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Canadians will inevitably be affected by this week’s U.S. Federal Communications Commission decision to repeal laws designed to enforce net neutrality, the notion that all kinds of information should flow equally and without restriction over the internet.

The decision means that, in the U.S, different kinds of data and content from different sources can handled preferentially by internet service providers, the corporations that build and maintain the network backbone of the internet.

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American ISPs — such as AT&T and Verizon — can now offer paid access to their fastest networks to content providers, the websites and services that supply our videos, music, news and social chatter.

ISPs can discriminate by slowing services selectively — what they call “throttling” — to relegate some data to slower networks or block it altogether.

Content providers who can afford to pay for the fastest service can provide their users with a better experience than those who don’t pay, such as small startups and community organizations.