Netroots Pressures Dem Candidates to Ink Net Neutrality Pledge

The Democratic 2020 presidential candidates faced a new source of pressure this week: net neutrality activists. A coalition of activist groups calling itself Action Network posted a petition Monday demanding that the field of presidential hopefuls not only promise to restore the Obama-era net neutrality rules repealed by the Federal Communications Commission last year—but also to reject campaign donations from the big telecommunications companies that control internet access for most Americans. Net neutrality rules are designed to prohibit internet service providers from discriminating against certain online content by slowing or blocking data traffic from some sites, while favoring others. The issue is often framed in commercial terms—net neutrality prevents big telecoms from forcing users to access content that they, the telecoms, own. But even more importantly, net neutrality is a social justice issue, as recent reports have emphasized. According to the African-American news site The Grio, net neutrality has allowed black voices to he heard online, rather than suppressed or ignored. “Think of Net Neutrality like a scale that keeps the internet free, democratic, open and balanced,” the site wrote this week. “It’s basically digital equality.” The coalition of 20 activist groups that posted the petition are also highlighting the consequences of net neutrality repeal for social and economic fairness. "The FCC's net neutrality repeal ignored the voices of millions from across the political spectrum, in what ended up being one of the biggest and most undemocratic giveaways to the telecom industry we've ever seen," said Mark Stanley of the group Demand Action, as quoted by the tech site CNet.  The coalition also includes People for the American Way, Color of Change, Daily Kos, Common Cause, Fight for the Future and Democracy for America, and several other activist groups. The FCC voted in December of 2017 to ditch the rules that were put into place just two years earlier. The repeal finally took effect in June of 2018. As AVN.com reported, the consequences of ending net neutrality could be severe for the online adult industry as well. “When you slow sections of the internet, you're telling people that some ideas and sexualities and identities are second-class, and you bring that shame back. The internet becomes The Big Vanilla,” said Mike Stabile of the site Kink.com, as quoted by Motherboard.  The Democratic-controlled House passed the “Save the Internet Act,” restoring net neutrality in April of this year, as AVN.com reported, but Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell declared the bill “dead on arrival,” and refused to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. Photo By ElizabethForMA / Wikimedia Commons