In order to show their protest against the U.S. telecoms regulator's plan to roll back net neutrality rules, an online protest on Wednesday was conducted by more than 80,000 websites that included tech giants such as Facebook, Amazon and Google.
Already in place in the U.S., is a regulation that mandates that all internet content had to be treated on an equal footing by internet service providers (ISPs) such as Comcast, Charter, and AT&T, and this regulation was put in place under the Barack Obama administration in 2015. The regulation essentially meant that blocking online or website content or speeding up or slowing down data from certain websites and online platform was not allowed to be done by these ISPs.
The rules that were placed under Obama were voted to be reversed by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is headed up by Ajit Pai who was appointed by President Donald Trump, and therefore the aforesaid principle of net neutrality had come under threat in May following that vote and decision.
Investment in new technology would get boosted by removing regulation, the FCC argues.
But in their opposition to Pai’s plans, the internet companies have been very vocal. That's why, calling it the "Day of Action", many of these services are planning an online protest on Wednesday. Twitter, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Reddit, Netflix, Airbnb, and Spotify are among the companies taking part in the online protest.
"The FCC needs to listen to the voices of real people who will be affected by this attack on net neutrality protections – not just lobbyists from telecom companies in pursuit of more power," Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, one of the organizations behind the protests said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The goal of the protest … is to ensure that ordinary people have a voice and are heard by decision makers in Washington, D.C. No one – regardless of their political affiliation – wants their cable company to control what they can see and do on the Internet, or to charge extra fees to access the content they want."
Speaking out against the FCC's plans, these sites are planning to show messages on their homepages. People and users would be urged to send a letter to the FCC through a number of signs that have began to appear on some websites.
Meanwhile, encouraging people to use the hashtag #NetNeutrality, Twitter has put out a blog post.
"The FCC should abandon its misguided effort to obviate all the work that has been done on behalf of all Internet users," Lauren Culbertson, public policy manager at Twitter, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
(Source:www.cnbc.com)
Already in place in the U.S., is a regulation that mandates that all internet content had to be treated on an equal footing by internet service providers (ISPs) such as Comcast, Charter, and AT&T, and this regulation was put in place under the Barack Obama administration in 2015. The regulation essentially meant that blocking online or website content or speeding up or slowing down data from certain websites and online platform was not allowed to be done by these ISPs.
The rules that were placed under Obama were voted to be reversed by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is headed up by Ajit Pai who was appointed by President Donald Trump, and therefore the aforesaid principle of net neutrality had come under threat in May following that vote and decision.
Investment in new technology would get boosted by removing regulation, the FCC argues.
But in their opposition to Pai’s plans, the internet companies have been very vocal. That's why, calling it the "Day of Action", many of these services are planning an online protest on Wednesday. Twitter, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Reddit, Netflix, Airbnb, and Spotify are among the companies taking part in the online protest.
"The FCC needs to listen to the voices of real people who will be affected by this attack on net neutrality protections – not just lobbyists from telecom companies in pursuit of more power," Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, one of the organizations behind the protests said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The goal of the protest … is to ensure that ordinary people have a voice and are heard by decision makers in Washington, D.C. No one – regardless of their political affiliation – wants their cable company to control what they can see and do on the Internet, or to charge extra fees to access the content they want."
Speaking out against the FCC's plans, these sites are planning to show messages on their homepages. People and users would be urged to send a letter to the FCC through a number of signs that have began to appear on some websites.
Meanwhile, encouraging people to use the hashtag #NetNeutrality, Twitter has put out a blog post.
"The FCC should abandon its misguided effort to obviate all the work that has been done on behalf of all Internet users," Lauren Culbertson, public policy manager at Twitter, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
(Source:www.cnbc.com)
