Thursday deadline: Protect net neutrality
One of Glenn Beck's latest conspiracies involves a "gang of communists" who want to turn the Internet into a "Marxist utopia." That dangerous gang of communists he's warning Fox News viewers against? They're net neutrality supporters.
Glenn Beck has it all wrong: Net neutrality protects -- not threatens -- free speech online. Net neutrality is the principle that Internet users, not Internet service providers, should be in control. It ensures that Internet service providers can't speed up, slow down, or block Web content based on its source, ownership, or destination.
The FCC is accepting public comments until Thursday on a proposed regulation that would protect net neutrality. Will you say that you won't be fooled by scare tactics and that you support an open Internet?
We've made it easy to submit a public comment in support of net neutrality. Just use the sample comment at right to craft your own personal comment.
When the FCC initially took comments in January, pro-net neutrality submissions vastly outweighed comments from opponents of Internet freedom. As a result, big telecom companies are running scared. They're worried that the FCC might agree with us and prohibit them from inspecting and filtering the Internet content you access, blocking Web sites and applications they don't like, and overcharging you for using the Web. Out of the 120,000 comments submitted, 98,000 of them - a whopping 74 percent - were from CREDO Action members like you.
The FCC has opened a second round in the comment period. So we need to repeat that performance and beat back the media monopolists once again.
You can help us dominate the second round, too. Submit your comment today!
The big telecom companies have deployed hundreds of lobbyists and pushed outrageous lies. Their goal? Overcome our voices by duping the public into believing their net neutrality myths.
We have only two days to debunk these lies and protect the free-flowing Web, as the FCC is only accepting the second round of comments until April 8. We've made it easy for you to submit your comment on our site -- but we'll need it by 10 a.m. Pacific time on April 8 in order to get it into the docket by the deadline.
Without strong net neutrality rules, we might have to rely upon the good will of large telecoms to protect our access to the diversity of political perspectives. We might have to trust companies like Comcast, which actively and secretly interfered with users' ability to access popular video, photo and music sharing applications; AT&T, which censored anti-Bush comments made by Pearl Jam's lead singer during a concert; and Verizon Wireless, which interfered with NARAL Pro-Choice America's ability to send text messages to its members.
Without net neutrality, the Internet would cease to be a public platform for free speech, political organizing, and equal opportunity.
Speak out against the corporate lies. Submit your public comment today.
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
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2 comments:
Back when we were all howling about the Supreme Court's decision to award corporations unlimited speech, Juan Cole over at Informed Comment posted a great piece on the importance of Net Neutrality now that corporations can spend without limit....here is a snip...
"....Moreover, in an internet society, organizations such as Moveon.org can provide means of accumulating small sums into very large ones. The 99% still do have marginally more money than the 1%. A mobilized public has the potential to at least compete seriously with corporate advertising money. A group of middle class but extremely influential twitterers might be better positioned to get a message out than a corporate boardroom.
For all these reasons, a much greater danger to the republic than the anointing of corporations as persons with the right to flood our airwaves with propaganda is any attack on Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is the principle that my blog is inexpensive to publish and to access, so that I and my readers have the same advantages in this regard as a corporation would. If the Right Wing ever manages to scale the internet and make me pay $70,000 a year to put up this blog and have it easily available to my readers, it will kill it and would signal a return to push media like the networks. And a push-media world where corporations own the Web and can push at us what they please, including their weird ideas about political reality, really would be Orwellian and dangerous.
This horrible ruling, bad as it is, is not the Waterloo of democracy. The abolition of Net Neutrality would be."
http://www.juancole.com/2010/01/is-supreme-court-decision-so-important.html
Net Neutrality should probably be one our highest priorities ....Thanks for your work on this topic.
It makes one wonder what the final final Waterloo would be....
But yes, I really think that the Bush cabal thought they had all their ducks in a row with the media, the churches, the movie 24.... and then then internets happened.
Juan Cole makes excellent points, Dusty. Thanks for the link.
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