Right now the Federal Communications Commission is accepting comments from the public on its proposal for Net Neutrality. If passed, this proposal would allow corporations like Verizon and Comcast to cut deals with corporate websites in exchange for priority access to its Internet users. In other words, smaller websites, independent artists, musicians and social justice advocates who use the open Internet to reach audiences not accessible in a heavily corporatized and consolidated media would be relegated to a second-class Internet.
This “new” Internet would be disastrous if you’re an independent artist who makes a living thanks to an open Internet. But the voices of poets, visual artists, musicians, and cultural organizers are not being considered at the FCC. We want to change that!
Art is a critical front for social intervention. From the freedom songs of the 1960s to the artivism of the immigrants rights movement, art is the currency of emotion. While techies and corporations will be filing comments to the FCC, for artists our art is our voice.
Between now and July 15th as technical comments flood the FCC, we want to flood the Internet with Haikus. Join poets like Hakim Bellamy, Sham-e-Ali Nayem, Emmanuel Ortiz and others as we call for #InternetHaikus. Here’s how it works:
1. Write a Haiku about the Internet. What’s a haiku? Check this out!
2. Post your Haiku on Twitter and make sure to include the hashtag #InternetHaiku
3. Don’t have Twitter? Send it to steven@mediajustice.org Subject line: #InternetHaiku
On July 8th we’ll start gathering all of the Internet Haikus that people have posted and file them with the FCC on July 15th.