A Day Without Food Blogs (Help Save the Internet)

Food blogs all over the world are uniting today in posting this message instead of showing photos of food or writing about recipes. We're asking our readers to get involved. The future of the internet could be determined by a small group of big companies. Imagine this scenario:

You've come home after a hard day of work. You've had a nice dinner, and now you're ready to turn on the computer and catch up on blogs. You go to your bookmarks, and click on one of your favorite food blogs.

Then you wait for the page to load.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.


You end up waiting five minutes for the site to load. Each time you click to a new page you have to wait again.

No you haven't suddenly been transported back to the days of the slowest dial-up that ever existed, instead you've been transported into what could become the future of the internet in the United States. This is what could happen if a group of big internet service providers (called "the pipes" in telecom jargon) are successful in getting legislation through U.S. Congress that would create a two-tiered internet, essentially a fast internet and a slow internet.

If this legislation passes, the speed with which you access the internet would not be determined by the service provider you select or how much you pay for your ISP, but by how much content creators pay to the service providers. People with big bucks (read big business) could afford to pay for quicker service to deliver their content, enabling them to control what people can access on the internet in a frightening way. Small time sites (like blogs) would be limited to slower service. It is even possible that "the pipes" will be able to completely exclude some sites whose content they don't agree with.

Currently the U. S. operates under a system of net neutrality. This proposed change could threaten democratic access to the internet for people in the U.S. or anyone who accesses sites that originate in the U.S.

People are speaking out about this all over the internet. If you want more information, check out the links on these posts at Blogher, Free Press, and Food Blog S'Cool.

Here are three things you can do to help prevent anyone from tampering with democratic access to the internet:

• Learn more about how this affects you at Save the Internet.

• Sign the petition at Moveon.org.
  

• Take action by sending a letter to congress.
  

Please help save the internet from being controlled by big business!

(I'm editing later to bring you Pim's wonderful list of food blogs who are participating in A Day Without Food Blogs. Check them out! It is great to see so much support for the effort.)

Net Neutrality Day without Food Blogs