This is bad. Very, very bad. Here’s who owns everything in Big Media today. 18JUN18

IF you have not sent a letter to your representative in Congress to sign the discharge petition to bring the CRA to restore net neutrality (already passed by the Senate)  you can click here to do so. This from Demand Progress.....

Mark Stanley, DemandProgress.org	Jun 17, 2018, 5:09 PM

It's only been 5 days since net neutrality protections officially died, and already AT&T has merged with Time Warner and Comcast announced plans to buy 21st Century Fox for $65 billion.1 This merger mania is the worst-case net neutrality nightmare, with gigantic ISPs buying up content providers to control what we see and do online. Now more than ever, we need Congress to step in and reinstate net neutrality, and we're flooding Capitol Hill with phone calls, organizing in-distict, and running polls in congressional districts all over the country to show undecided members of Congress that their constituents support net neutrality. Will you chip in $5 to help convince undecided members of the House to save net neutrality? With no net neutrality rules to stop them, ISPs like Comcast and AT&T can push their subscribers to their own content—and block or throttle the rest. With AT&T taking control of CNN and HBO, it will be able throttle or block competitors like YouTube or the BBC. As part owner of Hulu, Comcast will have the incentive to censor competitors like Netflix. AT&T will be able to force users to watch CNN instead of MSNBC or PBS, while Comcast could push customers into Fox programming.2 Those of us who want to stream independent news? Good luck. Meanwhile, the small content companies, like 3M video and IFC, could be crushed. This isn’t just about entertainment. The way we communicate, conduct business, and live our civic lives will all be controlled by these ever-expanding ISPs unless we save net neutrality. The Senate has already voted to overrule the FCC and reinstate net neutrality, but to convince the House to join them, we need to convince undecided members that their constituents care about this too. Will you chip in $5 to help fight for net neutrality and organize in every key district with an undecided member of the House? Yes, I'll chip in $5. Thanks for standing with us. Mark Stanley, Demand Progress DONATE Sources: 1. CNN, "Comcast bids $65 billion for most of 21st Century Fox," June 13, 2018 2. Recode, "Here’s who owns everything in Big Media today," June 11, 2018 PAID FOR BY DEMAND PROGRESS (DemandProgress.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Contributions are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Join our online community on Facebook or Twitter. Here’s who owns everything in Big Media today The media landscape used to be straightforward: Content companies — studios — made stuff — TV shows and movies — and sold it to pay TV distributors, who sold it to consumers. Now things are up for grabs: Netflix buys stuff from the studios, but it’s making its own stuff, too, and it’s selling it directly to consumers. That’s one of the reasons older media companies are trying to compete by consolidating. And new distributors like Verizon and AT&T are getting in on the action. AT&T, for instance, wants to merge with Time Warner. Meanwhile, giant tech companies like Google, Amazon and Apple that used to be on the sidelines are getting closer and closer to the action. To help sort this all out, we’ve created a diagram that organizes distributors, content companies and internet video companies by market cap and their main lines of business. Here’s what the Big Media universe currently looks like. We will update it periodically:

THE 2014 MID TERM ELECTION IS OVER, THE FIGHT FOR A FREE, OPEN INTERNET GOES ON AND WHEELER HAS BETRAYED US! 4NOV14

THE latest proposal from FCC chairman tom wheeler is a betrayal of his office's responsibility to represent the best interest of all the American people and not just the wealthy and the big corporate telecom and mainstream media. Click the link and tell Pres Obama to reign in chairman wheeler and defend and maintain an open and free internet. From +Daily Kos .....

We fought tooth and nail this election to match Koch-power with people-power. At Daily Kos, doing so would not have been possible without an equal, open Internet. So we need you to take a minute to pay attention to a development that could destroy our ability to make people power heard in future elections.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is betraying us. Last week, he floated a terrible new proposal that will divide the internet into different internets and would allow big corporations to pay for their websites to load faster.

This would crush grassroots communities like Daily Kos, which couldn't afford pay Big Telecom for our website to load faster. Corporate media outlets like Fox News would be the only news left.

