Even the FCC – or perhaps that should be especially the FCC – appears to be in cable’s pocket. Chairman Tom Wheeler used to be president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), Big Cable’s lobbying group. The current chairman of the NCTA is Michael Powell … formerly head of the FCC.
Against such powerful opponents Zeese, co-director of pressure group Popular Resistance, looked underpowered. He used old-school methods to make his point, camping outside the Washington office of the FCC, badgering Wheeler at his home, blocking his drive and forcing him to take the subway to work, organising protests outside the White House.
But while the physical protests were mainly small affairs, behind him was an army of online activists so massive that after comedian John Oliver called on protesters to email the FCC in support of net neutrality, they crashed the regulator’s servers.
Spurred on by online activists including Fight for the Future, a six-person team that has managed to coordinate protests with people and companies including Reddit, Netflix, Mozilla and PornHub, people have now submitted more than four million comments on the FCC proposals. A topic many had dismissed as boring and wonky has proved more controversial than Janet Jackson’s nipple – the singer’s accidental exposure during the Super Bowl in 2004 triggered a then record 1.4m comments to the FCC.
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