Hi, I'm Algol, It/They| *triple-a battery joke*| In this house we: Shoot aphobes on sight, Stand for the flag🏳️🌈, Respect trans people, And don't give reptilian aliens tits. I like sci-fi, specbio, science fantasy, filk, conlanging, character design, practical and cg effects, robots, horror and horror subversions. My current fandoms are Kirby, Transformers
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Tumblr, we know you’ve been fighting valiantly to restore net neutrality. Whether you added widgets to your Tumblrs, or reblogged posts to spread the word to your followers, or contacted your reps asking them to keep the internet free and open as we know it—you’re helping. You’re doing it. Let’s keep that momentum up.
BattleForTheNet.com (@fight4future) is letting Congress know that the internet is keeping score of every Congressperson who is and is not supporting the restoration of net neutrality.
Right now you can visit that scoreboard and easily look up whether or not your reps support the Congressional Review Act resolution.
This CRA will restore the net neutrality rules the FCC dismantled back in November 2017. They have 177 signatures, but need 44 more. You can help make that happen. This grassroots effort is working. Just two days ago Rep. Mike Coffman listened to his constituents from Colorado and became the first Republican to support the Democrat-led CRA. Keep putting that same pressure on your congresspeople. Urge them to sign the petition. If your congressperson has already pledged to support the CRA, reblog this post, add the new widget to your Tumblr (just copy and paste the small line of code from Battle For The Net right into the customize theme page on the web), and shout out what’s happening on all of your social media accounts. We have to spread the word.
Keep going, Tumblr. This matters, and you’re making a marked difference.
STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND LOOK AT THIS PHOTO!!!!!!!
GUYS! WE DID IT!!!
YA YEEEEET!!
WAIT SO DID WE WIN!!
SERIOUSLY?! THATS AWESOME!!!
This is NOT a win!
This is just the next step in a long fight.
Even if the Senate passes the measure it must go to the House of Representatives. They might choose not to push the measure.
Even if the House then approves it, it has to go to Trump. Trump has already stated he sees Net Neutrality as “dumb” and would veto it. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t change his mind, but it is more than likely the Republicans (or at the very least Trump) will continue to try and kill Net Neutrality.
This is going to end up being a Campaign Issue. If you want to make sure Net Neutrality remains, you are going to have to vote out Republicans, and vote to keep Democrats in the offices they currently have.
This is not the End. This is a step beyond the end of the beginning… but there is a long and hard fight ahead of us.
Time for a reality check, guys. (I’m all for good news, but lies and misinformation makes us as bad as Pai and Big Telecom.)
Remember back when the co-sponsors reached 30?
That’s what this news is tied to: enough to force a vote.
THAT’S ALL.
We are still lacking Co-sponsor #51, and without that, the CRA will fail.
We need to focus on the midterms instead. Who in your state is running? Who’s on the take with NRA, Big Telecom and Big Corporation?
Same questions with Congress. Get the answers, then vote out all those on the take.
Exactly. Call your senators and representatives, and make it plain as day that Net Neutrality is the issue that dictates how you will vote in November.
So tumblr has put up this big scary Red Alert ad that asks for your personal information so you can sign a petition. That’s nice, but I would caution against giving Verizon’s group my info, and I’m not sure how much good petitions are doing these days.
The first thing to remember is that once a law is set, it’s not in stone.
Republics don’t work like this. That’s not the end of the fight, now and forever. The second thing to know is that we have more representatives than ever who gerrymandered their way into power, who have very little reason to listen to what we want. Flooding their emails doesn’t work because they can just update their spam filter. Calling is starting to get screened out. Sitting outside their door is just about the only thing they can’t avoid (if we catch them by surprise.)
If you really want to be heard, register to vote. Vote them out. Help others to vote. Low turnout is helping the gerrymandering, so offer to help with the voting any way possible. Give people rides to the DMV. Give them rides to the polling place. Make super simple voting registration guides and “where to find the form” databases. Protest gerrymandering. And most of all, don’t give up.
Last December, the FCC voted to to kill net neutrality. If we do not take action, this will kill the free and open internet as we know it. The internet needs you—all of you—to make sure your voices are heard NOW.
We need all hands on deck for this one. It may be our last chance. If you’re feeling under-informed and overwhelmed about why net neutrality is so incredibly important, we have this handy guide just for you.
