Today, Dec. 14, 2017, the U.S. FCC voted to repeal Title II Net Neutrality rules guaranteeing a free and open Internet, at least within the USA. Businessinsider.com reports that “as expected, the vote passed the commission in a 3-2, party-line vote.” The hard-won Net Neutrality rules had stood for approximately two years before being repealed earlier today. Battle for the Net reports that “The FCC [has] voted to gut net neutrality rules, letting Internet providers control what we can see and do online with new fees, throttling, and censorship. But we can still get Congress to stop this — by passing a “Resolution of Disapproval” to overturn the FCC vote.” Congress has 60 legislative days to take action after the order takes effect.
As Battle for the Net explains, “net neutrality is the principle that Internet providers… should not control what we see and do online. In 2015, startups, Internet freedom groups, and 3.7 million commenters won strong net neutrality rules from the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC). The rules prohibit Internet providers from blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization—’fast lanes’ for sites that pay, and slow lanes for everyone else.”
WTDHPL.info had supported Battle for the Net’s campaign to keep the Net Neutrality rules in place with a PSA banner campaign that ran until December 13th (the day before the vote). Now that the vote is over, and the threat to digital freedoms is ever worsening, we are extending our PSA banner campaign by 60 days–until Feb. 14, 2018–to encourage people to get involved in the fight to restore Net Neutrality protections in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Six banner ads will run in 10-minute rotation; they’re pictured below. If you haven’t already, we suggest that you follow one of the ads to Battle for the Net, find out more about this issue, and get involved.
