72% of Consumers Don’t Know What Net Neutrality Is
Maybe it’s a busy political news cycle, perhaps fatigue, or even worse, it might just be a lack of understanding, but the FCC voted this year to roll back Net Neutrality to much less resistance seen in previous efforts. Despite a fervent tech community voicing concern, very few people seemed able to muster up enough concern to protest this decision.
And of course, there is also always the possibility that no matter how many people fought back, once enough Net Neutrality opponents were in power, they would have too much control over the decision, and were going to eventually vote for the rollbacks no matter how much resistance they encountered, even with recent congressional concern being voiced earlier this week.
To get a general sense of the public’s awareness about the recent Net Neutrality decision, we conducted a survey of 768 US citizens, and confirmed that a majority of Americans:
- Aren’t really sure what Net Neutrality is
- Were not aware that the FCC rolled it back
72% of US citizens do not know what Net Neutrality is
Of the 768 people that responded to our survey:
| Do you know what net neutrality is? | |
| No | 72% |
| Yes | 22% |
| No answer | 6% |
72% said they do not know what Net Neutrality is, compared to 22% who said they do. Despite the tech coverage of the rollbacks, it didn’t seem to grab the attention of many people, leading to what appears to be a knowledge imbalance among the general population and decision makers.
81% of US citizens did not know the FCC voted to roll back Net Neutrality
Of the 768 people that responded to our survey:
| Are you aware the FCC voted to roll back Net Neutrality? | |
| No | 81% |
| Yes | 15% |
| No answer | 4% |
Even fewer people were aware that the FCC voted in May to rollback Net Neutrality regulations, with 81% of respondents answering that they were not aware there was a vote at all. 15% said they knew the vote had taken place.
While of course this recent rollback vote was a punch in the gut to Net Neutrality, there are still plenty of ways in which the average person can help spread the word. This article by ‘Save the Internet’ is a great resource to share with family and friends on the importance of supporting Net Neutrality, as it lays out the details of what’s at stake in an easy-to-understand framework.
Do you know what Net Neutrality is? Is this the first you’re hearing of it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.