Once more for old timeâs sake
đĽ With your help, we passed Title II net neutrality protections. Now we need to defend it.đĽ
On December 14 the FCC will vote on Commissioner Paiâs plan to repeal Title II rules. This week he tried to justify that decision with a âmyth bustingâ explainer where he makes a lot of sweeping claims he doesnât think youâll fact check.Â
So letâs go through his big points:
â Mr. Pai claims ISPs wonât block access or throttle content
These are the real facts. Before Title II, the internet was so âfree and openâ thatâŚÂ
Comcast blocked P2P file sharing services (EFF).
AT&T blocked Skype from iPhones (Fortune) and, later, wanted FaceTime users to pay for a more expensive plan (Freepress).
MetroPCS blocked all streaming video except YouTube (Wired).
In todayâs media market where the same huge companies make and deliver content, Commissioner Pai wants us to trust that corporations wonât use their dominance to bury competitive content or services.Â
â Mr. Pai claims Title II keeps ISPs from building new networks
Hereâs another claim Commissioner Pai doesnât want you to fact check, but:
AT&Tâs own CEO told investors that the company would deploy more fiber optic networks in 2016 than 2015 when the FCC passed Title II protections (Investor call transcript).Â
Charterâs CEO said âTitle II, it didnât really hurt us; it hasnât hurt usâ (Ars Technica). Â
And Comcast actually increased investment in their network by 10% in Q1 of this year (Ars).Â
â Mr. Pai claims repealing Title II wonât hurt competition
As we mentioned above, ISPs tried to interfere with the services their customers could access and courts had to step in to stop them.
The FCC tried to craft net neutrality rules in 2010 called the Open Internet Order but the ISPs sued and won. The courts told the FCC that the only way to guarantee a free and open internet was using their Title II authority. Without those protections, any of these things would be legal:
Your ISP launches a streaming video service and starts throttling other streaming services until theyâre unusable.
Your phone company cuts a deal with a popular music streaming service so it doesnât count towards your data cap but lowers your overall data limit. If a better service comes along (or your favorite artist releases new tracks somewhere else) you canât use it without incurring huge data fees.
A billionaire buys your ISP and blocks access to news sites that challenge their ideology.Â
Repealing Title II would be like letting a car company own the roads and banning a competitor from the highways.
â Mr. Pai claims there wonât be fast lanes and slow lanes
Letâs break this down: We wonât have fast lanes and slow lanes, weâll have âpriority accessâ andâŚnon-priority access? Well gosh.
đ¨ Please help us protect Title II one more time! đ¨
This week we co-signed a letter with more than 300 other companiesâbusinesses Mr. Pai gleefully ignoresâurging the FCC to retain the Title II internet protections. Now we need you.
Go to đ Battle For The Net đ to start a call with your representatives in Congress. Tell them to publicly support Title II protections.Â
The FCC votes on December 14.
Weâre only powerful when we work together.
Oh, also: that post about automatically unfollowing the #net neutrality tagâitâs not true. Itâs really not. Thatâs not who we are. Whatever happened, we havenât been able to reproduce it. We tried. A lot.
But if it were trueâwhich itâs not, we feel compelled to say againâTHATâS EXACTLY WHY YOU SHOULD CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES and demand a free, open, and neutral internet.
We can do this one more time, guys! â¤ď¸
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