So, what is this ‘net neutrality’ thing that’s been in the news?
Net neutrality is the name given to the political ideal of preserving internet access as a democratic right held by every citizen. This includes access to the internet as well as connection speeds. Internet Service Providers (ISPs), proponents say, should not discriminate against types of sites or services and provide the same access to all types of (legal) content.

What’s this got to do with content marketing?
Quite a lot. Without net neutrality, activists fear, access to the internet could be restricted by a handful of companies seeking to preserve higher bandwidth speeds for their own customers or to make certain sites quicker to access than others. In theory, these ISPs – we won’t name any for legal reasons – may end up controlling what users consume by promoting certain content through making it faster to access. There is a body of evidence that suggests that connection speeds alter the behaviours of audiences. For instance, those with slower connection speeds are, in fact, more patient when waiting for slow-loading content than users with better connection speeds.

So?
Take a medium- or small-sized company with a budget for creating video content, but not for promoting it on a popular site such as Facebook. In essence, the company would be worse off without net neutrality, as users could become impatient while waiting for its video to load and navigate elsewhere.

Conversely, a company willing to pay to promote its content might be worse off under net neutrality, as ISPs would not discriminate in favour of the platforms where they are promoting or hosting their content.

Is this a likely threat?
Perhaps not, but it hasn’t stopped the advent of net neutrality legislation in several jurisdictions, including in the European Union, Israel and Chile. All eyes are on the US, where President Barack Obama is backing net neutrality legislation by forcing the Federal Communications Commission to recognise broadband access as a telecommunications service.

According to pro-neutrality site, Savetheinternet:

Companies like Comcast and AT&T are trying to buy out their competition and sell Washington regulators on their disastrous deals. But allowing these companies to get even bigger won’t help the open Internet — it will only make the gatekeepers more powerful. For the cost of these two monster deals, Comcast and AT&T could collectively deploy super-fast gigabit-fiber broadband service to every single home in America.