Oh it's on. September 10th. The Internet Slowdown starts at midnight September 10th, and runs all day until 11:59pm. Whatever awesome stuff you've got planned, do it then! And remember: the goal is to drive as many emails and calls to Congress, the White House, and the FCC as possible. You're our only hope. This is the time to go big, visible, and strong - that's the only way we can actually win this fight. We all need to get as many people in our respective audiences motivated to do something. We can make this epic, but only if you help. We need companies to be frontrunners, leaders, and heroes on this, that’s the key ingredient to raising the bar and making sure everyone goes big. We realize it's a big ask, but this is the kind of bad internet legislation that comes along (or gets this close to passing) once a decade or so. If it passes we'll be kicking ourselves for decades—every time a favorite site gets relegated to the slow lane, and every time we have to rework or abandon a project because of the uncertain costs paid prioritization creates. Doing the most we can right now seems like the only rational step. Let us know if you're interested in principle, and if there's something you need from us to join: evan@fightforthefuture.org How to participate On September 10th, sites across the web will display an alert with a symbolic "loading" symbol (the proverbial “spinning wheel of death”) and promote a call to action for users to push comments to the FCC, Congress, and the White House. Note: none of these tools actually slow your site down; they tell your visitors about the issue and ask them to contact lawmakers. What is net neutrality? Net Neutrality is the Internet’s guiding principle: It preserves our right to communicate freely online. Net Neutrality means that the cable/telecom companies must provide us with open networks — and should not block or discriminate against any applications or content that ride over those networks. Just as your phone company cannot decide who you could call and what you say on that call, your ISP should not be concerned with what content you view or post online. Net Neutrality is what enables the Internet to be such a hotbed for innovation. If you bring a new service online, the cable/telecom companies should deliver it just like they’d deliver content from a corporate behemoth like Google or NBC. Net Neutrality is what gives every startup the same chance to reach customers and users as any existing company. Simply, without Net Neutrality, startups and small business will be subject to discrimination based on a pay-to-play Internet, and the open Internet and the economic growth it has represented will be at risk. What are we fighting against? On May 15, 2014, the Federal Communications Commission proposed rules that would permit rampant discrimination online, undermining Net Neutrality. The FCC’s proposal would be a huge boon for the cable companies and would undermine the Internet as we know it. Under the proposed rules, cable giants like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon would be able to create a two-tiered Internet, with slow lanes (for most of us) and fast lanes (for wealthy corporations that are willing pay fees in exchange for fast service). Cable companies would have the power to discriminate against online content and applications — they could pick winners and losers, shake sites down for fees, block content for political reasons, and make it easier for Internet users to view cable content. (For instance, Comcast owns NBC, and so has incentives to make it easier to view NBC content than that of other providers.) What are we fighting for? After public outcry, the FCC left the door open for the only proposal that can preserve Net Neutrality: reclassifying Internet access as a "common carrier" under Title II of the Communications Act. Anything other than Title II is an attack on our rights to connect and communicate. The FCC has opened up a comment period for us to weigh in on its proposal, but it ends on Sept. 15. After that, the FCC will deliberate and decide what, if any, new rules to issue — likely before the end of the year. What does the other side say? The other side — mostly, the cable companies — wants the right to control how you access content, and they’ll say and do just about anything to try to make sure they can pick and choose which sites will get preferential treatment. To enforce their will, they’re employing every trick in the book: They’ve bought armies of lobbyists, set up fake grassroots groups, and donated millions of dollars to politicians. And they make things up. First, they wrongly claim that Title II will reduce investment in infrastructure, but they have no evidence. They also claim that the FCC can ensure Net Neutrality without using Title II. That’s also false. In fact, Title II is the only way to ensure real net neutrality. How will we win? We’ll win by making sure that those in power understand that the American people overwhelmingly support Net Neutrality and that America’s growing Internet economy requires Net Neutrality to thrive. More than 4 million people have already spoken out in support of Net Neutrality — more than have ever weighed in on an issue in front of the FCC — and upwards of 99% of us are on the same side! While more elected officials are taking up our cause, including President Obama, we need to keep up the pressure through the fall if we’re going to win. The cable companies are powerful and vicious and they won’t back down. Neither can we. Join the Internet Slowdown on Sept. 10 and click here for more things you can do to fight back. *Adapted in part from posts by Free Press Action Fund and others. Please click here for more comprehensive information: Net Neutrality: What You Need to Know Now | Free Press
So this means that you will probably see a dismissable banner on SM starting at midnight tonight Cable companies want to slow down (and break!) your favorite sites, for profit. To fight back, let's cover the web with symbolic "loading" icons, to remind everyone what an Internet without net neutrality would look like, and drive record numbers of emails and calls to lawmakers. Are you in?
