How Canadians can join the day of action to Stop The Internet Slowdown

As you may have heard, Big Telecom conglomerates want to slow down your Internet and make online services more expensive. But so far, "Net Neutrality" rules in several countries have banned their interference.The U.S., Canada, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and the Netherlands are among those countries that have passed rules to prevent telecom giants from selectively slowing down web services or making them more expensive. However, despite gains in some countries, decision-makers in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and the European Union are considering changing their rules, and the outcome of this discussion could either secure the open Internet, or hand immense power over to Telecom conglomerates. Under pressure from lobbyists, leaders from around the world are looking at implementing plans that would allow Big Telecom to charge extra prioritization fees for websites that can afford it, and push those that can’t into a slow lane.

In the next few days, U.S. decision-makers at the FCC are closing formal comments on the issue, and if they decide to let telecom giants slow down our access to websites and online services, it could have a domino effect in countries around the world. As many of our favourite websites are housed in the U.S., people around the world will likely feel the new slowdown regardless of where they live.

In response, OpenMedia and a network of over 60 organizations from 25 countries launched an international campaign to push back at https://bigtelecomvstheworld.org. Web companies like reddit and Fark, joined with digital groups like OpenMedia, and civil society groups like 350.org, Greenpeace International, and RootsAction go present a united front to speak out about this plan that would greatly affect how we experience the Internet, and have knock-on effects for countries worldwide.

We’ve already had nearly 120,000 people take action in just one day, and from nearly 180 countries in every region of the world.

Let’s now all take the next step together by joining the Stop the Internet Slowdown day of action. On September 10th, sites across the web will display an alert with a symbolic "loading" symbol (the proverbial “spinning wheel of death”) and promote a call to action for users to push comments to key decision-makers.

Given the players involved, this could be a watershed moment, and using our platform to mobilize our global network is a key piece of the puzzle. Netflix, Mozilla, Vimeo, FourSquare and many others have already signed up for the day of action!

We'll be updating and optimizing our international platform for the day of action, and we’ve customized the BattleForTheInternet action widgets for groups who have users worldwide and want to embed the action in their websites -- you can find them here:

https://openmedia.org/bigtelecomvstheworld/resources#widget

And, if your organization would like to add its logo to the international effort, feel free to list yourself.

We want to give a huge shout out to Fight For the Future, FreePress, DemandProgress, Engine, (see their cool website here) and others working hard to make the day of action huge -- amazing momentum. Let’s all chip in and do our part.

And, if you haven’t already, be part of the global call for the open Internet at https://BigTelecomVsTheWorld.org