Title II Proponents Plan Online Demonstration, Call for Town Hall Meetings Outside D.C.
Pushing the idea that strong net neutrality rules have wide support, dozens of companies and organizations, and thousands of websites, will display a spinning icon representing a slow-loading Internet on their sites Wednesday, said organizers of what’s being billed as “a day of action.” Some of the organizations involved in the demonstration, including Free Press, also wrote (http://bit.ly/1COGsCd) FCC commissioners Tuesday urging them to participate in at least four net neutrality town hall meetings outside of Washington in addition to the several scheduled at the commission building in the next few weeks.
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The move, as well as the demonstration, in which the icons will link to a page allowing people to file comments with the agency for the reply round, are designed to show support for strong rules, defined by the organizers as using Communications Act Title II regulations, said Timothy Karr, a spokesman for both activities. Some key congressional Democrats also are backing a Title II approach. (See separate report above in this issue.)
It’s too soon to tell whether Wednesday’s demonstration would influence how the commission acts on net neutrality, said Free State Foundation President Randolph May, who opposes using Title II authority. He called it “discouraging,” in an email, to “see a complex issue like net neutrality reduced to simple soundbites for mass advocacy purposes. The theory ... in establishing a multi-member agency like the FCC was that the agency’s decisions largely would be based on its technocratic expertise overseeing complex markets, not based on ordinary politics."
The agency is supposed to “serve the public interest,” has a process to submit comments online, said Karr, Free Press Senior Director of Strategy, who predicted a strong response to the call to file comments. An FCC spokesman told us the agency expects an increase in traffic on its site on Wednesday. The agency’s IT staff has tried to prepare the 18-year-old Electronic Comment Filing System for the surge, but the system could still slow down, the spokesman said. The agency is recommending people consider emailing comments to openinternet@fcc.gov.
To organizers, the symbolic protest and a push to have people submit comments before Monday night’s replies deadline on the proceeding are meant to counteract industry lobbying against Title II regulations. “The cable companies have millions of dollars, but our side will prevail because we have millions of people,” said Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal in a news release. “More Americans have already spoken out in support of Net Neutrality than around any other cause that has ever been before the FCC, and our growing coalition will continue to fight for an open Internet until it has been secured."
Among the companies and websites participating in the demonstration are several that have filed in the proceeding, including Etsy, Mozilla and Netflix. More than 99 percent of the comments the FCC has received support Net Neutrality, said Evan Greer of Fight for the Future, in the release. “If the FCC chooses to move ahead with its current proposal in the face of this overwhelming outcry, it will be more clear than ever that this government agency has lost all legitimacy, and works for only the interest of the 1 percent CEOs of cable companies, and not the public good,” Greer said.
The demonstration was also criticized by Information Technology and Innovation Foundation President Robert Atkinson. He called it “another scare tactic by techno-ideological advocates, pointing to the imaginary boogeyman of ’slow lanes,’ in their effort to push for utility-style regulation of the Internet.” Saying light regulation has fueled broadband deployment, an NCTA spokesman said, “Ironically, the very ’slow down’ that the latest online stunt warns of is exactly what public utility regulation under title II would bring. Such an abrupt and extreme change to our current record of progress will slow investment in networks, slow new competitors from entering the market, and slow the dynamic growth that has come to define the Web."
Not holding workshops outside the Beltway would also show the agency is “beholden to the special interests,” Karr said, referring to the industry.
The groups said in the letter there’s a “considerable divide between Chairman [Tom] Wheeler’s proposal -- which would allow Internet service providers to discriminate in favor of content from wealthy companies -- and the Net Neutrality protections the public wants. The millions of people commenting on this issue have been very clear: The open Internet must be protected. Your agency owes it to the public to convene hearings on Net Neutrality and hear their voices before the Commission makes a final decision.”
The letter was signed by Access, the American Civil Liberties Union, Avaaz, ColorOfChange.org, Common Cause, Consumers Union, the Courage Campaign, CREDO, Daily Kos, Demand Progress, Democracy for America, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Free Press, Greenpeace USA, MoveOn.org, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Presente.org, the Progressive Change Campaign Coalition, Progressives United, Public Knowledge, reddit, Represent.Us, RootsAction.org, Rootstrikers, SumOfUs and ThoughtWorks.