'AT&T Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds': Net Neutrality Defenders Call Out Telecom Giant for Fake Fix

With telecom giant AT&T taking out full page ads in major newspapers and its CEO calling for Congress to write “new laws” to govern net neutrality, consumer advocates are warning that nobody should be fooled over what they say is a “cynical attempt at misinformation” by the company and a transparent push for legislation that would only serve its own interests.

“Internet activists have been warning for months that the big ISPs plan has always been to gut the rules at the FCC and then use the ‘crisis’ they created to ram through bad legislation in the name of ‘saving’ net neutrality.” —Evan Greer, Fight for the Future”Zero real net neutrality supporters are fooled by this,” declared Fight for the Future (FFTF), a group that has helped lead the fight against the FCC’s recent vote—led by Trump-appointed Chairman Aijit Pai—to gut net neutrality protections designed to keep companies like AT&T, Comcast, and other Internet Service Provides (ISPs) from further corporatizing the Internet by creating fast and slow lanes for preferred content.

Along with their allies, FFTF argues that anyone who wants to defend the principle of net neutrality should simply back nullifying the FCC’s decision to end the Internet’s protection under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.

In the ads being run by AT&T, company CEO Randall Stephenson’s calls for the creation of an “Internet Bill of Rights” to be drafted into law, one that would “guarantee neutrality and transparency” for the web. But that call, say critics—despite the lofty, if not vague, rhetoric—is bogus.

“We had an Internet Bill of Rights. It was called Title II and AT&T’s army of lobbyists did everything in their power to burn it down,” explained FFTF’s executive director Evan Greer, who said the telecom companies cannot be trusted on this issue.

“It would be a lot easier to take AT&T at their word if they hadn’t spent more than $16 million last year alone lobbying to kill net neutrality and privacy protections for Internet users,” she added. “Internet activists have been warning for months that the big ISPs plan has always been to gut the rules at the FCC and then use the ‘crisis’ they created to ram through bad legislation in the name of ‘saving’ net neutrality.”