Malkia Cyril

[Commentary] From #BlackGirlsCode and #BlackMenSmile to #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackTwitter, the black internet is part of the 21st-century movement for dignity, rights and freedom—and it’s under attack. Since the Trump administration seems hell-bent on silencing black voices in the United States, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Trump’s Federal Communications Commission Chairman and former Verizon executive Ajit Pai circulated a draft order to repeal net neutrality just two days before Thanksgiving.

[Commentary] The open internet has decentralized the media and allowed black activists in a modern movement against police and state violence to bypass discriminatory media gatekeepers and reveal the extent of the state’s abuse. When ordinary people capture shocking video footage of police officers fatally shooting black citizens, for example, it is more difficult for Americans to ignore the realities of racial injustice.

Technology has always been a double-edged sword for black people in America and beyond. On the one hand, it can pose a grave threat; on the other, great opportunity. Our survival, and our democracy, requires us to reject high-tech policing and usher in the strongest net neutrality rules available. The open internet can represent the future of digital democracy, or we can use technology to continue encoding inequality into our modern world.

[Malkia Cyril is the founder and executive director of the Center for Media Justice.]

[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.]

[Commentary] According to the Wall Street Journal, instead of preventing discrimination with real Network Neutrality rules, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler will propose a new set of rules in response to the January court decision which struck down open Internet protections.

These new rules would allow Internet Service Providers like Comcast or Verizon to charge content providers an extra fee for preferential treatment to fast track their content to end users like me and you. According to the proposed rules, big Internet companies would be able to decide whether or not to charge content providers a toll based on a subjective standard called "commercial reasonableness." Disguised as Network Neutrality, these proposed rules stand to create an Internet where the biggest producers of content like Netflix and MSNBC will pay more to push their product to wider audiences. Smaller content producers who can't afford to pay may be pushed onto a digital dirt road, unable to raise a powerful public voice online.

Unofficially, the Internet is already bursting at its digital seams with opposition to the proposed rules, calling them "fake net neutrality". Much of the debate seems predicated on which consumers will be most affected if content providers pass the buck on paying increased costs. So, let's talk about exactly which consumers stand to lose the most if content providers pass the buck on increased bills. About 100 million people in the United States live with little to no Internet access. Of those, the vast majority are Black, Latino, or households with annual incomes under $50K.

For communities of color and low income families that struggle to access the Internet in their homes, many turn to their cell phones as their primary means of Internet connection with the assistance of heavily scrutinized broadband subsidies.

Raising barriers to digital access for communities faced with these extraordinary challenges to Internet access in a digital age can mean the difference between employment and poverty, health care and sickness, democratic engagement or exclusion. For these Internet users, the cost of connection is already too high.

Yet the Federal Communications Commission insists that its priority as a regulatory agency is to ensure the rights of the largest telecommunications companies to profit where profit can be made. The FCC isn't proposing Network Neutrality, it's legalizing discrimination. As a nation struggling to close historic racial and economic gaps, I'd say we've had enough of that.

[Cyril Executive Director at the Center for Media Justice]