What We've Been Up To

I spent a good part of my morning hitting refresh over and over again to see if the D.C. Circuit Court had released its decision on the Net Neutrality case. (Spoiler: NOPE.) We’re still waiting on that ruling but that hasn’t stopped us from preparing for every possible outcome.

That’s not all: Thanks to the support of our amazing members, we’ve been working on a bunch of other critical campaigns this summer.

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

• We’ve been pressuring CNN to stop peddling white-nationalist propaganda for profit. Who thought it was a good idea to invite neo-Nazi Richard Spencer — who spoke at Charlottesville’s deadly Unite the Right rally — to appear as an “expert”? Apparently CNN did.

• And we keep reminding Facebook that it’s in fact violating its own advertising rules and community standards by allowing ads that use “invasion” and “infestation” to describe immigration (the El Paso mass shooter used these exact words in his manifesto). What’s it going to take to put the lives and safety of people of color over Facebook’s bottom line? 

• Plus we can’t tell Twitter enough that it needs to get its act together and ban white supremacists from its platform — it literally allows David Duke (former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan) to spew hate 24–7. As my colleague Jessica J. González said in a recent MSNBC appearance, “Get that guy outta here.”

• Not to brag or anything but that wasn’t our only TV appearance this month. Our fight for prison #PhoneJustice, which we’ve been working on in coalition with media-justice and prison-rights organizations for years, was featured on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. This gave much-needed attention to the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act of 2019, the Senate bill that would make phone calls between people who are incarcerated and their loved ones more affordable.

• Although the Trump FCC and Justice Department (which, per usual, ignored the public interest) want to push the terrible T-Mobile/Sprint merger through, we aren’t giving up. Thanks to our members’ vocal opposition, 16 states and the District of Columbia are fighting to block this deal.

• In other WTF moments ... while white supremacists are violently attacking communities of color, the FBI is directing its resources toward surveilling and criminalizing Black activists for their organizing and dissent. Alongside our allies, we’re pushing Congress to hold the Bureau accountable and #ProtectBlackDissent. 

• At long last, the New Jersey Civic Info Consortium was funded. This first-of-its-kind nonprofit will strengthen local-news coverage and boost civic engagement in communities across the state. It’s already serving as a national model of how to transform local news. 

• We were excited to be part of this year’s Charlotte Pride lineup in North Carolina with a screening of the mini-documentary #TeamPregnantDad. The conversation that followed focused on just how much representation and storytelling across the gender spectrum matters — and how journalists can make it happen. Thanks to our awesome N.C. organizers and activists, this event was a success!

• Fox News’ racist F&%@er (Tucker) Carlson took a much-needed vacation in August after prompting an outcry over his claim that white supremacy was a "hoax". We hoped it would be a permanent vacation but our dreams were crushed when he came back. Fortunately, a lot of his advertising sponsors didn’t make the return trip — thanks in part to our members’ petition signatures calling on advertisers to #DropFox.

Whew. That’s a lot. And yet it doesn’t seem like enough with all the terrible things happening in our country and in the world. But we’re prepared to do even more. Are you with us?

Please chip in $5, $10, $20 or whatever you can give to keep fighting for the world we all deserve.