By John Zangas for DC Media Group. Google and Facebook confirmed they will join with other Internet companies to protest of FCC plans to roll back Net Neutrality protections. The largest ever Internet protest will take place on July 12 and involve a variety of actions to tell the public that FCC plans to end Internet freedoms will hurt everyone. The list of hundreds of internet companies protesting the FCC action, which includes Twitter, Netflix, Reddit, and Vimeo, is expected to grow and will entail slowing services, blacking out normal website banners, or posting notices on web site banners telling the public what they can do to support Net Neutrality. A sample of a web banner internet companies plan to use on July 12. Image: Fight For The Future A sample of a web banner internet companies plan to use on July 12. Image: Fight For The Future This development is significant because of the extensive digital connectivity of Facebook and Google. Facebook reported last month that it had reached a milestone of 2 billion visits per month on its customer accounts. Google has over 3.5 billion hits on its servers every day.
By Protect Our Internet. Here’s the gist; riddle me this: How is a Train like the Internet? They’re both common carriers! You buy your ticket and decide where you want to go on the train. You buy your Internet service provider and decide where you want to go on the Internet. But that could end in August. Sign up here to take action to spread the word. Big Telecoms like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T don’t want to just provide Internet service, they want to control the content too – slowing down, diverting or even shutting down our access to the open internet we know and love. Imagine being on a train and all of a sudden, you can’t get off at your stop – or it takes you twice as long to get there, and costs twice as much. That’s why we’re asking all of you internet users out there to come together on July 12 to spread the word at your local train or metro stations about the importance of an open and accessible internet – just like an open and accessible public transportation system. These actions will coincide with an Internet-Wide Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality.
By Staff. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is threatening to undermine the free and open internet as we know it. In May, the FCC voted to begin a rulemaking that would undo the Open Internet Order, which ensures that Internet Service Providers (ISP) treat all online traffic equally. To raise awareness, involve more constituencies and continue to promote net neutrality, we plan to focus each week on one theme or aspect of net neutrality and amplify that message online. Strong net neutrality protections are in place to prevent broadband providers from blocking, throttling, or prioritizing internet content. Net neutrality rules protect the free flow of ideas that are creating new industries, educating our youth, promoting free speech, and supporting the communications that we rely on every day. President Donald Trump and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s want to hand control of the internet to a few big broadband companies that will serve as broadband gatekeepers. Without the Open Internet Order, ISPs could discriminate against certain websites, distort competition, stifle innovation, and undermine user choice and free expression.
By Matt Lopez for The Videoink. At Recode’s Code Conference this week, Netlix CEO Reed Hastings all but threw in the towel against the fight for net neutrality. Netflix, which has extended its reach across 190 countries, has been a vocal proponent of net neutrality rules in the past, but Hastings believes it’s not their fight anymore. “We’re big enough to get the deals we want,” he said at the conference. Why is net neutrality so important? Well, it makes sure internet providers enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites. One concern for the loss of net neutrality is the idea that smaller players wouldn’t be able to compete against larger companies that can afford to pay for priority access. An issue that would have been a bigger concern for “the Netflix of 10 years ago,” Hastings said.
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. The former Verizon lawyer, Ajit Pai, who now chairs the Federal Communications Commission has taken the first official steps to destroy the free and open Internet by proposing the end of Title II net neutrality rules on May 18. This would be a giveaway to Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and other large Internet Service Providers that would allow them to control access to content on the Internet and charge users more fees. Chairman Pai, a former lawyer for Verizon, is an example of the revolving door between government and industry that serves big business interests, and not the people. Pai has demonstrated during his first few months as chairman that he will say anything, including obvious lies, to serve the telecom industry. We must act quickly to save the Internet from going the road of cable TV
By Popular Resistance. On May 18, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Ajit Pai formally introduced a proposal to end net neutrality. He plans to rush the process through this summer while people are on vacation and less likely to notice. This is a critical time to take action. We won the fight for net neutrality in 2015 in part because millions of people submitted comments to the FCC in favor of reclassifying the Internet as a common carrier under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. This means that neither the government nor the Internet Service Providers, such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T, can control where people go on the Internet. Title II treats the Internet like a utility – for example, electric companies can only provide electricity to your home, they can’t tell you what you can and cannot plug in.
By Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. Ajit Pai, the Chair of the FCC, is on a mission — he is going to destroy the Internet by reclassifying it so it is no longer a common carrier where we all have equal access and repeal net neutral rules so Comcast, Verizon and A&T can act based on content and allow Internet discrimination. Net neutrality activists began a vigil at the FCC chairman’s home in Arlington on Sunday, May 14 and will continue on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday until the public meeting at the FCC on Thursday. Twenty people stood outside of his home holding signs urging “Save The Internet,” “We Want Democracy Not Net Monopolies,” Ajit Pai Stop the Lies” “Protect the Internet” and “Equal Access for All.” The protest was supported by every neighbor who spoke to them, one even offered the use of their bathroom if net neutrality advocates needed it.
By John Zangas and Anne Meador for DC Media Group. Trump’s FCC Chair Ajit Pai is proposing to repeal the Title II classification of the Internet as a common carrier and remove net neutrality rules. Personal visits to Pai’s 5,300-square-foot house in Arlington, Va.–valued at $1,550,000–began this weekend. Prior to a May 18 meeting of FCC commissioners, a handful of Net Neutrality activists hit the streets of Chairman Pai’s upscale neighborhood in what they called an agitation, or “Ajit-ation.” They distributed two hundred flyers to neighbors with a large photo of the FCC chairman with the caption, “Have you seen this man? He is trying to destroy Net Neutrality by giving cable companies the power to control content on the internet.” The “Ajit-ation” includes a series of protests on the street in front of Chairman Pai’s house planned for next week.
