Category Archives: Save Net Neutrality

Save Net Neutrality

Don’t Be Fooled By the Bogus – “Open Internet Preservation Act” – Which does the opposite it claims

Congress’ latest bait and switch tactic regarding Net Neutrality is called the “Open Internet Preservation Act ,” which pretty much does the opposite that the title suggests.

This legislation will kill Net Neutrality for good and even prohibit states from having their own legal protections (against such unfair practices as throttling the speed on websites that can’t pay additional fees).

Keep calling your congress critters every day on the Senate Hotline: (202) 224-3121, put the code on your site from BattleForTheNet.com, and keep the fight going through to the next year!

Here’s the scoreboard showing all the members of congress and where they stand on this issue.

To catch you up a bit:  At this point, the FCC vote has happened. That means that the Title II-regulated Net Neutrality is dead. But Congress could use the Congressional Review Act to pass a Resolution of Disapproval, overriding the vote.  But instead, Marsha Blackburn has introduced legislation that will kill the Title II qualification for good and legalize throttling internet speeds, calling it the “Open Internet Preservation Act,” like a bad Orwellian parody of itself.

During the holidays, right now, is when these tricky dickies like to push through especially appalling legislation that would never fly when everyone is paying attention. We’ve done a pretty good job of keeping the pressure on Congress right now despite the holidays, so all we have to do is keep up our momentum :-)

To put code on your site and join in the fight, go to BattleForTheNet.com

References:

“The Republican net neutrality bill doesn’t save net neutrality“, By Adi Robertson, For The Verge, https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/19/16797778/congress-open-internet-preservation-act-marsha-blackburn-net-neutrality-bill

 

Save Net Neutrality

Time To Drop Everything NOW and Save the Internet!

December 16 UPDATE:

Read this by Evan Greer in the Huffington post about what to do next: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/we-can-get-the-fccs-decision-to-kill-net-neutrality_us_5a32df48e4b02bd1c8c60545

The FCC just voted to repeal all existing net neutrality protections. They are giving giant ISPs like Verizon and Comcast the power to control what we can see and do online with new fees, throttling, and censorship. This will ruin the fundamentally open nature of the internet. This fight isn’t over, though. There is still a clear path to victory.

The organizations behind Battle For The Net are launching a new campaign to demand that Congress step in and restore net neutrality via the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The CRA lets elected officials in Congress overrule actions taken by Federal agencies like the FCC. And it’s different from a normal bill because it only requires a simple majority in the Senate and House to pass.

 

This is it guys! The FCC plans to kill net neutrality this Thursday.

Explanation below – if you’re in a hurry and already know why, here’s what to do/everything you need to “Break the Internet” for the 48 hours before the FCC vote here: https://www.breaktheinternetprotest.org

DO THIS STUFF! THEN SPREAD THE WORD:

1) Add Widgets to your websites and apps, send a push notification or drive action using our widgets and banners.

2) Change your icon on Twitter, Facebook and everwhere and use <–this one

3) Change your Facebook relationship status to “Married” (to net neutrality) and add a comment linking to BattleForTheNet.com

4) Add a new “job” on LinkedIn: “Defending Net Neutrality at BattleForTheNet.com” and make sure you’ve got the “notify people when my profile changes” setting on.

5) Change your Twitter and Instagram featured website to BattleForTheNet.com and post frequently using the content.

6) Tweet stuff all day about saving the internet!

This is a watershed moment. What we do (or don’t do) between now and the vote could determine the fate of the Internet. We’re planning a mass online protest called “Break the Internet” today.

If enough of us participate, we can spark a political crisis for Congress and force them to step in and stop the FCC vote or overturn it.

The Internet is rising up in protest. Major sites like Tumblr, Reddit, Kickstarter, Etsy, and Mozilla are joining – but we can’t do it with just them! This is going to require all of us to buckle down for the next 48 hours.

We have a chance, if we all work together.

So! There’s no time for petitions now. The entire Internet needs to come together and get creative to create the kind of moment we need to stop the FCC from handing Comcast and Verizon the power to control what we can do online with censorship, throttling, and new fees.

We’ve got a plan that EVERYONE can use to sound the alarm and drive a flood of net neutrality action to Congress before the vote.

 

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Save Net Neutrality

Today We Fight to Protect Free Speech On The Internet

I know it sounds ridiculous to imagine, but without Net Neutrality, the cable companies have the power to slow down traffic that doesn’t pay extra fees for the privilege of not being interfered with.

It’s really about FREE SPEECH people. If we lose Net Neutrality, it means people with more money will be able to silence online voices those that don’t.

1000s of participants, including Netflix, Twitter, Amazon, GoDaddy, Google, Snapchat, and Facebook!

From this post about the campaign:

Sites and apps participating include:  Automattic (WordPress), Amazon, Mozilla, Netflix, Etsy, Kickstarter, Soundcloud, Dropbox, Spotify, Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Medium, Y Combinator, GitHub, Pantheon, Opera, Bittorrent Inc., Shapeways, Nextdoor, Stack Overflow, Funny Or Die, Dreamhost, and CREDO Mobile, Goldenfrog, Fark, Chess.com, Namecheap, DuckDuckGo, Checkout.com, Sonic, Ting, ProtonMail, O’Reilly Media, SlashDot, Dribble, Dischord, SourceForge, and Union Square Ventures.

Organizations participating include Fight for the Future, Free Press Action Fund, Demand Progress, Center for Media Justice, EFF, Internet Association, Internet Archive, World Wide Web Foundation, Creative Commons, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Greenpeace, Common Cause, ACLU, Rock the Vote, American Library Association, Daily Kos, OpenMedia, The Nation, PCCC, MoveOn, OFA, Public Knowledge, OTI, Color of Change, MoveOn, Free Software Foundation, Internet Creators Guild, the Women’s March, and many others.

It’s REALLY nice to see Netflix on board, as they would not be the successful company today, without Net Neutrality.

What does that mean? It means that they weren’t charged extra based on the nature of their usage. It means that all traffic on the internet is given the same priority. So the internet will allow your pages to load as fast as anyone else’s page.

So please write to the FCC today – and let’s keep the pressure on, every day, until the FCC stops with its current mission of internet destruction.

From the Battle for the Net page:

Cable companies are famous for high prices and poor service. Several rank as the most hated companies in America. Now, they’re lobbying the FCC and Congress to end net neutrality. Why? It’s simple: if they win the power to slow sites down, they can bully any site into paying millions to escape the “slow lane.” This would amount to a tax on every sector of the American economy. Every site would cost more, since they’d all have to pay big cable. Worse, it would extinguish the startups and independent voices who can’t afford to pay. If we lose net neutrality, the Internet will never be the same.