Investigative reporting by The Markup showed how U.S. internet providers offer wildly different internet speeds for the same monthly fee. The neighbourhoods with the worst deals had lower median incomes and were very often the least White.
Internet access is essential to function in our current society. Even post-COVID, it is hard to participate in education or work without a decent internet connection. In some cases the connection couldn’t every meet the minimum requirements that Zoom has for making video calls.
Therefore, it is commendable that the Los Angeles city council passed a motion banning internet service providers from engaging in this type of “digital discrimination”.
See: Dollars to Megabits, You May Be Paying 400 Times As Much As Your Neighbor for Internet Service and Los Angeles Becomes First U.S. City to Outlaw Digital Discrimination at The Markup.
Header image from the original Markup article.