In Protests of Net Neutrality Repeal, Teenage Voices Stood Out
“For students that have used an internet that is open
and without tolls their whole life, as complicated as net neutrality is, kids can get their heads around it pretty easily,” said John Lewis, the head of Gunston School, a private high school in Centreville, Md.
At Southside High School in Rockville Centre, N. Y., net neutrality dominated conversation in the lunchroom last week
and throughout the day of the vote, last Thursday as students checked for updates.
The repeal of net neutrality has gotten many of these teens politically engaged for the first time, with fears
that the dismantling of rules could open the door for broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast to distort the experience of accessing anything online with equal ease.
voted on net neutrality repeal last week, children and teenagers organized protests in Sioux Falls, S. D., and Keene, N. H.
They wrote letters and sent tweets to F. C.C.
Laurie Crowe, a high school history teacher in Kyle, Tex., tried to give an exam to 11th graders at Lehman High School last Thursday
but couldn’t get her students off their phones and laptops.
The Mundelein, Ill., high school junior then passed around a link to classmates for a website
that automatically placed calls, web comments and emails to the Federal Communications Commission, the agency that was moving to repeal the so-called net neutrality rules.
