Where the 2016 Presidential Candidates Stand on Net Neutrality

This year's race to the 2016 Presidential election is populated with personalities of all sorts. If you've been following the race at all, you probably already have your mind made up, more or less, on who your eventual vote will go to.

So far, the major topics of the race have been foreign affairs, immigration, wealth inequality, and campaign finance reform. And despite the Republican crowd sticking to mostly cheap shots, and bombastic calls for turning back the progress made by President Obama, the Democrats have been sticking to calls for Progressive reform. However, the subject of net neutrality hasn't come up much, if at all at any of the debates thus far.

Sure. Net neutrality has already been passed, and the topic doesn't scream hot-button issue. Older voters may not even realize what net neutrality is. However, net neutrality is an important issue, and is one surely to be brought up once again when a new FCC-chief is to be elected. So, despite its passing, are there any candidates looking to turn back on net neutrality and completely discard it upon election? 

Well, almost universally, Republicans are against net neutrality.

Jeb Bush has stated he will outright roll back net neutrality. Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, says:

"The new Internet will also lead to higher prices -- the very thing Net neutrality was supposed to prevent. ... the Internet economy will no longer benefit from the competition that has steadily driven prices down over the past two decades."

Other republicans like Ben Carson, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio believe that net neutrality is an example of big-government interference.

Hillary Clinton has come out in support of net neutrality, yet has expressed that there is more that can be done on title II of the net neutrality agreement which states that common carriers "cannot make any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services". 

The only candidate to fully support net neutrality is Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders. Sanders, on his website, proclaims:

For years, net neutrality has prohibited big Internet corporations from favoring or blocking certain viewpoints or websites. Our free and open Internet has made invaluable contributions to democracy both here in the United States and around the world. Whether you are rich, poor, young or old, the Internet allows all people to seek out information and communicate globally. 

While this won't be a make-or-break issue for either side, net neutrality is indeed an important legislation that protects everyday internet users from gross abuses of internet fast lanes. It will be interesting to see if net neutrality pops up again in any future debates, and to see the candidates discuss the matter further. With big money and corporate interests donating massive sums of money to politicians, it's hard not to imagine that the likes of Comcast, Verizon and others would like to have net neutrality overturned, and to have tiered internet, where high-speed connections are reserved for only those who can afford it.