While the announcement the FCC was planning to vote Dec 14th to repeal Net Neutrality was met with some public uproar, the noise is dying down and a Democratic FCC Commissioner is taking no chances: she’s asking the public to keep speaking out and not let up through the Dec 14th meeting.
LATimes: I’m on the FCC. Please stop us from killing Net Neutrality.
The news cycle moves so fast right now this could get buried by Dec. 14th. (Remember Charlie Rose? Seems like he was fired months ago. Who is covering the news? Vice on HBO wrapped their last season late Oct, John Oliver’s on haitus Bill Maher’s on haitus. CNN doesn’t cover news they discuss news.)
Also, because the system for FCC public comment has been so corrupted through bots and denial-of-service attacks, she’s asking the FCC to get out from behind their desks and hold public hearings around the country, the way FCC Chair Michael Powell did while George W. Bush was president.
I post this diary because a lot of people see the “FCC plans to kill Net Neutrality” along with a picture of all five commissioners. This is deceptive. Two of those five are vehemently against what the FCC has been doing in October, in November, and what they plan to do Dec 14th.
Some articles are circulating that people are posting signs outside Ajit Pai’s house naming his kids saying “is this the future you want for [son] and [daughter]”? This carries a possibility they can dismiss Net Neutrality advocates as fringe extremists. Not so.
In other countries where people have less money and only access the Internet through their phones, the only site they get for free is Facebook, they have no idea they’re using the internet. Advocates of the Open Web hate this idea. We don’t want that in this country, do we? A Facebook-only Internet?
For any of your friends or relatives who think all five commissioners are fine with repealing Net Neutrality, forward them this Commissioner’s OpEd that says otherwise.
...In short, this is a mess. If the idea behind the plan is bad, the process for commenting on it has been even worse.
Before my fellow FCC members vote to dismantle net neutrality, they need to get out from behind their desks and computers and speak to the public directly. The FCC needs to hold hearings around the country to get a better sense of how the public feels about the proposal.
When they do this, they will likely find that, outside of a cadre of high-paid lobbyists and lawyers in Washington, there isn't a constituency that likes this proposal. In fact, the FCC will probably discover that they have angered the public and caused them to question just whom the agency works for.
I think the FCC needs to work for the public, and therefore that this proposal needs to be slowed down and eventually stopped. In the time before the agency votes, anyone who agrees should do something old-fashioned: Make a ruckus.
Reach out to the rest of the FCC now. Tell them they can't take away internet openness without a fight.
Jessica Rosenworcel is a member of the Federal Communications Commission.
And in between conversations about Net Neutrality, we can work to broaden the conversation on the importance of the Open Web, anti-monopoly regulations this FCC just recently eliminated, and opposing the pending Sinclair-Tribune merger that is currently past the halfway point in its 180-day review period.
If Rosenworcel is asking people to speak out, it means doing so makes a difference. We’re all in our bubbles and this issue could fade.