Civic Engagement

So many people rightfully believe Washington is not listening to their concerns, fears, and desires. It saddens me that with the release of this decision rolling back net neutrality, you can add the FCC to the list. In this document, the American public can see for themselves the damage done by this agency to internet openness. Going forward, our broadband providers will have the power to block websites, throttle services, and censor online content. This is not right.

Michael Allman is running for Congress as a Republican. But if his constituents lean left of him on a particular issue before Congress, that’s how Allman will vote. That’s because Allman is running on a direct democracy platform: For every issue, voters in his district will be able to use a blockchain-enabled website to securely log their opinions, and Allman will follow the will of the people.

The fiercest advocates for network neutrality are readying a new war in the nation’s capital, hoping to restore the rules that the Trump administration just eliminated — and galvanize a new generation of younger, web-savvy voters in the process. Not even a month after the Federal Communications Commission voted to scrap its requirement that internet providers treat all web traffic equally, an armada of tech startups, consumer activists and state attorneys general are preparing to take the agency to court.

Fight for the Future is taking the gloves off in its effort to battle the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission's party line vote to roll back network neutrality rules and deed primary Internet regulatory authority to the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department. It has launched the VoteForNetNeutrality.com website, which asks its Internet followers to vote out lawmakers--Republicans and Democrats--who do not join a Democrat-led effort to use the Congressional Review Act to nullify that rule rollback, saying holdouts are "betraying" the public. Fight For the Future

Internet users are complaining more about net neutrality-related issues since the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal the existing net neutrality rules earlier this month, according to the FCC's consumer complaint data. As of Dec 23, consumers filed 2,388 in December, a sharp increase over the 157 complaints filed in October. The FCC voted to reverse the net neutrality rules on Dec. 14.

Millions of Americans have been caught up in a bitter debate over the repeal of net neutrality rules that prevented broadband providers from blocking websites or demanding fees to reach consumers.

The White House is temporarily removing We The People, a petition tool, from its website after 11 months of silence, promising to respond to public concerns in 2018. The Trump administration said the platform, used extensively by critics and less frequently by allies, will be removed Dec 19 and return in late January as a new site.

The Federal Communications Commissions' public comment period on its plans to repeal net neutrality protections was bombarded with bots, memes, and input from people who don't actually exist. So, with the FCC declining to investigate its own comments, we decided to undertake an analysis of our own. We confirmed six bots and 11 form letters.

Protests to preserve network neutrality, or rules that ensure equal access to the internet, migrated online on Dec 12, with numerous online companies posting calls on their sites for action to stop a vote later this week. Reddit, Etsy and Kickstarter were among the sites warning that the proposal at the Federal Communications Commission to roll back so-called net neutrality rules would fundamentally change the way the internet is experienced.

Mozilla, BitTorrent, Reddit, Etsy and Patreon are among those driving calls to Congress as part of the Break the Internet network neutrality protest scheduled for Dec 12. That is according to Fight for the Future, which says it has created a tool that will allow protestors to auto-tweet net neutrality messages every 10 minutes in the 48 hours running up to the FCC's planned December 14 vote.