Internet Slowdown Day

Internet Slowdown Day, part of the "Battle for the Net" initiative, was a series of coordinated protests organized to promote net neutrality and regulations for the equal treatment of Internet traffic, occurring on September 10, 2014. The official site explains: "On September 10th, sites across the web will display an alert with a symbolic ' loading' symbol (the proverbial 'spinning wheel of death') and promote a call to action for users to push comments to the FCC, Congress, and the White House."

"Contrary to what the name suggests, Internet Slowdown Day didn't actually slow down the Internet, or even any of the Web sites involved. Instead, the sites displayed the spinning-wheel image with messages explaining that "slow lanes" were about to be imposed on parts of the Internet." Site visitors were then directed to click on the image which then brought them directly to the FCC page, allowing them to submit complaints in favor of Net Neutrality. Over one million comments were sent to the FCC before Internet Slowdown Day, and the majority indicate strong public support for the idea of net neutrality.

While many internet service providers endorse eliminating net neutrality, seeing this as an opportunity to increase their profits, critics worry that eliminating net neutrality is paramount to allowing service providers to differentiate Internet traffic into a "fast lane" (for those companies who can afford to pay to have their content delivered at premium speeds) and a "slow lane" (for everyone else's websites).

The Internet Slowdown Day protests have were compared to January 18, 2012, Protests against SOPA and PIPA, known as the "Internet Blackout Day," which succeeded in stopping that particular American legislation. According to the protesters, the proposed legislation endangered the future of the Internet.

Net Neutrality Debate

Internet Slowdown day was held in promotion of net neutrality, a concept that is widely supported by the general public, and many business corporations as well. (Johnson)

Participants

Announced participants included Automattic, Dwolla, Etsy, Foursquare, Grooveshark, I Can Has Cheezburger?, Kickstarter, Meetup, Mozilla, Namecheap, Netflix, Reddit, Tumblr, Upworthy, Urban Dictionary, Wikia, and Vimeo. At least 76 different websites took part in the protest.

This day forced a lot of prominent names like Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Berners-Lee to call people to action to save Net Neutrality.

Various websites would post banners or displays saying that if there was free internet, this is how slow it would be (i.e., the spinning wheel of death).

Internet Slowdown Day was organized by Demand Progress, Engine Advocacy, Fight for the Future and Free Press. "Evan Greer, campaign manager for Fight for the Future, told CBS News by phone that his group believes net neutrality is essential to keeping the Internet a "level playing field."' Other activist organizations that supported the protest action include:
* American Civil Liberties Union
* Common Cause
* Center for Media Justice
* ColorOfChange
* DailyKos
* Democracy for America
* Democrats.com
* Electronic Frontier Foundation
* Fight for the Future, protest co-organizer
* Free Press Action Fund
* Future of Music Coalition
* Greenpeace USA
* Harry Potter Alliance
* Media Alliance
* Media Mobilizing Project
* MoveOn
* National Hispanic Media Coalition
* OpenMedia
* Popular Resistance
* Presente.org
* Progressive Change Campaign Committee
* Progressives United
* Other 98%
* RootsAction
* Rootstrikers
* Sierra Club
* SumOfUs
* Voqal
* Women, Action & the Media
* Writers Guild of America, East
* Writers Guild of America, West

References

External links

* {{Official website

2014 protests
Internet-based and online protests
Net neutrality