Sign and send a petition to the White House demanding President Obama reign in Tom Wheeler before he ruins the internet by handing it over to Big Telecom.

President Obama has explicitly said he is against paid prioritization:

But what I've been clear about, what the White House has been clear about, is that we expect whatever final rules to emerge to make sure that we're not creating two or three or four tiers of internet. That ends up being a big priority of mine.

President Obama must intervene. Chairman Wheeler’s proposal is a travesty—it’s legally unsound, and will ruin the way we interact with the internet. Further, Wheeler only extends Title II protections to half of the internet--and it's not the consumer half, so he's leaving us out in the cold.

Wheeler must be stopped. Please, please send an email to the White House demanding that President Obama exert his influence to change the fake net neutrality rules Chairman Tom Wheeler is reportedly pursuing.

We only have a few weeks to fix this before the vote happens. We must push hard through December.

Keep fighting,
Rachel Colyer, Daily Kos


P.S. Please help keep Daily Kos strong by chipping in $3.

Signature needed: Urge these two Democratic FCC Commissioners to save net neutrality 2OKT14

THE official public comment period regarding FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's net neutrality rules is over but we can and must lobby the two other Democratic members of the FCC to make sure Chairmman Wheeler's proposal actually protects and preserves net neutrality and prevents isps from creating internet fast lanes that we will have to pay for and that will limit our access to whatever site we choose to access on the net. While the method and purpose will be different (Wheeler's proposal will make the isps richer and grant them gatekeeper authority of the net) the overall effect of Wheeler's proposal with be a restricted, censored and manipulated internet that will be used to make the rich richer and give corporate America even more control over our daily lives. Please click the link and send your letter to Commissioners Rosenworcel and Clyburn demanding they defend and only vote for a free and open internet. From +Daily Kos and Demand Progress.....
Craig, over the past few months, we’ve been talking a lot about FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his net neutrality proposal, but we should be clear that the decision is not his alone to make.

Chairman Wheeler will need two votes to enact net neutrality rules and they will need to come from Democratic Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn because the needed votes won’t be coming from the Republican Commissioners.

This presents us and the Commissioners with a real opportunity to push for the right net neutrality rules with solid legal authority to prevent the ISPs from creating paid prioritization on internet “fast lanes.”

Please, join Daily Kos and Demand Progress to sign and send a message to Commissioners Clyburn and Rosenworcel urging them to strengthen the current proposal before it comes to a vote. We must give these Commissioners all of the support they need to push for the right net neutrality rules.

Both of these Commissioners have voiced concern about the current proposal. Both of these commissioners has a proven record of public service. And, both commissioners attended a public forum in Sacramento hosted by Rep. Doris Matsui to listen to concerns about the current proposal (while Chairman Wheeler was notably absent).

Both of these Commissioners can become our net neutrality champions.

Please, join Daily Kos and Demand Progress to send a message to FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn urging them to do the right thing on net neutrality by getting Chairman Tom Wheeler to treat ISPs as common carriers under Title II authority. 

Signature needed: Urge these two Democratic FCC Commissioners to save net neutrality

Over the past few months, we’ve been talking a lot about FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his net neutrality proposal, but we should be clear that the decision is not his alone to make. Chairman Wheeler will need two votes to enact net neutrality rules and they will need to come from Democratic Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn because the needed votes won’t be coming from the Republican Commissioners.

This presents us and the Commissioners with a real opportunity to push for the right net neutrality rules with solid legal authority under Title II of the Telecommunications Act to prevent the ISPs from creating paid prioritization on internet “fast lanes.”

Both of these Commissioners have voiced concern about the current proposal. Both of these commissioners has a proven record of public service. And, both commissioners attended a public forum in Sacramento hosted by Rep. Doris Matsui to listen to concerns about the current proposal—notably absent was Chairman Wheeler.

Both of these Commissioners can become our net neutrality champions.

Please, join Daily Kos and Demand Progress to send a message to FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn urging them to do the right thing on net neutrality by getting Chairman Tom Wheeler to treat ISPs as common carriers under Title II authority.  

