Fight for the Future statement on AT&T’s misleading ads: “If AT&T wants Internet users to have rights, they should stop lobbying against them.”

This morning AT&T is touting full page ads in multiple papers claiming (as they have in the past) that they support net neutrality and calling on Congress to pass legislation. This is a cynical attempt at misinformation and zero real net neutrality supporters are fooled by this.

AT&T’s announcement also comes off as a bit of a joke at this moment, given that their lobbyists are shocked by the momentum of the Congressional Review Act resolutions to outright block the FCC’s repeal. The measure only needs one more vote to pass the Senate and has already attracted more than 110 co-sponsors in the House.

Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future (pronouns: she/her), issued the following statement about the ads: 

“We had an Internet bill of rights. It was called Title II and AT&T’s army of lobbyists did everything in their power to burn it down.

It would be a lot easier to take AT&T at their word if they hadn’t spent more than $16 million last year alone lobbying to kill net neutrality and privacy protections for Internet users. Internet activists have been warning for months that the big ISPs plan has always been to gut the rules at the FCC and then use the ‘crisis’ they created to ram through bad legislation in the name of ‘saving’ net neutrality.

That’s the tale they’re attempting to spin with this latest announcement, but it comes off as a bit pathetic at this moment, to be honest. The FCC’s repeal of net neutrality sparked such a massive backlash from across the political spectrum that lawmakers in Congress have read the writing on the wall and know that the only viable legislation on the table is the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions to cleanly reverse the FCC’s deeply unpopular decision, which are gaining momentum in the House, and more notably the Senate where we are one vote away from a major victory for the open Internet.

If AT&T wants Internet users to have rights, they should stop lobbying against them.”