Major Websites Are Planning a 'Day of Action' To Block Repeal of Net Neutrality (medium.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Fight for the Future, a nonprofit advocacy group concerned with digital rights, has posted to medium today, revealing that many major websites, online communities, and internet users are planning a "day of action" focused on finding the final vote needed to pass the Congressional Review Act (CRA). "50 Senators have already come out in support of the CRA, which would completely overturn the FCC's December 14 decision and restore net neutrality protections," the post reads. "Several Senators have indicated that they are considering becoming the 51st vote we need to win, but they're under huge pressure from telecom lobbyists. Only a massive burst of energy from the internet will get them to move."

The day of action is scheduled for February 27, and participants include Tumblr, Etsy, Vimeo, Medium, Namecheap, Imgur, Sonos, and DuckDuckGo. "Internet users will be encouraged to sound the alarm on social media and sign up to receive alerts with their lawmaker's position on net neutrality and prompts to take action on the big day, while websites, subreddits, and online communities will display prominent alerts driving phone calls, emails, and tweets to Senators and Representatives calling on them to pass the CRA." The post notes that we're faced with an uphill battle as the fight will elevate to the House of Representatives if the CRA can pass the Senate. From there it will go to the President's desk.

Comments

Kind of a waste of effort

[rsilvergun]

the current administration has ignored everything thrown at them with regards to net neutrality. They've used obviously false & spam comments as proof that people support repeal. They've lied about cable companies expanding. They just plain don't care what anyone thinks.

The thing is, NN is small potatoes to most people. It's gonna mean $10-$20 month out of their pockets for their cable bill, if that. 99% of Americans are never going to start an internet business to compete with established players. They don't have the capital, the skills or the time & energy. For most Americans surviving is all they can do. 40% of us don't have $1k in the bank.

I've said it before and will say it again, if NN is important to you then you have to listen to issues that are important to the rest of Americans. You need to get them health care, jobs and education. One they've taken care of survival and other more pressing concerns then you can hit them up to support your pet freedom project.

Re: So why are all these companies so concerned

[vux984]

Yeah. I pay my ISP for my connection to "the Internet" and my traffic. They pay their ISP for their connection to "the Internet" and their traffic. That's how its 'supposed to work'.

Then some ISPs got the bright idea that even though I'm a their customer and am paying them to deliver packets to me from the servers of my choice; thay they could start a protection racket and charge the operator of the server extortion money not to 'disrupt' or 'slowdown' the packets.

ie... my ISP says to various service providers i use:

"Gee, a lot of our customers are requesting packets from you; you must have a really nice useful service there. Be a shame if anything stopped your packets reaching our customers; maybe if you pay us some protection money we'll make sure they get there safe and sound!"