David Segal is fundraising
Let's Save Net Neutrality -- Again!
INTRO:
Our website BattleForTheNet.Com was the main hub of online activism efforts to get net neutrality rules instituted during 2014-2015 — and we would not have won without it.
Net neutrality is under attack again and we need your support to protect it.
This week new FCC Chair Ajit Pai (and former Verizon lobbyist) announced that he is going to try to undo the net neutrality framework that was put in place two years ago.
Now we need to muster the whole might of the internet and those who care about it to defend net neutrality once more — as the Cable Industry and their DC lobbying machine try to wrest control of the internet away from us once and for all.
Funding will support the relaunch of BattleForTheNet.Com
and our efforts to organize one million people to stand up for net neutrality over the next month.
(Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, Free Press, the Center for Media Justice, and 18 Million Rising will co-steward this work.)
WORDS OF SUPPORT FROM SOME OF OUR FRIENDS:
"We need Battle for the Net and the organizations behind it now more than ever to ensure that the Trump FCC doesn’t kill the net neutrality rules. Their work was absolutely critical to getting the strongest-ever net neutrality rules in place in 2015 when I was at the FCC. Their ability to educate, energize and activate the general public will be the key to ensuring a free and open Internet." -Gigi Sohn, Former Counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler
"Network discrimination is one of those issues that's wonky and boring enough that you'd think it would slide past under the radar of public opinion, but it's so obviously egregious and terrible in every way that everyone who gets it is seized by inexhaustible fury, to the enduring surprise of dingo babysitters like Pai.” -Cory Doctorow, of Boing Boing
MORE BACKGROUND ON OUR WORK AND THE FIGHT AHEAD OF US:
Net neutrality is the First Amendment of the Internet. It protects our freedom of speech and preserves our democracy, allowing everyone to have an equal voice online on the issues that matter most to them. It also prevents corporations from slowing down and censoring the websites we love.
It’s the basic framework that has led to so much creativity and innovation and keeps the Web a level playing field where great ideas can thrive.
In 2014, we almost lost the Internet.
The big cable companies -- Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast -- threw everything they had at Congress and the FCC to end the internet as we know it.
Millions of dollars were spent on lobbying, campaign contributions, misleading advertisements, and industry-funded studies.
They’d been planning for more than a decade to end net neutrality — the fundamental underlying principle that has made the Web what it is today. They wanted to give us less freedom, and them more control.
And then we came along.
A loose coalition of Internet activists from all over the country came together to confront the urgent threat facing the future of the net. In slack channels and through email lists we organized to build a movement that could take on the telecom industry -- and win.
We were up against one of the most sophisticated and politically entrenched lobbying forces in the world. We couldn’t fight them with money -- they could easily outspend us — so we harnessed the power of Internet and used it to fight back.
We launched BattleForTheNet.com.
A single website where anyone could learn about net neutrality and take meaningful action with just a few clicks. We drove more than one million emails and phone calls, bombarded Washington, DC with tweets, faxes, postcards, and letters.
We protested in the streets and made our voices reverberate in the halls of power. We built software and painted signs. We made headlines and camped outside the FCC in tents. We built powerful alliances, and brought together hundreds of organizations from across the political spectrum
We united some of the largest websites on Earth, and harnessed their reach to educate millions of people on Internet Slowdown day — the largest online protest since SOPA.
In the end the overwhelming public outcry forced the U.S. government do the right thing And they enacted the strongest net neutrality protections in history. Together, we literally saved the Internet.
But now, the new chairman of the FCC -- who is a former Verizon lobbyist — has announced his plans to take a weed whacker to the net neutrality rules that the public fought for. He wants to move as quickly as possible to slash and burn net neutrality and our Internet freedom before we have a chance to mount an opposition.
The clock is ticking.
We must come together to fight for the Internet, and the future of our basic right to connect, create, learn, and share.
The threat is more urgent than ever before, but we already have an army at our backs. We’ll build the tools. We’ll rekindle our resistance
The battle for the net rages on. Are you with us?
