Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality

The Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality was an event on July 12, 2017, in which various organizations and individuals advocated for net neutrality in the United States. The event was a response to plans by Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai to end United States government policies which establish net neutrality. Over 50,000 websites, including many organizations, contributed activism after Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and Free Press convened the event.^[1] The group called it "the largest online protest in history", a term which had previously referred to protests against Internet censorship in 2012.^[2]

Goals

The event sought to contact members of Congress and the FCC.^[3] The protest noted that Ajit V. Pai formerly worked at Verizon, a company which opposes net neutrality.^[3]

Participants

• Amazon^[4]
• American Civil Liberties Union^[5]
• American Library Association^[5]
• AT&T^[6]
• Bittorrent Inc.^[7]
• Center for Media Justice^[5]
• Cracked.com^[8]
• CREDO Mobile^[7]
• Demand Progress^[5]
• DeviantArt^[9]
• Discord^[10]
• Dreamhost^[7]
• Etsy^[7]
• Facebook^[11]
• GitHub^[7]
• Google^[11]
• Greenpeace^[5]
• Kickstarter^[7]
• Kink.com^[12]
• MoveOn.org^[5]
• Mozilla Foundation^[7]
• Netflix^[13]
• Nextdoor^[7]
• Organizing for Action^[5]
• Pantheon Systems^[7]
• Patreon^[7]
• plug.dj^[14]
• Pornhub^[15]
• Private Internet Access^[7]
• Reddit^[7]
• RedTube^[12]
• Shapeways^[7]
• Spotify^[16]
• Stack Exchange^[17]
• Tumblr^[18]
• Twitter^[19]
• Vimeo^[7]
• xHamster^[12]
• Y Combinator^[7]
• Zombo.com^[20]

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings publicly stated that net neutrality was no longer a primary concern for Netflix and that it would not participate.^[21][22][23] Netflix later reversed their position and decided to support the campaign.^[13][24][25] Prior to the Day of Action there was speculation Tumblr would not participate after Verizon acquired their parent company, Yahoo!.^[26] Tumblr would in fact be a noted participant,^[27][28][29] with their logo featured prominently on Battle for the Net's website along with other major supporters.^[30][9]

Reactions

Wired commented that the activism was a result of opposing sides of large organizations, with traditional telecom organizations as the target of protest and new media organizations as the protestors.^[31] Recode criticized companies such as Facebook and Google for holding back and posting messages that were unlikely to reach a large fraction of their users.^[32][33]

In response to the protest, some of the targeted ISPs stated that they supported the spirit of net neutrality but not the specific regulations passed in 2010 and 2015.^[34] Comcast called them "outdated" and Verizon called them "1930s style". Despite AT&T's opposition to net neutrality rules, a statement on the company webpage stated that it was "joining" the protest. AT&T's participation was rejected by the principal organizers of the event.^[35]

