Score One for the People

The internet has been reclassified as telecommunications. That’s a good thing. If the FCC doesn’t get stocked with board members from media conglomerates, that is. (Which, is not something we can rule out in the future.)

[O]nly a year ago, prospects for protecting net neutrality seemed doomed. The Internet service provider industry, including companies such as Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner Cable, had lobbied furiously against the rule, spending tens of millions on lobbying and on so-called “astroturf” efforts to pay third party groups to support their position. In January of 2014, a federal court struck down a previous iteration of the open Internet rules after Verizon filed suit. And shortly thereafter, the newly installed FCC chair Tom Wheeler, a former cable and cell phone lobbyist, began moving forward with a plan that would allow broadband providers to create Internet fast lanes and slow lanes.

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This morning, the Federal Communications Commission voted to guarantee the open Internet through so-called net neutrality rules, and with it, forged ahead with one of the biggest policy accomplishments of the Obama administration.

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The credit for such a seachange, say activists who agitated for the decision, belongs to a mix of online and traditional activism.

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Malkia Cyril, the executive director of the Center for Media Justice, stresses that the strength of the net neutrality movement relied on the diversity of its coalition. She says Color of Change, National Hispanic Media Coalition, immigrant rights’ groups, activists from Black Lives Matter and communities of color “took it to the streets, to the doorstep of the ISPs.”

  The Intercept

Poor people. Maybe we ought to get together more often.

Other developments also helped shift the debate. HBO host John Oliver mobilized his viewers to flood the FCC with more than 45,000 comments in support of reclassification. A number of websites also participated in the “Internet Slowdown Day,” a protest to call attention to what might happen under paid prioritization without strong net neutrality.

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[Tim Karr, campaign director for Free Press], who has worked on net neutrality advocacy for over a decade, also emphasized the role of a large coalition, “from librarians to free speech advocates,” with a shared interest in Internet freedom

Librarians are awesome. They aren’t beholden to corporations, and they don’t seem to be afraid of  the Feds.

To be sure, telephone and Internet companies are likely to try to undermine the rules that were voted on today. Earlier this week, former FCC chair and current cable industry lobbyist Michael Powell pledged legal action against reclassification. Another route would be for congressional allies of the industry to try to revoke FCC authority through the appropriations process or through a major rewrite of the Telecommunications Act.

It’s not over. But it’s a great win against the forces of commercial megabucks. Congratulations to the people. From a Demand Progress email:

The FCC just passed Title II Net Neutrality rules thanks to your work and that of a broad coalition of activists. It’s a challenge to describe just how unlikely this victory appeared as recently as a few months ago.

As we told the Huffington Post (in an article that’s at the top of their front page as we send this email): Popular victories like today's are so unusual that three Congressional committees are investigating how this happened.

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We thank the millions of Americans who spoke up and gave the FCC the courage to do the right thing. They include the hundreds of thousands of Demand Progress members who have spoken out on this issue more than four million times.

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In a political system in which progress can seem nearly impossible, the victory for Net Neutrality is a reminder to us that when we organize and fight for what is just, good things can still happen.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Love those cagey librarians....