AwkwardMillie

🚨 The internet needs you 🚨

You’re up again, Tumblr. 

Back in 2015 you demanded that the FCC adopt strict net neutrality rules and establish a free and open internet. And you won. 

That should’ve been the end of it. But apparently not.

The new head of the FCC wants to undo the net neutrality protections you fought so hard for.

His proposed changes open the door to your web traffic being slowed down, or even blocked altogether. You could be forced to pay extra to use your favorite apps. You could even be prevented from getting news from the sources you trust.

Title II protects consumers and democracy by ensuring all voices can be heard.

You know the drill. Here’s what to do:

The FCC is taking comments from the public, and dearfcc.org is making it as simple as possible for you to make your voice heard.

Go there now 👉 dearfcc.org ✌️

You’ll just need to provide a name, an address, and then say a little bit about why rolling back Title II protections is a bad idea. If you’re not quite sure what to write, here’s something to get you started:

I’m writing to urge you to keep our Open Internet rules based on Title II in place. Without them, we could lose the internet as we know it.

The proposed changes to FCC rules would allow fast lanes for sites that pay, and force everyone else into slow lanes. We’ve already seen access to streaming services like Netflix, popular games like League of Legends, and communication platforms like FaceTime slowed down, or even blocked. Conditions like this hurt businesses large and small, and penalize the users who patronize them. 

The changes also open the door to unfair taxes on internet users, and could also make it harder for blogs, nonprofits, artists, and others who can’t pay up to have their voices heard.

Please leave the existing net neutrality rules based on Title II in place.

Thank you!

If you need more ammo, feel free to quote these experts from our net neutrality Issue Time. TechCrunch and Battle for the Net also have some good starters.

And now for today’s lesson in institutionalised misogyny.

Today’s news: Ghostbusters ‘tanks’, ‘stumbles’ with 53% drop in its second week.

Presumably that’s a bad performance compared to other action movies in their second week then?

Let’s check…

Captain America: Civil War: -59.5%

Dark Knight: -52%

Amazing Spider Man: -61%

Oh, and for an example of an actual ‘tanking’:

Batman vs Superman: -69%

Now, let’s examine all the reporting last week that Ghostbusters was going to struggle because of its first week multiplier against its budget…

Ghostbusters first weekend US figures: $46m It had a $144m budget, so in its first week it made 32% of that. Descriptions: ‘Lacklustre’, ‘problematic’, ‘will haunt Sony’

Star Trek Beyond first weekend US figures: $59.6m It had a $189m budget, so in its first week it made 30% of its budget. Reporting: ‘Dominates’, ‘wins big’

To be clear: there are articles describing both movies’ openings as ‘solid’. But there’s basically no one calling Beyond worrying or Ghostbusters a big win.

So. ‘Nuff said? **********EDIT**********

A few people have requested sauce for the data above. Honestly, this post was an off-the-cuff thing this morning done off the first page of Google. I’ve resisted actually providing said data because the % drop and $ profit figures are verifiable basically anywhere you like and the quotes are all over the place. I have not done a thorough corpus analysis of everything written on Ghostbusters and Beyond, nor do I plan to. However, because I’m so damn nice, here are the particular articles I happened to read for the Googley-challenged…

www.hollywoodreporter.com

deadline.com

fortune.com

www.theguardian.com

www.breitbart.com (yes, I know who/what Breitbart is, but it came up on the first page of Google so that makes it a mainstream source on this occasion)

www.forbes.com

And, to be fair, on looking for my original sources just now, I also found this, so there is at least one article that’s circumspect about Beyond’s success. I can’t find the article where I got the second week drops info, but I imagine the numbers came straight from here and here.

Nobody wants it all.