See also

• Internet activism
• Protests against SOPA and PIPA

References

1. Velasco, Haley (11 July 2017). "Net Neutrality: What happened during the July 12 Internet-Wide Day of Action protest". PC World. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
2. Rushe, Dominic (12 July 2017). "Trump's 'war on the open internet': tech firms join day of action for net neutrality". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
3. Neff, Lisa (19 June 2017). "Worldwide web action planned to defend net neutrality". Wisconsin Gazette.
4. Roberts, Jeff John (6 June 2017). "Amazon Just Changed the Net Neutrality Debate". Fortune. Time Inc.
5. Rushe, Dominic (6 June 2017). "Net neutrality: Amazon among top internet firms planning day of action". The Guardian.
6. "AT&T Joins Protest In Favor of Net Neutrality Rules It Hates". Fortune. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
7. Brodkin, Jon (6 June 2017). "Amazon and Reddit try to save net neutrality rules in "day of action"". Ars Technica.
8. Cracked (12 July 2017). "How You Can Stick It To Comcast And Verizon Today - SOME NEWS SPECIAL REPORT (Net Neutrality)" – via YouTube.
9. Survive, Will (2017-07-12). "Will Net Neutrality Survive". Will Net Neutrality Survive.
10. "Do you care about net neutrality? Because all of your favorite websites do". The Daily Dot. 8 July 2017.
11. Statt, Nick (7 July 2017). "Facebook and Google will participate in next week's big net neutrality protest". The Verge. Vox Media.
12. Cole, Samantha (22 June 2017). "Porn Companies Tell Us Why the End of Net Neutrality Will Make Porn Boring". Motherboard. Vice Media.
13. Breland, Ali (15 June 2017). "Netflix to join net neutrality 'day of action'". The Hill.
14. "Today, July 12th, is Net Neutrality Day and plug.dj shows it's [sic] support for internet not limited or slowed by Internet Service Providers!". 12 July 2017.
15. Cole, Samantha (14 June 2017). "Pornhub Will Show Its 75 Million Daily Visitors Why Net Neutrality Matters". Motherboard. Vice Media.
16. Burns, Janet (11 July 2017). "Google, Facebook And Spotify Will Fight For Net Neutrality This Week". Forbes.
17. "Net Neutrality and Stack Overflow / Stack Exchange".
18. "Tumblr Staff - The Internet Needs You, You're Up Again". 12 July 2017.
19. Breland, Ali (22 June 2017). "Twitter joins pro-net neutrality 'Day of Action'". The Hill.
20. . 12 July 2017. Archived from the original on 12 July 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
21. Snider, Mike (6 June 2017). "Amazon plans 'day of action' for Net neutrality — but not Netflix". USA Today. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
22. Cox, Kate (31 May 2017). "Netflix Doesn't Care As Much About Net Neutrality Anymore Because It's Big Enough Not To". Consumerist. Consumer Reports.
23. Bohn, Dieter (31 May 2017). "Netflix CEO says net neutrality is 'not our primary battle'". The Verge. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
24. Snider, Mike (6 June 2017). "Amazon plans 'day of action' for Net neutrality — but not Netflix". USA Today.
25. Morran, Chris (15 June 2017). "Netflix Changes Its Mind, Decides Maybe It Does Care About Net Neutrality Again". Consumerist. Consumer Reports.
26. Tiffany, Kaitlyn (2017-06-21). "Verizon is killing Tumblr's fight for net neutrality". The Verge. Retrieved 2017-07-12.
27. Cabral, Angelica (2017-07-12). "How Major Websites Are Marking Today's Net Neutrality Protest". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2017-07-12.
28. "The internet rallies around the fight for net neutrality". Engadget. 12 July 2017. Retrieved 2017-07-12.
29. "How to join the Internet's Day of Action to save Net Neutrality NOW - SlashGear". www.slashgear.com. 12 July 2017. Retrieved 2017-07-13.
30. "The FCC wants to destroy net neutrality and give giant cable companies control over the Internet". Battle For The Net. Fight for the Future. Retrieved 2017-07-12.
31. Ramspott, Frank (22 June 2017). "Why Net Neutrality Matters". www.wired.com.
32. Romm, Tony (2017-07-13). "If you blinked, you missed yesterday's net neutrality protest". Recode. Retrieved 2017-07-13.
33. Luckerson, Victor (2017-07-12). "The Net Neutrality "Protest" Isn't A Protest". The Ringer. Retrieved 2017-07-13.
34. Lecher, Colin (2017-07-12). "Here's how the Internet's net neutrality day of action unfolded". The Verge. Retrieved 2017-07-13.
35. Purdue, Madeline; Sandler, Rachel (2017-07-12). "Internet providers respond to the Internet's huge net neutrality protest". USA Today. Retrieved 2017-07-13.

Further reading

• Greer, Evan (6 June 2017). "Major web companies and public interest groups announce Internet-Wide Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality". Fight for the Future. This is the original press release announcing the event.

External links

• Official website