No surprise here, but net neutrality activists plan a day of "online actions" to coincide with the June 11 effective date of the FCC's rollback of net neutrality regulations.
Similar protests were conducted at various flashpoints in the net reg rollback timeline.
The June 11 action day will focus on the House version of a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution nullifying that reg rollback. It narrowly passed the Senate last month with the help of three Republicans, but would need a couple dozen in the House, which is a long shot.
Related: Break the Net Protest Planned
According to Fight for the Future, there are currently 170 votes for the House CRA--so not even all the Democrats--while 218 are needed. Also helping organize the action day are Demand Progress and Free Press.
Demand Progress put the action day in the form of a threat to Congress: "Sign the CRA discharge petition before the FCC repeal goes into effect, or prepare to face the Internet’s wrath."
That hearkened back to the pushback on the SOPA/PIPA Web piracy bill fight of over a half decade ago, when 'net activists played hardball with both Democrats and Republicans, including online protests, to turn back what had been bipartisan legislation.
Among the suggested online strategies, and available tools, for activists:
- "Change your social media avatars and profile pics to help sound the alarm [the activist groups are even supplying graphics].
- "If you make videos, consider making a video about net neutrality, or use our simple video bumper to help spread the word.
- "Link back to BattleForTheNet.com whenever you can so people can easily contact their lawmakers.
- "If you run a website or blog, deploy our updated widget to let your users contact Congress without ever leaving your site." The groups are providing a demo and banners."
FFTF said June 11 will kick off an "intense campaign" focused on House members, who will be under "tremendous pressure" in advance of the midterm elections.
“People are going to be pissed off,” said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, in a statement. “Really pissed off. And rightly so. It’s hard to imagine a more clear example of how our democracy is broken. We’re going to harness the power of the Internet to ensure that people have a way to channel that anger productively. Any lawmaker, of any party, that fails to sign the discharge petition in support of the CRA will regret it come election time.”
