PornHub, Reddit Lead 'Internet Slowdown' Protesting Net Neutrality Threat

Users visiting Reddit, Pornhub and other top sites on the Web next week should expect delays as part of a symbolic “Internet Slowdown,” coordinated to protest the net neutrality changes proposed by the Federal Communications Commission. The demonstration, coordinated by the advocacy group “Fight for the Future,” is scheduled to occur next Wednesday.

Along with Reddit and Pornhub, a number of heavily trafficked websites will also participate in the Internet Slowdown, which has also been described as an international “Go Slow” day. The plan was announced in a Fight for the Future blog post Thursday and meant to simulate for Web users how the Internet would change without net neutrality, a set of guidelines that force Internet service providers to treat all Internet traffic the same regardless of how much it costs them.

“Several top websites – including Etsy, Kickstarter, Foursquare, Wordpress, Vimeo, Reddit, Mozilla, Imgur, Meetup, Cheezburger, Namecheap, BitTorrent, Gandi.net, StartPage, BoingBoing, and Dwolla – announced that they will be joining more than 35 advocacy organizations and hundreds of thousands of activists in day of action that will give a glimpse into what the Internet might look like if the FCC’s proposed rules go into effect,” the organizers explained. “The protest comes just 5 days before the FCC’s next comment deadline on September 15^th.”

While the aforementioned sites don’t exactly carry the weight that behemoths like Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) and Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), Fight for the Future will almost certainly raise more awareness now that some of the most popular pornography sites are involved. Pornhub (the 77^th most-visited site in the world, according to Alexa Internet rankings), RedTube (109^th) and YouPorn (122^nd) announced on Reddit that they’ll join in the protest. (Voyeurs trying to watch the fappening need not worry, though, as the sites will only post a widget on each page, not slow down speed.)

Reddit, by comparison, is the 50^th most-visited site in the world while Dwolla ranks at a much less visible 25,549.

The FCC has announced that, so far, it’s received more than a million comments, with approximately two-thirds decrying the idea that content providers like Netflix will have to pay more to ISPs in order to continue effectively broadcasting their service. Netflix and others have already warned that the repeal of net neutrality will result in higher subscription fees and essentially be the first step toward the end of what’s known as “the open Internet.”

Fight for the Future is one of the organizers that was behind the similar January 2012 protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act. Many of the same sites involved in the net neutrality protest took part in those efforts, although they were joined by major Internet players like Wikipedia and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL).