The Federal Communications Commission is in the process of repealing rules restricting Internet Service Providers from discriminating against particular web sites, either by blocking them altogether or by slowing down transmissions from them to the extent that they become unusable. This is not a hypothetical issue. Some years ago, BC Telephone blocked its subscribers from accessing a website put up by workers striking against the company. In Youngstown, Ohio, the dominant Internet Service Provider blocked subscribers from accessing a website providing information about a strike against the local newspaper. Even giant corporations like Netflix have been forced to pay millions of dollars to prevent companies like ComCast from throttling their web traffic with slow transmission speeds. Netflix can afford this, but when such payments become the norm producers of labor and alternative video will find themselves relegated to snail-like speeds that in practice will ensure no one can access their material (assuming the Internet giants don’t just block it outright).

Today, FreePress and others have called an internet-wide day of action to save Net Neutrality! They are asking people to submit comments opposing the corporations’ demand for the right to charge tolls on the Internet, or to control what we can see. Today we need as many people as possible to weigh in and stop the FCC chairman’s nefarious plan to destroy our internet freedom. Will you send a comment to the FCC in favor of Net Neutrality? Through their Battle for the Net website it takes just a few clicks to send a comment to the FCC and call Congress. After you submit your comment, the site will ask you to enter your phone number and will call you — connecting you with each of your congresspeople.

The fight for Net Neutrality is about safeguarding internet freedom: Thanks to the FCC’s Title II Net Neutrality rules, we’re able to surf the web without internet service providers controlling what we see or do online, or charging us even more to access certain content. Unfortunately these ISPs have joined forces with the Trump administration and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to try to gut these online protections.

We’re calling on all internet users to take action — will you stand up for the open internet?

Net Neutrality is about preserving your civil rights and free speech online. If corporations control the internet, they control the most important communication and organizing tool of our time — and they could use this to censor political speech and crush movements for racial, gender and economic justice. Companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon wield too much influence over our representatives and regulators — and we need to activate people power to resist them on all fronts.

Thanks for standing up for the open internet—

Lucia, Candace, Dutch and the rest of the Free Press Action Fund team
freepress.net

P.S. TODAY is the internet-wide day of action to save Net Neutrality. Join the Battle for the Net!