Stop Trump’s attack on Net Neutrality
Donald Trump’s new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to destroy net neutrality and hand over the free and open Internet to a small handful of multinational corporations.
Ajit Pai, a former telecom lawyer and pro-business FCC commissioner, said that he wants to take a “weed-wacker” to regulations including net neutrality, saying its “days are numbered.” At the same time, Republicans in Congress are making plans to pass legislation to eliminate net neutrality entirely.
We must act now to stop the latest Republican attacks on net neutrality.
net neutrality rules prevent internet service providers, like Comcast and Time Warner, from giving preferential treatment to some content providers and not others. It levels the playing field and forces ISPs to treat all Internet traffic and content equally. Without net neutrality rules in place, ISPs would act as gatekeepers, picking winners and losers, charging unreasonable fees, stifling competition, and harming consumers.
In 2015, after massive public outcry, the FCC adopted the Open Internet Order which reclassified broadband service as a utility, allowing the FCC to enforce net neutrality rules. Now, broadband providers cannot block users’ access to content, slow down connections to services or charge for speedier delivery of preferred content.
But now, the FCC or Congress could roll back these protections, which would ultimately damage competition, innovation, free speech and equality of access on the Internet.
Millions of Americans, including hundreds of thousands of CREDO members, spoke out to force the FCC to make net neutrality the law of the land. We must raise our voices once again to stop the latest attack on net neutrality and preserve the free and open Internet.
Originally published at act.credoaction.com.
