Reply to Gatekeeper Arguments! Tell the FCC to Protect Text Messaging and Keep Speech Free

Previously, on PK Action Alerts… Verizon was caught blocking text messages from NARAL to its members. We told the FCC that this was a problem under the communications laws. Then we asked you to take a stand and send the FCC your comments about how you use text messages, if you subscribe to alerts from causes you believe in, if your organization text messages or short codes to reach its supporters, and tell the FCC every other way in which text messaging and freedom of speech on our phone networks are important to you.

Since then, AT&T, Verizon and their trade group, the CTIA, have made their case about why they should be able to block text messages, at the FCC. Their arguments include:

Wireless carriers are like broadcasters—like TV stations and newspapers—and as a broadcaster should have editorial control over content and be able to refuse to send along text messages;
Wireless carriers believe in free speech, and in fact run their own TXT campaigns. However, they say that establishing a non-discrimination policy will burden their own free speech rights; and
Wireless carriers want to protect users from commercial ads, advocacy pieces, pornography, and from tarnishing the wireless carriers’ good names.

Wireless carriers primarily carry communications like voice calls and text messages. Even though they also offer their own content and information, they have a legal responsibility to act as a “simple transmission path” and treat everyone’s content equally. The wireless companies argue that they have the right to make value judgments about what information you can send, and have sent to you.

We think you should make those decisions, not the wireless phone company.

Right now, we have another bite at the apple to respond specifically to their arguments. But time is about to expire. Tell the FCC that it should apply the same non-discrimination policy for phone calls to text messaging and short codes.

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Verizon's blocking of NARAL's text messaging campaign violates the principles of Free Speech which are critical to our nation's communications.  The unrestricted ability to communicate with the people and organizations of my choice is just as important in text as it is in voice.

Today, text messages are being used for political action alerts, health information, by individuals, corporations, and government institutions.  Whether or not I receive those messages should be my decision, not the wireless carriers.  Assurances that wireless carriers won't block political speech in the future are simply not enough.  The FCC must take action to ensure that this does not happen again by making it clear that the nondiscrimination rules which have long applied to phone calls are also applicable to text messages and short codes.

Don't let wireless carriers be the gatekeepers that decide who may use new, important mediums like text messaging; please keep speech free, no matter what form it comes in.

Please use the provided text as an example and customize it with your own views.

You are filing ex parte comments in WT Docket No. 08-7, Petition for Declaratory Ruling that Text Messages and Short Codes are Title II Services or are Title I Services Subject to Section 202 non-Discrimination Rules. More information from the FCC on this issue can be found at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-08-78A1.pdf.

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Reply to Gatekeeper Arguments! Tell the FCC to Protect Text Messaging and Keep Speech Free

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