Survivalmonkey.com is in The Battle For Internet Freedom!!! Sept. 10th is the Internet Slowdown.. ISPs like Verizon, Comcast, AT&T & Time Warner are spending $1 million every week to restrict internet freedom… This is the battle till freedom 10th September is the Internet Slowdown Day: Net Neutrality Explained! What ISPs Want? Cable companies are uniting their armies to slowdown your favorite websites and putting free internet away in exile. In an attempt to fight back, on 10th September, many giant websites like Netflix, Mozilla, WordPress, Reddit and Vimeo, holding hands together, will cover the web with symbolic “Loading” icon just to demonstrate how the Internet without net neutrality would look like. So, are you up for the battle??? Why We Are Supporting Net Neutrality? Net Neutrality is the first ever amendment on the internet. It is a basic and simple principle that says: “No ISP has the right to discriminate and charge differently on the basis of user, content, website, application, modes of communication and type of attachments. Hence, treat all the data on the internet equally”. Net Neutrality is that ingredient which makes the dish of internet more delicious and fun. At PureVPN, we want the internet to be free and open. Enemies of Net Neutrality Factors that work against net neutrality are basically the enemies of the internet and these are: Corporations/Governments: When corporations and governments decide what users can and can’t see on the internet, we lose one of the basics of free and open internet. Intrusion: When ISPs start discriminating between different types of content, they become invasive and start intruding in their users’ digital life. This may cost users their privacy. Anti-Censorship: Over the years, the internet has faced a lot of censorship based on political, legal and social grounds. This is another way of blocking open and free rights of the internet. Why is Net Neutrality Important? You never want to access an internet that is at the mercy of corporations; because if it happens, the free and open internet will become a dream. Net Neutrality is important because a free and open internet will; 1. Give rise to healthy competition among ISPs 2. Stop unfair price practicing 3. Promote more innovations 4. Generate more ideas 5. Bring more success for entrepreneurs 6. Provide free rights to speech How Can You Help? It’s true you are the only hope…. This is the time to go big or go home. It will not be enough for this protest to be huge – it must be MASSIVE! So, be visible, strong and effective. This is the only way we can win this battle against internet enemies. The Internet Slowdown will start by the midnight of September 10th, 2014 and will run all day until 11:59PM. Whatsoever plans you have for the weekend, do it on September 10th. Just remember our motive is to drive as many emails, calls and correspondence to Congress, White House and FCC as possible. Don't forget to sign the petition, to save your right for open, unlimited and free internet. Fight For The Future Battle For The Net FCC
It's your freedom to have and hold if you can. Work for it; you have just one state to look up numbers and addresses for.
Gotcha! Just thought you might have a compiled list to link to. I guess there would have to be something somewhere, I search around and if I can find it I'll post it.
This tool pretty much takes care of contacting the right people for this issue. Join the Battle for Net Neutrality We didn't run the large banner since people here would freak out that we wanted their name. Better to hand this off to the other site:
Nah, he had bananas dancing within the link he tried to post... I cleaned that up... the rest were just having fun so I left them. Edit- removed all happy dancing bananas....
A coalition of tech companies and Open Internet activists claimed victory Wednesday evening after a day-long campaign, Battle for the Net, succeeded in swamping the federal government with millions of public comments demanding that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) scrap its proposed rules governing net neutrality and write new ones. By midday, members of Congress were receiving an average of 1,000 calls per minute, according to Free Press, a public advocacy organization that underwrote the campaign in support of net neutrality, the notion that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all web content equally. Meanwhile, the FCC reported that its rule on net neutrality, which is open for public comments until Sept. 15, has officially generated more public comments–1.4 million and counting–than any other rule making in its history. The coalition of Internet activists that organized today’s campaign, Battle for the Net, includes 27 progressive advocacy organizations, including Common Cause and the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as dozens of tech companies, including Twitter, Tumblr, Netflix, Kickstarter and Etsy. Vimeo, which is also a member, produced its own net neutrality video Wednesday. Those companies, along with thousands of smaller websites, took part in a “day of action” Wednesday in which they displayed on their home pages an icon symbolizing a slow-loading website. When visitors click on that icon, they are invited to sign the Battle for the Net’s letter to the FCC and to contact their member of Congress. The campaign used a nifty new technology that allowed visitors to simply type-in their phone number and zip code, and the app would figure out who their member of Congress was. Almost immediately, a visitor’s phone would start ringing and when they answered–presto!–they were already connected to their member of Congress’s office. The pro-net neutrality campaign has drawn an enormous amount of attention from the large cable and telecom companies in recent weeks, no more so than Comcast, the biggest ISP in the country. Comcast, which is hoping that the FCC and the Justice Department will approve it’s $45.2 billion merger with Time Warner Cable in the next few months, has gone out of its way to underscore its support for net neutrality. “We want you to know that Comcast has no desire to break the Internet – or to do anything else to disturb its fundamental openness,” wrote David Cohen, a Comcast senior vice president in a press release Wednesday evening. “We support maintaining an open Internet, and a role for the FCC ensuring that.” Open Internet advocates dismissed Cohen’s promises as spin, arguing that Comcast and the FCC are simply using a different definition of “net neutrality” so that they can claim to support it. Battle for the Net, which was joined by the Internet Association–an umbrella group that includes Google, Amazon and Facebook–says that net neutrality is fundamentally incompatible with so-called “paid prioritization” deals, which allow wealthy companies to pay ISPs to deliver their content more quickly on “Internet fast lanes.” The FCC’s proposed rules on net neutrality, which Comcast supports, allow for “paid prioritization” deals.
