So swamped was the FCC’s website yesterday, the cutoff date for the first round of public comments on proposed rules for Net neutrality, they’ve extended the deadline until midnight, Friday, July 18.
Craig Aaron, president of the media reform group Free Press, writes, “By the end of the day on July 15, the FCC had received more than 780,000 public comments on its Net neutrality-killing proposal — a huge number that would have been much higher if the agency’s site hadn’t broken down repeatedly.”
FCC claims that the high number of comments have not exceeded those received after Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl are a trope that has been gleefully embraced up by many media outlets, but it’s incorrect, according to Aaron, because “…within those 780,000 Net Neutrality comments the FCC has already posted are petitions signed by millions of individuals.”
He adds, “This week’s deadline is just the first round. The FCC welcomes reply comments until September. And the public can and should keep weighing in until the agency actually votes on new rules, which isn’t expected to happen until November or December at the earliest.
“Here’s the bottom line: By any measure, this marks the greatest public response to any rulemaking in the FCC’s history. And the Battle for the Net is just getting started.”
Email the FCC at openinternet@fcc.gov. Or follow some of the steps below:
Additional Resources
» File your public comment using this handy form from Common Cause.
» Save the Internet has a sample script, an email petition and instructions on how to call Wheeler and request that the chairman abandon his proposal.
» Using WhiteHouse.gov’s We the People site, critics of the new proposal have also launched a petition, calling for “nothing less than complete neutrality in our communication channels.” It already has over 40,000 signatures.
» A second petition asks the FCC to reclassify broadband as a regulated common-carrier service, which means it would have to be open to all, and serve all customers without discrimination. Currently broadband is classified as an information service, a category that gives the FCC a fairly limited set of regulatory options.
» There are a number of other organizations that are working on maintaining Net neutrality, including: Access, CREDO Action, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, Free Press, Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge, Voices for Internet Freedom
Michael Winship is the Emmy Award-winning senior writer of Moyers & Company and BillMoyers.com, and a senior writing fellow at the policy and advocacy group Demos.
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