TelCo Company Pressures Employees To Lobby Against Net Neutrality

[Robbien]

I received an email from a frustrated and confused employee at one of the major telecommunications companies. (FYI, if you were scrolling you shoudl stop here.) Her story makes one side look bad, which is why I wanted to give it some context. I talked to the sender this morning and verified her employment status and that she did in fact send me the email. It’s too long to reprint in its entirety, but the short version is that she has worked for her company for over twenty years, and recently the company circulated a mass email asking all employees to contact their Congressman and urge him or her to pass the telecommunications bill without the net neutrality amendment. The email included a link to a website that had a form letter ready to go – all you had to do was enter your zip code to make sure the letter went to the right representative. (The Internet makes this sort of letter writing campaign easy and it is becoming a standard practice for both sides of just about every issue.) Here’s where the email gets interesting:

“I sent the form letter on. After reading all this info about net neutrality, I realize that because I was not completely informed about both sides of the coin, only ’s interests, I was led to believe that I was agreeing with the net neutrality issue, not just what wanted. Basically we were given info on only one side. I believe this is also the case with many of the responses sent out. Some employees even looked at it as a requirement that they had to do, feeling that the company would know if you answered or not.”

Pressuring employees to take a certain political position is as old as jobs and democracy. But it isn't pretty. It goes without saying that the emailer subsequently learned that she doesn’t agree with her company’s position. Anyway, I’m sharing this with you all just to illustrate that an important Internet policy issue is becoming increasingly political.

http://blogs.cio.com/node/351

You can use SaveTheInternet's handy action page to really support Net Neutrality and help counter this "handsofftheinternet" ruse by the telcos:

http://www.savetheinternet.com/=act

[BayCityProgressive]

1. yup

I work for AT&T they are always lobbying us for right wing shit...