Please chip in to beat the cable lobbyists and save net neutrality.
Our website BattleForTheNet.Com was the main hub of online activism efforts to get net neutrality rules instituted during 2014-2015 — and we would not have won without it.
Net neutrality is under attack again and we need your support to protect it.
This week new FCC Chair Ajit Pai (and former Verizon lobbyist) announced that he is going to try to undo the net neutrality framework that was put in place two years ago.
Now we need to muster the whole might of the internet and those who care about it to defend net neutrality once more — as the Cable Industry and their DC lobbying machine try to wrest control of the internet away from us once and for all.
Funding will support the relaunch of BattleForTheNet.Com
and our efforts to organize one million people to stand up for net neutrality over the next month.
(Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, Free Press, the Center for Media Justice, and 18 Million Rising will co-steward this work.)
WORDS OF SUPPORT FROM SOME OF OUR FRIENDS:
"We need Battle for the Net and the organizations behind it now more than ever to ensure that the Trump FCC doesn’t kill the net neutrality rules. Their work was absolutely critical to getting the strongest-ever net neutrality rules in place in 2015 when I was at the FCC. Their ability to educate, energize and activate the general public will be the key to ensuring a free and open Internet." -Gigi Sohn, Former Counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler
"Network discrimination is one of those issues that's wonky and boring enough that you'd think it would slide past under the radar of public opinion, but it's so obviously egregious and terrible in every way that everyone who gets it is seized by inexhaustible fury, to the enduring surprise of dingo babysitters like Pai.” -Cory Doctorow, of Boing Boing
MORE BACKGROUND ON OUR WORK AND THE FIGHT AHEAD OF US:
Net neutrality is the First Amendment of the Internet. It protects our freedom of speech and preserves our democracy, allowing everyone to have an equal voice online on the issues that matter most to them. It also prevents corporations from slowing down and censoring the websites we love.
It’s the basic framework that has led to so much creativity and innovation and keeps the Web a level playing field where great ideas can thrive.
In 2014, we almost lost the Internet.
The big cable companies -- Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast -- threw everything they had at Congress and the FCC to end the internet as we know it.
Millions of dollars were spent on lobbying, campaign contributions, misleading advertisements, and industry-funded studies.
They’d been planning for more than a decade to end net neutrality — the fundamental underlying principle that has made the Web what it is today. They wanted to give us less freedom, and them more control.
And then we came along.
A loose coalition of Internet activists from all over the country came together to confront the urgent threat facing the future of the net. In slack channels and through email lists we organized to build a movement that could take on the telecom industry -- and win.
We were up against one of the most sophisticated and politically entrenched lobbying forces in the world. We couldn’t fight them with money -- they could easily outspend us — so we harnessed the power of Internet and used it to fight back.
We launched BattleForTheNet.com.
A single website where anyone could learn about net neutrality and take meaningful action with just a few clicks. We drove more than one million emails and phone calls, bombarded Washington, DC with tweets, faxes, postcards, and letters.
We protested in the streets and made our voices reverberate in the halls of power. We built software and painted signs. We made headlines and camped outside the FCC in tents. We built powerful alliances, and brought together hundreds of organizations from across the political spectrum
We united some of the largest websites on Earth, and harnessed their reach to educate millions of people on Internet Slowdown day — the largest online protest since SOPA.
In the end the overwhelming public outcry forced the U.S. government do the right thing And they enacted the strongest net neutrality protections in history. Together, we literally saved the Internet.
But now, the new chairman of the FCC -- who is a former Verizon lobbyist — has announced his plans to take a weed whacker to the net neutrality rules that the public fought for. He wants to move as quickly as possible to slash and burn net neutrality and our Internet freedom before we have a chance to mount an opposition.
The clock is ticking.
We must come together to fight for the Internet, and the future of our basic right to connect, create, learn, and share.
The threat is more urgent than ever before, but we already have an army at our backs. We’ll build the tools. We’ll rekindle our resistance
The battle for the net rages on. Are you with us?
Please chip in to beat the cable lobbyists and save net neutrality.
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135 supporters