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Battle for the Net has the details about what the September 10th Internet Slowdown is and how to participate.
You're our only hope.
This is the time to go big, visible, and strong--that's the only way we can actually win this fight. We all need to get as many people in our respective audiences motivated to do something. We can make this epic, but only if you help. We need companies to be frontrunners, leaders, and heroes on this, that's the key ingredient to raising the bar and making sure everyone goes big.
We realize it's a big ask, but this is the kind of bad internet legislation that comes along (or gets this close to passing) once a decade or so. If it passes we'll be kicking ourselves for decades--every time a favorite site gets relegated to the slow lane, and every time we have to rework or abandon a project because of the uncertain costs paid prioritization creates. Doing the most we can right now seems like the only rational step.
Several top websites -- including Etsy, Kickstarter, Foursquare, Wordpress, Vimeo, reddit, Mozilla, Imgur, Meetup, Cheezburger, Namecheap, Bittorrent, Gandi.net, StartPage, BoingBoing, and Dwolla -- announced that they will be joining more than 35 advocacy organizations and hundreds of thousands of activists in a day of action that will give a glimpse into what the Internet might look like if the FCC's proposed rules go into effect. The protest comes just 5 days before the FCC's next comment deadline on September 15th.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday September 05 2014, @01:22PM
There's no rule stating that the cable companies can't pay people to engage in "public" comment. So I wouldn't be surprised to discover that somewhere there's a group of people getting good money to go through Tor and enter in a bunch of comments favorable to the change that appear to be from the general public.
Once this process is done, I'm sure that the cable industry lobbyist and FCC chairman Michael Wheeler will tout the thousands of comments in support of the changes as an excuse for why this should be done.
TL;DR; Astroturfing explains it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by wantkitteh on Friday September 05 2014, @01:45PM
Highly likely. I went onto the NFL website to see when season started and got a banner asking me to "Save Football On Free TV" by opposing the changes to the lock-out rules. Couldn't care less about that, I'm English and just dabble in watching the Monday Night games when the international Rugby's quiet.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @01:52PM
TL;DR; Astroturfing explains it.
The company I work for has asked its employees to show how the FCC is 'wrong'. Here is a convenient astroturf group to sign up for too and a pre canned letter for you to sign and a couple of email addresses to send it to. Send one thru your home address and work (hint hint wink wink). They do not even bother going thru Tor. That is how brazen they are.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Friday September 05 2014, @02:40PM
Care to out your employer? Companies against net neutrality are companies I'd prefer not to do business with.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @06:48PM
As you note, the tiny number who want a slow lane are part of form-letter campaigns, undoubtedly coerced by their employers.
A good page on this by Amy Goodwin: [commondreams.org]
-- gewg_