Voices Coalition Hails NAACP Net Neutrality Support, Urges Clarity on Title II Legal Basis
The Voices for Internet Freedom Coalition lauded a column by NAACP interim CEO Derrick Johnson last week supporting strong, enforceable net neutrality rules, but the coalition suggested clarity about a legal foundation based on Communications Act Title II is key.…
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"With the fate of net neutrality on the line, the NAACP urges [FCC] Chairman [Ajit] Pai to respect the congressional intent behind Title II ... to protect the free flow of information and not jeopardize it by removing high-speed broadband from the equalizing framework of Title II," Johnson wrote Wednesday in The Hill. "ISPs should not be able to discriminate against any information, or against any groups of people, based on their profit margins or their whims." The Voices Coalition applauded the NAACP for "standing up to protect the online voices of the Black community and communities of color," and it urged the civil rights organization "and all groups that support the Title II Net Neutrality rules, to clearly state their position during the current FCC reply-comment period," a release Monday said. In initial comments, the NAACP joined the Communications Workers of America in calling Title II "one approach" to justifying net neutrality rules while floating Telecom Act Section 706 as a blueprint for "commercially reasonable" ISP-edge arrangements (see 1707190025). Meanwhile, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance backed the FCC's proposal to "reverse the harmful effects" of the 2015 Title II net neutrality order and return to classifying broadband as a Title I information service. The proposal "would undoubtedly spur greater investment in broadband networks that will benefit the dynamic internet economy" and "protect taxpayers from an expanding bureaucracy and subsidies for expanding taxpayer-funded networks," said TPA's reply Monday in docket 17-108. "Nonexpress" reply comments continued to trickle in after the FCC extended an Aug. 16 deadline to Aug. 30 (see 1708110053). The number of public comments posted in the docket dropped Wednesday through Friday to fewer than 10,000 per day after generally running in the hundreds of thousands daily since early July, reaching 1.55 million Aug. 1. Monday, 94,244 were posted by late afternoon, bringing the cumulative total in the docket to 20.46 million.