San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a broad coalition of user advocacy groups and major technology companies and organizations joined forces today to protest the FCC’s plan to toss out net neutrality rules that preserve Internet freedom and prevent cable and telecommunications companies from controlling what we can see and do online.

Without net neutrality, Internet service providers (ISPs) can block your favorite content, throttle or slow down Internet speeds to disadvantage competitors’ content, or make you pay more than you already do to access movies and other online entertainment.

To show just how important net neutrality is to free choice on the Internet, EFF and a host of other organizations are temporarily halting full access to their website homepages today with a prominent message that they’re “blocked.” Only upgrading to “premium” (read: more expensive) service plans will allow users access to blocked sites and services, the message says. (Don’t worry, the sites aren’t really blocked. Clicking on the message will take you to a link for DearFCC, our tool for submitting comments to the FCC and making your voice heard.)

“We’re giving subscribers a preview of their Internet experience if the FCC dismantles the current net neutrality rules,” said EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry. “AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon will be able to block your favorite content or steer you to the content they choose—often without you knowing it. Those without deep pockets—libraries, schools, startups and nonprofits—will be relegated to Internet slow lanes.”

The online community—gig economy site AirBnb, maker site Etsy, file storage provider DropBox, and hundreds more—have joined EFF and other user advocates today to deliver a message to the FCC: we want real net neutrality protections.

“It’s our Internet and we will defend it,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien. “We won’t allow cable companies and ISPs, which already garner immense profits from customers, to become Internet gatekeepers.”

For EFFs Day Of Action page:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/todays-day-lets-save-net-neutrality

For more about net neutrality:

https://www.eff.org/issues/net-neutrality

