Clyburn Stands with the Public on Net Neutrality

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn expressed her enthusiastic support for Net Neutrality last week, during the agency’s announcement of proposed new rules for all wired and wireless networks.

Here’s a highlight of Clyburn’s opening speech at the FCC meeting:

On Thursday, the Greenville News, a newspaper in Clyburn’s home state of South Carolina, published an op-ed urging the FCC to drop the proposed rules. The op-ed reads like it could have been written by a phone company lobbyist.

Suspect, yes, but not all that surprising. In the lead-up to the FCC meeting, AT&T and other telecom companies pulled out all the stops to pressure the commission, including a PR blitz in South Carolina. Clyburn made it a point to call out the "radioactive rhetoric and unseemly and unbecoming tactics" that have surrounded the Net Neutrality debate.

"Such an approach may yield headlines,” she said, “but will not yield positive results with me. So let us permit our better selves to emerge during this process."

By supporting Net Neutrality, Commissioner Clyburn is standing with dozens of public interest organizations and civil rights groups, more than 1.6 million people who have spoken out for Net Neutrality, and with President Obama, too.

Clyburn’s commitment to Net Neutrality is clear, and we applaud her for acting in the public’s interest to safeguard free speech and innovation online.