This Monday, February 25th
11 AM – 4 PM
Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School
1515 Mass Ave. (map)
If you’re in Boston, come and show your support for free speech!
The Federal Communications Commission will be holding a rare public hearing regarding their investigations into internet companies like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. All of these companies have been caught filtering their customers’ internet and/or text message traffic.
Recently, Comcast has been aggressively filtering the Bittorrent protocol. This activity really hurts an organization like Democracy Now!, because they rely on the low cost of peer to peer file sharing to distribute their news program in high-resolution. Comcast, as a cable provider, has a financial incentive to push competition off their network.
More importantly, it’s not just Bittorrent that is at stake — if we let Comcast and other internet providers get away with this behavior, it opens the door to lots of other anti-competitive tactics. This decision will be central in deciding whether we end up with an internet that is open and democratic, or one that is closed and controlled by a few massive corporations.
We are working with Free Press (they run the savetheinternet.com) to organize technical demonstrations. Free Press will also be shooting video testimonials from the general public, which will be submitted to the FCC as formal comments.
If you’re in the Boston area, we would LOVE to have you drop by, even if you can’t stay long. Make sure you find me and say hi!
For more information, including a more detailed agenda, please visit http://www.savetheinternet.com/=boston.