Keep fighting,
Rachel Colyer
Senior Campaign Director, Daily Kos

SOPA AND PIPA ARE STILL A THREAT, THANKS TO THE MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA 28JUN12

THE battle for a free and open internet continues and there are groups waging the fight in the courts. This from Demand Progress, click the link to support them tomorrow even if you have added your name to other petitions or calls to action. We need to keep up the pressure to protect all our rights!

It's us versus THEM again.  
Hollywood attorneys are trying to use the courts to circumvent Congress and implement a backdoor SOPA/PIPA scheme.
Fight Back: YOUR FILES ON Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, etc. and even your emails are in jeopardy.
We need to make sure the judge understands that his decision will affect millions of people.
Demand Progress is fighting back in the courts and standing up for Internet users. We are taking on the United States and the MPAA. Please click here to support our legal brief -- the court will be hearing the case TOMORROW.
BACKGROUND: One day after the Internet staged a massive blackout to protest Congress's Internet censorship legislation (SOPA/PIPA), the United States responded by seizing millions of ordinary user files hosted on the popular website Megaupload.com.
With an aim of shutting down Megaupload and other Cloud-based hosting services (like Dropbox, YouTube or even your email provider), the government is trying to claim website operators should face decades in prison for the misdeeds of some of their users.
But while they pursue trumped up criminal charges against the companies' founders, they are shutting down dozens of websites, and leaving ordinary Internet users without any way of retrieving their files.
Please click here to sign on as a supporter of our legal brief: The judge will be hearing the case TOMORROW, and we need to make sure he understands that his ruling affects millions of us.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak called the case against Megaupload a "threat to innovation". Wozniak likened the Megaupload site to a highway and those who shared pirated movies and songs to speeding motorists.
"You don't just shut down the whole street because somebody is speeding," he said.
Numerous laws on the books already give copyright holders plenty of avenues to stop actual infringement, but that's not enough to satisfy Hollywood's lawyers and lobbyists.
And get this:  The prosecutor in the case, Neil MacBride, previously served as the Anti-Piracy Vice President of the Business Software Alliance, where he represented the intellectual property interests of countless multinational corporations.
Now Hollywood's lobbyists, represented by the Motion Picture Association of America, want him to make it nearly impossible for ordinary Internet users to get their property back.
Please click here to sign on to our legal brief, and make sure the courts understand that millions of Internet users will be impacted by the judge's decision.

THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SOPA AND PIPA CONTINUES from the PCCC 19JAN12

THE internet blackout protesting SOPA and PIPA was Wed 18JAN12 but the battle against these bills is ongoing. Click the link to go to the PCCC campaign against this legislation and make your calls to your Representative and Senators (I did and found out Rep Frank Wolf R VA and Sen Mark Warner D VA are against these bills, Sen Jim Webb D VA hasn't made up his mind).

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BIG NEWS: 18 senators just announced their opposition to the bill that would censor the Internet and stifle online innovation -- in response to yesterday's huge public pressure.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow featured the success of the petition you signed (along with our partners at Craigslist) on last night's show.
Click here to watch the Maddow clip -- and then call your members of Congress and tell them you oppose this bill! (Even if you've called before, call again. We'll give you the number and an updated script.)

(Then, click here share the video on Facebook to show people that grassroots activism makes a difference.)
Our fight isn't over yet. The Senate still may vote on this bill as early as next week, and supporters in the House are threatening to move forward as well.
The momentum's on our side, but calls are still important. We need to get others in Congress off the fence, bolster those on our side, and push supporters of this bad bill to change their minds. Your members of Congress, Representative Frank Wolf and Senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner, need to hear from you.
We delivered over 100,000 petition signatures to Congress last week -- and presented them to over 200 congressional staffers who attended a briefing we held on this issue. Now that our petition has grown to over 200,000, we're planning another round of deliveries.
Can you call your members of Congress today and keep up the pressure? Click here for the number and a script -- and then send this email to others.
Together, we can save the Internet.
-- Jason Rosenbaum, Stephanie Taylor, Adam Green, and the PCCC team