Joseph Torres

This essay reveals the critical role that trafficking of enslaved Africans played in making our nation’s earliest media financially viable.

The report condemns the Federal Communications Commission for failing to adequately respond to the September 2017 hurricanes, which knocked out 95 percent of all cell sites, 97 percent of radio stations and all local television stations. The report calls out the agency’s failure to hold wired and wireless carriers to account for neglecting to build resilient networks or respond in a timely or sufficient fashion to restore communications to the islands’ residents.

[Commentary] The ability to speak and be heard is a basic human right. And the ability to communicate during a disaster is a life-and-death issue. But both are often denied to people of color. This has been the case in Puerto Rico.

[Commentary] President Donald Trump’s playbook to curb free speech and silence dissenting voices goes far beyond his Twitter rants and his verbal attacks on the press. The president’s appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, unveiled his plan to kill network neutrality at a closed-door FreedomWorks-sponsored event.

It’s appropriate that Chairman Pai made this announcement at a gathering sponsored by a telecom-funded organization that played a key role in elevating the racist Tea Party movement. His plan will allow powerful corporations to silence the voices of everyday people — especially people of color — who struggle to be heard. But these are surroundings Chairman Pai is comfortable in. He’s a former Verizon lawyer and a former Senate staffer for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a hero to White nationalists. And now Pai will carry out Trump’s agenda to silence dissenting voices.

[Commentary] Over the past two months, millions of people have taken to the streets to challenge our nation’s authoritarian new president. From the women’s marches that took place across the country and around the world to the mass protests against the Muslim ban and immigration raids, people are resisting the neo-fascist agenda President Trump is unleashing on our nation. A primary reason why millions have been able to mobilize so quickly is because they have the ability to use the open internet to communicate to the masses and organize a resistance. That’s why protecting the Net Neutrality rules that keep the internet open is more critical than ever.

As authoritarianism rises, digital free speech can ensure our opposition to authoritarianism also rises. But unfettered access to an open internet, and our ability to flex our digital muscles to advocate for the health and well being of our communities, could soon come to an end. In January, Trump appointed Ajit Pai as the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. In so doing he found someone who shares his disdain for popular democracy, privacy rights, the truth and the poor. And it appears his disdain also extends to the press. But the same communities Pai is targeting are fighting back to demand affordable internet access and to protect the Net Neutrality rules that ensure we can continue to organize and speak for ourselves online. As Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors once wrote: "It is because of Net Neutrality rules that the internet is the only communication channel left where Black voices can speak and be heard, produce and consume, on our own terms." This is why we must resist — and to ensure that the resistance will be digitized.

[Joseph Torres is the senior external affairs director for Free Press. Malkia Cyril is the executive director of the Center for Media Justice and the co-founder of the Media Action Grassroots Network.]