Supporters of 2015 Net Neutrality Order Schedule Day of Protest

Net neutrality supporters signaled Tuesday they plan what they hope will be a major protest heading into July 17, the deadline for filing initial comments at the FCC on a May NPRM. Major internet companies are joining for an “Internet-Wide Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality” July 12. Commissioners had approved, 2-1, an NPRM that examines the 2015 rules and reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service, approved under Democratic then-Chairman Tom Wheeler (see 1705180029). Current Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly voted to proceed with the rulemaking and have shown no sign they're rethinking their support for overturning the earlier order.

“The FCC wants to destroy net neutrality and give big cable companies control over what we see and do online,” said an announcement on a website set up for the protest. “If they get their way, they’ll allow widespread throttling, blocking, censorship, and extra fees. On July 12th, the Internet will come together to stop them.”

Among protest backers: Amazon, Kickstarter, Etsy, Reddit, Mozilla, Vimeo, Bittorrent and Credo Mobile. Organizations participating include Fight for the Future (FFTF), Free Press Action Fund, Demand Progress, Center for Media Justice, Internet Archive, World Wide Web Foundation, Creative Commons, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Greenpeace, Common Cause, the American Civil Liberties Union, American Library Association, Daily Kos, OpenMedia, MoveOn, Public Knowledge and New America’s Open Technology Institute.

“The Internet has given more people a voice than ever before, and we’re not going to let the FCC take that power away,” said Evan Greer, FFTF campaign director, in a news release. “Massive online mobilization got us the strong net neutrality protections that we have now, and we intend to fight tooth and nail to defend them.”

Supporters of retaining the rules don’t have much hope the FCC will change course, but feel they have to try. “You have to try everything,” said Gigi Sohn, a top aide to Wheeler, now at the Open Society Foundations. What “you can’t do is do nothing because then it makes it easier for [the FCC majority] to say, ‘Nobody really cares, we’re just going to go ahead and do what we want,’” she said. “Odds are not great for us, but there’s also a chance that we can convince the members of Congress and perhaps the chairman that the sentiment is so overwhelmingly against doing this that it’s not worth it. We’ve got to take our shot.”

Congress faces an election in 2018, Sohn noted. “If the chairman moves forward with this, it will not soon be forgotten,” she said. Some members of Congress might not realize how broad the support is for keeping the rules, she said. “In three weeks, there were 2 million comments” filed at the FCC, she said. “They need to see that the support is incredibly broad. It’s wildly popular on a bipartisan basis.”

“All we can do is make the case that net neutrality is a vital policy ... that the current legal framework is working spectacularly ... and that millions of people and companies support strong FCC rules like the ones we have now,” emailed Matt Wood, Free Press policy director: If Pai and O'Rielly “have hardened their hearts to the facts and the law, and if they've pre-judged the issue before the proceeding even starts despite all of that evidence, then if they vote the wrong way we will just have to see them in court.”

Mozilla released results of a pol​l Tuesday that found 81 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of Republicans say they favor net neutrality. Ipsos, on behalf of Mozilla, surveyed some 1,000 people nationwide in late May.

“The optics of this issue have always favored those who prefer heavy-handed regulation of unpopular companies,” replied a TechFreedom spokesman. “It'd be great if net neutrality activists focused their energy on striking a legislative deal.” But supporters of the 2015 rules don’t want an actual fix, he said. “Unfortunately, a legislative resolution to this divisive issue would diminish its value as a political tool to both fundraise for Democrats and bash Republicans over the head,” he said. “If net neutrality activists would prefer to see Title II repealed with no replacement, that makes clear that politics, not consumer protection, is the real priority here.”

Big “digital demonstrations” are these groups’ “bread and butter,” said Doug Brake, senior telecom policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. “I think fundraising and brand promotion are certainly part of it, especially given the number of pop-up ads for donations on some of their sites.” But the tactics have worked in the past, Brake said, effectively killing the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act anti-piracy bills and prompting the 2015 net neutrality rules. “I think these activists are sincere in their attempt, even if it’s unlikely to answer Pai’s rule of law questions,” Brake said.

Meanwhile, Phoenix Center President Lawrence Spiwak said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit erred in USTelecom v. FCC upholding the 2015 rules. “The current iteration of the net neutrality debate is not really about an ‘Open Internet,’ free speech, or even who has the biggest Reese’s Peanut Butter mug; it’s about power,” Spiwak said. Pai is famous for his oversize coffee mug. “An administrative agency should not be permitted on its own initiative to expand its power beyond its statutory mandate at the expense of private actors’ Fifth Amendment due process protections,” wrote Spiwak. USTelecom “greatly expanded the Commission’s authority well beyond its statutory mandate,” Spiwak said. “The statutory construct of Title II now has no meaning; it is some bizarre legal hybrid that the FCC made up and the D.C. Circuit has sanctioned.”