Net neutrality is an incredibly important issue, but it's hard to know what to pay attention to when people throw around jargon like "common carriers" and "reclassification." It doesn't help that people who tend to be united in their reaction – everyone from techno-libertarians to VCs – seem divided about the gutting of the FCC's net neutrality rules this week.

While it's true the issues around net neutrality aren't black and white, we've got a rundown of three risks and unintended consequences of the recent ruling you should be aware of, regardless of the nuances or your politics.

But first, you need to know at least this much: Simply put, net neutrality is the principle (it never was a law) that the pipes carrying our information online should be "dumb" – just like our phone lines. If the pipes are too smart, the ISPs that provide them could discriminate or prioritize some content, websites, apps, or users over others. That means, for example, Comcast could slow down BitTorrent traffic (it did) or Liberty Media could charge Netflix more for using more network capacity (it's already said it wants to). And so on...

1. No matter how things play out with net neutrality, the outcome is likely to hurt the poor.

It seems like everyone is talking about net neutrality's impact on companies, especially startups (more so than on entrenched companies). But it affects libraries, too. Without net neutrality, argues American Library Association head Barbara Stripling, we're in danger of prioritizing high-quality internet access for entertainment over education. By allowing ISPs to preferentially charge premiums and tier access, resource-constrained public libraries – and especially the communities they serve – will be the ones to lose. Ultimately, "pay to play" only benefits the privileged. __[learn more]

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2. Whether we want to admit it or not, we continue to give more control over the internet to the government.

We've been so focused on how the FCC "lost" the net neutrality order, that we may not realize the Commission could now have unchecked powers over regulating the internet, argue TechFreedom's Berin Szoka and International Center for Law & Economics's Geoffrey Manne. No matter what you think of government regulation – that it's always somewhat necessary or inevitably inadequate for complex issues – nothing good comes out of giving any agency unchecked power (just look at the NSA, or even the U.N. attempts at internet governance). What's worse is that we won't see it coming, because the FCC's power will creep in incrementally, on a case-by-case basis – a death by a thousand cuts. [learn more]

3. The problem isn't the ISPs, it's the FCC.

While everyone's been so focused on picking over the ruling and its impact on companies, the real danger, argues net neutrality lawyer Marvin Ammori, is the FCC's response to the news. They're basically spinning a loss as a victory by saying the courts "affirmed" their authority to keep the internet "free & open", and that the FCC will be able to "use the totality of its authority for adjudication and enforcement." But the fact is that the FCC can't enforce net neutrality principles that have already been rejected in court multiple times without classifying ISPs as telco carriers instead of as information service providers ("the wrong fucking words"). And that's a political battle the FCC has already caved on before. [learn more]

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No matter how you navigate the net neutrality discussions moving forward, just remember that the question you need to keep in front of you is how will the users be affected? Because that's what this discussion really needs to be about.