“Save the Internet” was the main theme

Nov 7, 2014 14:59 GMT  ·  By

As promised, protests took over the United States last night as people tried to get the FCC to reconsider its plans for the hybrid proposal regarding net neutrality.

Hundreds of people joined more than 30 demonstrations across the United States. While the numbers aren’t as impressive as on other occasions, the protests were announced only a couple of days prior, so there wasn’t much time to organize.

People gathered up in front of government buildings in cities such as Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Anchorage, Chicago and New York. They carried phones, laptops and tablets, and lit them up to remind the FCC that the Internet needs to be free.

In DC, the light-up signs read “save the Internet,” while protesters kept chanting for Tom Wheeler to leave his job. Of course, the activists’ hate for the FCC leader goes a long way back since Wheeler was a lobbyist for the telcos that it now has to regulate. John Oliver famously called him a “dingo” several months back for this exact same reason.

Protesters are angry not only with Wheeler and the FCC, but also with President Obama, a man who vowed to keep net neutrality, but who has stayed quiet on the topic in the past months, despite the escalating issues.

“These protests are just the beginning. We are planning a series of escalating actions targeting both the FCC and the White House. If President Obama doesn't step in soon, he can expect an all out Internet rebellion on his hands,” Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, told Softpedia.

In another message he puts a twist on an old saying, warning Barack Obama and the FCC that “hell hath no fury like the Internet scorned.”

Opposition to FCC plans from the start

This was pretty obvious in the past. As the FCC explained its plans to allow ISPs to create so-called fast lanes, the world stood up and sent millions of messages to the Commission, most of which asked them to just use Title II and reclassify ISPs as common carriers. Then, during the Internet Slowdown day online protest, over 40,000 websites joined in, while 700,000 more comments landed on the FCC’s list and 300,000 phone calls to Congress.

Most recently, however, over in Hungary, where the government wanted to impose a so-called Internet Tax, protesters flooded the streets. Over 100,000 people protested against the government, out of an estimated 7 million Internet users, 1.42 percent of them more specifically.

84.2 percent of the US population is online, which means some 266 million Internet users. If the same percentage chooses to join the protests and demand for their rights, 3.7 million could end up telling the FCC louder than ever that net neutrality is to be protected.

Net neutrality protests (3 Images)

Protesters outside the White House
Protesters in PhiladelphiaSave the Internet
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