Here’s what you can do to save the internet:
In mid-May, the Senate will vote on a resolution to overrule the FCC using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). We only need one more vote in the Senate to win.Write or call your Senators or Representatives. You can also text BATTLE to 384-387 to get more information on how to write to your reps. You can do this, Tumblr.
Join us and dozens of your other favorite companies like Etsy, Vimeo, Reddit, and GitHub to raise awareness with the Red Alert campaign being run by Battle for the Net. Just add this small widget to your Tumblr to let your followers know how they can contact their reps. It’s as easy as copying and pasting the small line of code right into the customize theme page on the web.
This is important. This matters. It’s up to you to help.
BREAKING: Democrats in the Senate have just forced a vote on net neutrality next week!!!
The vote will be held on May 9th, and it will force Republicans to choose between supporting Trump’s initiative or supporting the 83% of Americans who are in favor of net neutrality
So after all of that doom and gloom, what do we do about Net Neutrality?
This is where you can make a difference!
The first thing to do is read up on Net Neutrality and on the history of the internet. Don’t just take my word for things, do the search yourself and read up on it! Knowing what Net Neutrality is, how it works, and why we need it is the big first step to being armed to talk about it.
The next step is to talk about it! So many have been talking about it, but we all are a little guilty of getting bored of talking about stuff.
That’s what the FCC is hoping for: that people will move on and stop talking about it. ISPs hope you’ll forget, too!
If you live in the US:
- Look up your representatives. Do they support Net Neutrality? If so, make sure to let them know that you support them on that issue! If not, explain to them why you want them to support Net Neutrality and what it means to you. “Read the audience”! If it’s a more conservative representative that you’re talking to, voice concerns about small businesses and about conservative site suppression. Other representatives will likely listen more to a plea about small businesses and competition.
- Talk about it! If it never fades from the public view, then it’ll continue to exist as a hot button issue. Politicians only care when something is loud and visible.
If you don’t live in the US:
- Talk about it! Social media is global, and the louder a topic is, the harder it is to ignore.
- Talk to your politicians about it! It’s important for non-US countries to take a strong stand in support of Net Neutrality: this would directly undercut the US decision and cause the internet to be more favorable for use outside of the US (as in, the US would be a censored, throttled version of the internet compared to other places).
Above all, as long as you keep informed and diligent, Net Neutrality will live on! And most importantly: FCC rulings can be overturned. The next FCC could easily reinstate Net Neutrality, or Congress could finally pass Net Neutrality.
So don’t give up! And don’t stop talking about it! Good luck everyone <3
@fightfortheftr (April 19, 2018): There have been a lot of inaccurate reports that the FCC’s repeal of #NetNeutrality will officially go into effect next week on April 23rd. That’s not true. It’s a bit more complicated than that. Ready? Here we go:
Its understandable many journos are confused by this. It’s legitimately confusing. The FCC order said it would go into effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, which would have been April 23rd. But, it still has to be approved by the Office of Management & Budget.
There was another FCC filing in the Federal Register that would imply the earliest the OMB could approve this (and its worth noting that approval is basically just a technicality) is actually April 27th, but its likely to happen some time after that, possibly even weeks after.
The most important thing for EVERYONE to understand is that nothing catastrophic or dramatic is going to happen immediately when the FCC rules go into effect. Telecom shills will immediately start saying “See? The sky didn’t fall, we never needed #NetNeutrality.“
They’re lying.
The ISPs aren’t going to immediately start blocking content or rolling out paid prioritization scams. They know Congress and the public are watching them. Rather, the death of #NetNeutrality will be slow and insidious. You might not even notice it at first.
And that’s the worst part. What will happen is over time ISP scams and abuses will become more commonplace and more accepted. They’ll roll out new schemes that appear good on their face but undermine the free market of ideas by allowing ISPs to pick winners and losers.
Over time we’ll see less awesome startups. Less awesome videos. Less diverse online content. And we’ll see more content that our ISPs want us to see. The Internet will be watered down and manipulated. It will change forever in ways that harm our democracy.
But it will take time.
So: don’t fall for ISP lobbyists talking points. They’re ALREADY claiming that #NetNeutrality was never needed since the sky hasn’t fallen, and the rules haven’t even gone into effect. But also don’t panic. The Internet is not going to die next week. Keep calm and keep fighting.
The Senate will vote in a matter of weeks on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to block the FCC’s repeal. Now is the moment to get engaged.
