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• Internet-Wide Day of Action

  

  We partnered with our Battle for the Net allies to organize the July 12 Internet-Wide Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality — 24 hours of nonstop activism during which millions of internet users, major advocacy groups, and thousands of companies and websites from every corner of the internet rose up to oppose Ajit Pai’s plan to kill Net Neutrality.

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• Team Internet

  

  The Internet-Wide Day of Action sparked Free Press and our partners Demand Progress and Fight for the Future to create Team Internet — a volunteer network of internet activists across the country. This was a unique experiment in adapting distributed-organizing tactics used by innovative political campaigns and mass-mobilization groups but focused on Net Neutrality.

  The results far exceeded our expectations. 500,000 people signed up to volunteer and quickly got to work building local networks. Using peer-to-peer texting technology, Team Internet volunteers put together more than 600 meetings, town halls and other local actions with lawmakers, and helped keep the phones ringing on Capitol Hill and at the FCC.

  On Dec. 7, Team Internet organized 700 protests in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. — in the course of a single day. This was the biggest day of protest ever in the Net Neutrality fight, and it showed how widespread and diverse support for Net Neutrality really is.

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• Digital Civil Rights

  

  In 2017, Free Press worked with our allies in the Voices for Internet Freedom coalition to show why Net Neutrality is a racial-justice issue. We amplified the concerns of communities of color and centered race in our organizing work on Team Internet and elsewhere.

  With our partners at the Center for Media Justice, Color Of Change, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and 18 Million Rising, we organized a forum in May with FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn in Los Angeles’ Skid Row neighborhood to lift up stories of why the internet is essential to the health and well-being of the poorest communities. At the #InternetIRL Forum in Atlanta hosted by Voices in June, participants highlighted the many ways Black entrepreneurs and creators use the internet to connect, tell stories and take action on a massive scale.

  Inside Washington, D.C., Voices organized a briefing in February with Rep. Maxine Waters, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and leading Black activists on Net Neutrality. In November, we brought together Reps. Keith Ellison and Ro Khanna, FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn, and grassroots leaders to discuss Net Neutrality and the future of civil rights. In December, we teamed up to serenade congressional offices with Net Neutrality-themed carols.

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• Rallies and Protests

  

  Free Press kept up a drumbeat of attention-grabbing street rallies and protests throughout the year that made pro-Net Neutrality activism visible like never before.

  We protested inside and outside the FCC. We disrupted FCC meetings with silent protests and by singing Net Neutrality songs. We showed up in February to deliver more than 200,000 “Love Letters to the Internet” sent by activists, and again in May with a congressional delegation and a legion of allies to deliver 1 million petitions right before the FCC began its proceeding to destroy Net Neutrality.

  We followed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai as he tried to sell his disastrous Net Neutrality plan, handing out a special edition “newspaper” correcting his lies at the speech launching his attack, chanting outside his think-tank appearances, and passing out candy with fliers before Halloween urging commuters not to fall for the FCC’s tricks. As part of the huge nationwide protest in December, we rallied outside the annual FCC Chairman’s dinner, where two FCC commissioners stepped up to the megaphone and one even brought cookies to the large crowd.

  Hundreds of people showed up outside the FCC in the bitter cold for a series of protests in the days before the agency voted to destroy Net Neutrality, including a joyous “Wake-Up Call” rally organized by Free Press and Voices for Internet Freedom allies that turned this loss into an inspiring and defiant celebration.

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• Policy

  

  In 2015, the FCC passed strong Net Neutrality rules and re-classified broadband as a Title II telecommunications service, which restored the FCC's authority to protect internet users. Free Press’ economic analysis and legal arguments made the definitive case in FCC proceedings and in court for keeping these strong rules in place — and were a crucial resource for allies, the press and open internet champions in Congress.

  Our groundbreaking report, It’s Working: How the Internet Access and Online Video Markets Are Thriving in the Title II Era, proved that — despite FCC Chairman Pai’s claims to the contrary — the Obama-era Title II rules were fostering innovation and investment by every conceivable measure, including companies’ own reports to their shareholders.

  In our comments to the FCC, we demonstrated that Title II is the only way to ensure real Net Neutrality and free speech online — and showed how gutting these protections would hurt people of color, low-income communities and rural residents in particular.

  In May, Free Press helped defend the Title II Net Neutrality rules in court against an industry challenge — and won (again). And we were among the first to sue the Trump FCC in January 2018 to undo the agency’s Net Neutrality repeal.

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