Busting the myth that net neutrality hampers investment

This week I had the opportunity to share Mozilla’s vision for an Internet that is open and accessible to all with the audience at MWC Americas.

I took this opportunity because we are at a pivotal point in the debate between the FCC, companies, and users over the FCC’s proposal to roll back protections for net neutrality. Net neutrality is a key part of ensuring freedom of choice to access content and services for consumers.

Earlier this week Mozilla’s Heather West wrote a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai highlighting how net neutrality has fueled innovation in Silicon Valley and can do so still across the United States.

The FCC claims these protections hamper investment and are bad for business. And they may vote to end them as early as October. Chairman Pai calls his rule rollback “restoring internet freedom” but that’s really the freedom of the 1% to make decisions that limit the rest of the population.

At Mozilla we believe the current rules provide vital protections to ensure that ISPs don’t act as gatekeepers for online content and services. Millions of people commented on the FCC docket, including those who commented through Mozilla’s portal that removing these core protections will hurt consumers and small businesses alike.

Mozilla is also very much focused on the issues preventing people coming online beyond the United States. Before addressing the situation in the U.S., journalist Rob Pegoraro asked me what we discovered in the research we recently funded in seven other countries into the impact of zero rating on Internet use:

(Video courtesy: GSMA)

If you happen to be in San Francisco on Monday 18th September please consider joining Mozilla and the Internet Archive for a special night: The Battle to Save Net Neutrality. Tickets are available here.

You’ll be able to watch a discussion featuring former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler; Representative Ro Khanna; Mozilla Chief Legal and Business Officer Denelle Dixon; Amy Aniobi, Supervising Producer, Insecure (HBO); Luisa Leschin, Co-Executive Producer/Head Writer, Just Add Magic (Amazon); Malkia Cyril, Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice; and Dane Jasper, CEO and Co-Founder of Sonic. The panel will be moderated by Gigi Sohn, Mozilla Tech Policy Fellow and former Counselor to Chairman Wheeler. It will discuss how net neutrality promotes democratic values, social justice and economic opportunity, what the current threats are, and what the public can do to preserve it.