Press Release

Chairman Pai’s attack on Twitter is like a boxer losing a fight and taking wild and erratic swings. Preventing hate speech and bullying behavior online is not the same thing as allowing cable companies to block, throttle and extort money from consumers and the websites they love. Twitter is an amazing platform for left, right and center. Donald Trump might not be President without it, and Chairman Pai's plan to kill net neutrality will put Comcast and AT&T in charge of his Twitter account.

My fellow FCC Commissioners would benefit from hosting their own public forums and listening to the concerns raised by consumers and small businesses. Doing so would allow them to hear first-hand on what it means to access the internet without fear that their broadband provider will slow down or block their favorite online applications and services. My colleagues would benefit from hearing concerns about broadband providers’ poor service, surprise price hikes, and inadequate customer support, so, why won’t they?

The newest area of work in MacArthur's long-standing Journalism and Media Program is support for organizations that enable, encourage, and amplify civic media-making. We are supporting nonprofit organizations that train and amplify fresh voices, with a particular emphasis on empowering young people and historically marginalized communities to tell their own stories, shape the public narrative, and assert influence over the matters that concern them. We call this work "participatory civic media."

CoSN (the Consortium for School Networking) CEO Keith Krueger issued the following statement on the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality plans:
 

Setting the Record Straight on Chairman Pai’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order:

MYTH: This is the end of the Internet as we know it. FACT: The Internet was free and open before the Obama Administration’s 2015 heavy-handed Title II Internet regulations, and it will be free and open after they are repealed.

Sen Mark Warner (D-VA) released the following statement on the Federal Communications Commission's plan to repeal net neutrality rules: "The FCC Chairman has decided to move forward to repeal net neutrality rules without any plan in place to uphold longstanding open internet principles supported by both Democratic and Republican Administrations.

The Federal Communications Commission announced the appointment of Barbara Esbin as deputy chief of the agency’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. Esbin will focus on overseeing the Bureau’s Office of Native Affairs and Policy and its Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, concentrating on productive engagement with Native Nations and with state and local governments. Esbin brings to the FCC broad experience, including more than 14 years at the agency and 15 years in private practice.

Is it true that Chairman Pai’s proposal would eliminate Net Neutrality? Yes. It eliminates all prohibitions against blocking and throttling (slowing down) applications by broadband providers, and enables them to engage in paid prioritization and unreasonable discrimination at the point of interconnection. It ignores thousands of consumer complaints and millions of individual comments that ask the FCC to save net neutrality and uphold the principles that all traffic should be created equal. 

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 14, 2017.

Rounding out our December meeting will be two matters that were previewed yesterday.

First, the Federal Communications Commission will consider an order that would restore Internet freedom and return to the bipartisan, light-touch framework that helped America's Internet economy become the envy of the world. And unlike the previous Administration, which pushed through its Internet regulations without letting the public see what was being proposed, anyone can read my plan. It's on the Commission's website —more than three weeks before our scheduled vote.