Net-Neutrality Forum

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                Contact:  Spencer Graves  (408) 655-4567

 

FORUM ON NET NEUTRALITY EFFORTS TO TAKE PLACE IN ON SATURDAY

            Kansas City, July 10, 2017 – On Saturday July 15th, Friends of Community Media (FCM) will convene the first of a series of forums on the media at 2:30 PM in the annex-room at 39th and Main (rear door) in Kansas City.  This meeting includes a panel with open-media advocate Spencer Graves and (tentatively) Ernesto Falcon, an attorney and Legislative Council with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a citizen’s advocacy group specializing in Internet law, and possibly others.  Bring your concerns and questions.

This forum will discuss the efforts of the Federal Communications Commission under the Trump Administration to reverse the 2015 Open Internet rules with a “Notice of proposed rulemaking 17-60A1 on Restoring Internet Freedom”:  Trump’s FCC wants to restore the freedom of telecoms like Comcast to censor your internet usage, destroying net neutrality.  The “data” justifying this change were cherry-picked, according to the New York Times, FCC Commissioner Clyburn and others.

Recent polls by Mozilla and Civis Analytica found that 76 and 77 percent of Americas support net neutrality. [1]

The forum will encourage citizens and groups to send comments on this proposed change to the FCC before their July 17 deadline and to your representatives in the US House and Senate.  Perhaps the easiest way to do this is via “BattleForTheNet.com”.

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Friends of Community Media is a Kansas City nonprofit group working to enable citizens to create their own media and influence existing media.  FCM promotes diversity both in media ownership and diversity in views that media portray to the public.

[1]      Sam Gustin, “Most Americans Support the Net Neutrality Rules that Trump’s FCC Wants to Kill”, Motherboard, July 10, 2017.