As part of an initiative by Free Press, a media advocacy organization based in Western MA, people came together for a meeting on April 25 with a staffer in the office of Senator Ed Markey to discuss Net Neutrality.
The group included a teacher, journalist, TV and radio professionals, as well as Erica Jones and Wendy Blom from SCATV. At the meeting, the group discussed how Senator Markey could be most effective in keeping the Internet open by urging FCC Chairman Wheeler to reclassify broadband as a communications service rather than an information service. We spoke about how the hundreds of community access TV stations in MA that produce nearly 150,000 hours of programming each year would be negatively be impacted by a tiered Internet. Net neutrality is vital for allowing for diverse opinions to be heard.
An article written by Free Press and published in Huffington Post states:
On May 15, the Federal Communications Commission will propose a new set of rules that are supposed to stop big phone and cable companies from blocking websites or discriminating against apps and services they don’t like. Only as written the rules would do pretty much the opposite.”
SCATV will keep our community and members in the loop on updates and encourage you to visit Free Press’s Save the Internet website to learn more and to contact your congressman.