By Popular Resistance. Washington, DC – April 20 was the third public meeting at the Federal Communications Commission under the leadership of the new chair, Ajit Pai, a former lawyer for Verizon. Pai has been a long-time opponent of rules to protect net neutrality. He voted against reclassification of the Internet as a common carrier under Title II in 2015 and he met recently with telecom representatives to discuss how to undermine net neutrality by relaxing enforcement of the rules. Net neutrality means that the Internet should be treated as a utility so that all people have equal access to content without discrimination based on ability to pay. The coalition that won net neutrality in 2015, which includes Popular Resistance, reconvened rapidly after Pai was chosen as chair and put together a strategy to protect net neutrality.
By Popular Resistance. Washington, DC – Today marks the first public hearing by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under the directorship of Chairman Ajit Pai, who was appointed by the Trump administration. A coalition of organizations that fought to win net neutrality through reclassification as a common carrier gathered outside the FCC beforehand to deliver 200,000 ‘love letters’ to the chair calling for the protection of net neutrality. They also brought large valentines. 32690768260_a61db7d763_zUpon their approach to the FCC door, the net neutrality protectors were met by the aggressive and angry head of FCC security backed up by several Department of Homeland Security SUVs filled with agents. The head of security demanded to see the contents of the red-wrapped boxes carrying the petitions and instructed the group to take their valentines off the premises. The net neutrality protectors complied after delivering the petitions and moved to an adjacent open grassy area.
By Marguerite Reardon for CNET. Pai often goes out of his way to be nice. He’s the kind of person who remembers co-workers’ birthdays or your kids’ first names. It doesn’t matter if you’re a congressman from California or the parking attendant at the lot near the FCC’s headquarters, Pai offers a folksy and sincere greeting to all. He always has a kind word for colleagues, even when they stand on the opposite side of the aisles. “He made the chairman’s life miserable,” said Gigi Sohn, a former adviser to the previous head, Tom Wheeler, in reference to their constant ideological clashes. “But I like him. Everyone likes him.” This nice guy is no pushover, though. The 44-year-old chairman has already introduced a number of programs and steered the FCC in a different direction from his predecessor. And he’s still gearing up for his biggest move: the takedown of many of the regulations that protect net neutrality, the concept that all internet traffic must be treated as equal.
By Devin Coldewey for Tech Crunch. The imagination is a powerful thing, and what it creates may in fact be powerful beyond our imagining. That was certainly the case with Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web, the creation of which is documented in a new short film, “Foreveryone.net,” which was directed by Jessica Yu and is currently showing at the Seattle International Film Festival. I sat down ahead of the film’s debut with Yu and Berners-Lee, who, in his inimitable manner, held forth on topics from encryption and social media to the need to, as he called it, “re-decentralize the web.” The film traces the story of the web from its prehistory as a twinkle in Berners-Lee’s eye to the various dangers it faces today: surveillance, the loss of net neutrality and an excess of commercialization and centralization.
Educate! Banking, China, Climate Change, Democracy, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Food Safety, Globalization, Human Rights, Internet Freedom, NAFTA, TPP, Trade Deficit, Workers Rights and Jobs By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.FlushTheTPP.org
January 12th, 2016
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Flush The TPP. President Obama will make his push for the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a major part of the State of the Union as this is a major goal of his final year in office. This is an opportunity for a widespread discussion of the TPP and what impacts it will have on the economy, workers, the environment and more. Just yesterday the World Bank published a comprehensive analysis of the TPP and concluded that by 2030 the TPP will have a miniscule 0.4% impact on US trade. The economic impact for the United States is minimal but the impact on workers, the environment, food safety, traditional energy and the overall balance between corporate power and government is dramatic. The president’s claims about the TPP should be examined closely and measured against the facts of what the TPP will actually do and the impact similar trade agreements have had. We know from past comments by the president and the US Trade Representative that their sales pitch for the TPP is not always consistent with the facts.
Newsletter Climate Change, Courts, Environment, Food Safety, Immigration, Internet, Internet Freedom, TPP, Trade tribunals, Wages, Wealth Ineqaulity By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org
November 8th, 2015
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. Finally, the text of the TPP has been released. It is not as bad as we expected – it is worse. Now we see why the US Trade Representative and President Obama wanted to keep the TPP secret for four years after it was ratified. It if had not been for a very aggressive fight against fast track trade authority in which hundreds of thousands of people participated, we would not be seeing the text. One of the compromises they had to make in order to get just enough votes to pass fast track was to agree to release the text publicly for 60 days before Congress officially began to consider ratification. Why did they want to keep it secret? Because they knew that if the people saw the text it had much less chance of becoming law. Here are 10 examples of things they wanted you not to know.
By Jennifer Granick for Just Security – Today, the dream of Internet Freedom that brought me to my first Def Con is dying. The dream is dying because, for better or for worse, we’ve prioritized things like security, online civility, user interface, and intellectual property interests above freedom and openness. As a result, the Internet is less open and more centralized. It’s more regulated. And increasingly it’s less global, and more divided. These trends: centralization, regulation, and globalization are accelerating. And they will define the future of our communications network, unless something dramatic changes. Let’s take a quick look at just a few of the things likely to happen if these trends continue.
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