No matter what you think about the election, one thing is clear: Net Neutrality is in the cross hairs.
Donald Trump has called
Net Neutrality an "attack on the internet" and a "top down power grab,"
even though neither of those things is true.[1] Many members of Congress
are already making plans to gut the rules we worked so hard to win.
And now Trump has has put
Jeffrey Eisenach, an anti-Net Neutrality crusader funded by Verizon,
AT&T, and Clear Channel, in charge of the FCC transition.
That's why The Washington Post is reporting that Trump is on the verge of "all but erasing” Net Neutrality.[2]
But this isn't the first
time telecommunications lobbyists thought Net Neutrality was dead--and
every time the public backlash has been enormous. Now we need to fight again.
The FCC's Net Neutrality
rule is the only thing stopping Comcast, AT&T, and Time Warner from
blocking, throttling, and censoring the Internet either for political
reasons or for profit.
Trump will definitely have
the power to go after Net Neutrality if he wants to. He'll soon pick a
new FCC chairman and shortly after will get to replace the swing vote on
Net Neutrality at the FCC.
That's why one top
industry analyst this week said that under Trump, "Net neutrality has a
big target on its back."[3] And Breitbart News, the alt-right news
website run by Trump strategic advisor Steve Bannon said last week that
"Net Neutrality is dead."[4]
But we heard the same predictions of doom for Net Neutrality when George W. Bush and Barack Obama were in office too. Every
time, we used the collective power of the internet to defend freedom of
expression and openness online. And we still haven’t been beaten.
When Barack Obama proposed
bad policies on Net Neutrality, we stood up to him, and won. Now we'll
do the same with with the new president. And all the evidence so far
says that under President Trump, Net Neutrality is in deep, deep
trouble.
Yes, I'll chip in to help save Net Neutrality.
For the Internet,
-Holmes Wilson & Tiffiniy Cheng, Fight for the Future
[2] The Washington Post: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/us/politics/trump-campaigned-against-lobbyists-now-theyre-on-his-transition-team.html?_r=0
[3] The Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/10/net-neutrality-has-a-big-target-on-its-back-under-trump-administration-analysts-say/
[4] Breitbart News: http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/11/10/trump-win-means-fcc-net-neutrality-regulation-dead/
Fight for the Future works to protect your rights in the digital age.
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