Progress in a Hostile Political Environment: Raising Awareness and Recruiting Foot Soldiers in the Battle for an Open Internet

When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Congress are unravelling nearly every important communications policy victory you’ve had over your career, there isn’t much time for reflection. But as I wind down my 17-month Mozilla Fellowship, I’d like to do just that — breathe a little, reflect on what was accomplished, and look to what the future might hold for policies that promote open, universally accessible and affordable communications networks.

As I wrote last October, I’ve spent my time as a Mozilla Fellow trying to raise the profile of issues like net neutrality, privacy, broadband access and affordability, and competition so that all Americans understand what’s at stake. During most of my career, with a handful of exceptions, these issues have been of interest largely to inside-the-Beltway policy wonks. My goal is to broaden awareness and action as broadband Internet access has become essential to full participation in our society, our economy and our culture.

Fellowship Activities

I engaged in three activities to achieve this goal. The first is what I call Public Voice, which includes publishing numerous articles on different platforms on these issues in a way that ordinary people can understand. To that end, I avoided Washington, D.C.-focused platforms like The Hill and Politico. I’m most proud of an article I wrote for Mashable on how to write an effective net neutrality comment, another I wrote for Wired on how the FCC Chairman is trying to destroy a subsidy that helps poor people buy broadband, and my latest for Buzzfeed News on the consequences of a federal judge’s approval of the merger of AT&T and Time Warner.

I also appeared on over a dozen television and radio programs and spoke at numerous conferences, including organizing two of them. These included an appearance on the PBS NewsHour discussing Congress’ repeal of the broadband privacy rules (on which I worked when I was at the FCC); two appearances on C-SPAN’s “The Communicators” (one on net neutrality and a second on the Sprint-T-Mobile merger); and appearances on NPR’s All Things Considered, 1A and Science Friday. The conferences ranged from a net neutrality debate at SXSW, to a Georgetown Law symposium on regulation of online platforms, to a panel discussion I organized and moderated on Capitol Hill about the proposed Sinclair-Tribune merger, which was broadcast on C-SPAN. The latter was particularly important, since Congress has not held one hearing about this massive merger.

Finally, I spent countless hours speaking with national, local and trade press, educating them on various policy issues and commenting publicly on a wide range of topics beyond those discussed above, including cellphone surveillance, the AT&T-Time Warner and Disney-Fox mergers, the regulation of online platforms like Google and Facebook, FCC processes, and spectrum policy. The breadth of my writing, media appearances and press commentary can be found here.

The second activity I focused on as a fellow was Coalition Building. I organized a wide swath of public interest groups, state and local representatives and industry to share information and strategize, largely on net neutrality, but also on other issues affecting broadband competition. I continue to meet regularly with companies large and small, including those from the online, competitive telecommunications, retail, and real estate sectors, both as part of the larger group and in one-on-one meetings. I recently started a second group that consists entirely of parties to the lawsuit challenging the FCC’s December 14, 2017 repeal of the 2015 net neutrality rules, including Mozilla as a lead plaintiff.

The third activity has been Support for the Field. Progressive communications and technology policies cannot be achieved unless the public interest community fighting for those policies is adequately resourced with the funding, contacts and strategic guidance they need to be effective. To that end, I regularly connect my fellow public interest advocates with high-level policymakers and industry representatives. I also advise foundations and other funders and even raised some funding for individual net neutrality projects.

Measures of Success

Despite the existence of an FCC that is hell bent on destroying every pro-competition and pro-consumer policy on the books, the past 17 months have seen some major policy successes.

First and foremost is the recent bipartisan passage of a bill in the U.S. Senate that would extinguish the December 14 net neutrality repeal order. The “experts” all said it couldn’t be done, but now this effort moves to the House of Representatives.

Second, 36 states have introduced or passed bills that would in some way mandate net neutrality, and recently, the California Senate passed a bill that was the strongest of all.

Third, opposition to the FCC’s proposal to effectively destroy the Lifeline program has met with resistance from advocates and industry alike, seemingly stalling that initiative.

Finally, to the surprise of many, the Trump Department of Justice moved to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner and has pushed the FCC to demand more divestitures in the proposed Sinclair-Tribune merger.

But perhaps more important than these victories are the increasing interest, support and action I have seen from ordinary Americans for policies that would ensure open, accessible and affordable broadband. Some 22 million people filed comments in the FCC’s 2017 net neutrality proceeding, more than five times the number of comments filed in 2015.

Polls are showing consistently that support for net neutrality and the 2015 rules that codified them is at the 80%+ range, across the political spectrum. Indeed, a recent poll showed that a majority of Americans consider a candidate’s support for the 2015 net neutrality rules important when deciding how to vote.

When FCC Chairman Pai first started his attack on Lifeline, the public blowback was so strong that he felt the need to defend himself publicly on several occasions. And members of Congress continue to be hounded by constituents furious at their repeal of the broadband privacy rules.

Of course, these successes were a group effort. In addition to my colleagues at Mozilla, I worked with my brilliant public interest colleagues at, among others, Demand Progress, EFF, Fight for the Future, Free Press, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge. While the industries that benefit from an open and universally accessible and affordable broadband internet have not been as vocal as I would prefer, they have been helpful behind the scenes, providing funding for polls and messaging and importantly, participating wholeheartedly in the net neutrality lawsuit.

The Future

With the support of the Benton Foundation and the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law and Policy, I will continue the work that Mozilla has supported. And while I see lots of danger in the short term, I am extremely optimistic about the future.

For the first time in my 30-year career as a public interest communications policy advocate, these issues have become critical to a significant number of Americans, who not only are willing to contact their policymakers, but also to vote for their representatives on that basis. That is a huge change that only portends well for the future of communications policy.