fit, creating a divide in internet access and potentially leading to increased profits for telecommunications corporations.
This has huge implications for every industry, the music industry included — from the content that artists will be able to create to the consumer-side of music consumption. The artist-to-consumer music model could be greatly affected. Independent artists will have little chance at competing against major label signees, as they won’t have the budget to advertise in the same way.
In the days leading to the ruling, countless Hip Hop artists used their influence to motivate fans to protest against the FCC. These included Metro Boomin, Khalid, Common, Smokepurpp and DRAM, who prompted followers to text “REPEAL” to various short-code numbers set against the ruling.
Since the decision was announced, many took to Twitter to express their dismay:
YEah, because the Internet was so bad in 2015, before net neutrality, righttt? Sarcasm..,
People don’t know what they’re talking about. Before the FCC was regulating the internet, the FTC (a different government agency) was policing it, and all the repeal does is put the internet back under their jurisdiction. Nobody even knew about net neutrality until they were told it was a big deal this past week, because it didn’t affect their internet consumption, because back when the rules were different they WEREN’T being charged higher prices like this article suggests that they will be. I repeat, all this does is make the rules the same as they were in 2015, and none of the dire consequences given in this article were happening back then, were they? This is just another liberal overreaction to something the Trump administration did that was actually benign. Quite frankly, they are exploiting your ignorance to make you want the government to regulate things. You know, the same government that is evil, imperialistic, and racist. Is THAT who you want regulating every aspect of your life? Presumably not, but they use the media to make you think it is in your best interest to have their hand in everything. You’re being programmed, fam. I’m sure this comment will be deleted, HHDX tends to delete my more anti-liberal posts.
Thanks for that. Had no clue about what was going on but figured it can’t be that bad.
2015 was amazing because when had Obama as president and not this orange moron we have now
Flock sheep! Flock!