Stop Text Message Censorship

Last year the FCC quietly gave cell phone companies new powers to block and control your text messages. Carriers like AT&T can now legally block, delay, or charge more money for your selfies, or texts sent by schools, businesses, and activist groups. This is a massive power grab that threatens our right to free expression. Tell the FCC to overturn this decision and stop text message censorship before a key deadline Tuesday.

I'm writing to ask that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reverse their decision to classify SMS text messages as a Title I information service under the Communications Act. I do not believe cell phone carriers should have the power to block, censor, or discriminate against certain texts, or tack on new fees for message transmission.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai justified this decision by saying it would preventing robotexts and spam messages -- but, as members of Congress pointed out in a recent letter to the FCC, telephone carriers are already able to stop unwanted robotexts or spam without this classification. Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, any sender of robotexts is required to obtain permission from the receiver, and prior FCC rulings have clearly confirmed this capability.

We've already seen carriers abuse this newfound power. Verizon Wireless threatened to charge massive new fees to Remind, a free texting service used by parents, teachers, students, and coaches, in order to not be blocked as spam. The fee was 11x higher than what Remind currently pays Verizon for service, which would have forced the company to end its free plan for the millions of Verizon customers who use the service.

Verizon faced a massive backlash when thousands of Remind users took to Twitter in response, demanding Verizon #ReverseTheFee, which it eventually did -- -- but other communities, nonprofits, activists, and competitive services are still subject to the whims of mobile carriers.

Carriers now have the power to block messages that compete with their own businesses or interests. Under this new decision, it is also legal for carriers to block texts for political reasons, such as the 2007 blocking of NARAL text messages that were stopped because text messages about abortion were deemed as "controversial."

Classifying SMS text messages as a Title I service is a complete violation of consumer rights. Please overturn this decision and ensure that wireless carriers cannot block or control text messages.

Thank you.

Clear

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In December, Ajit Pai’s FCC classified text messaging as a Title I service under the Communications Act, effectively giving cell phone companies new powers to block, censor, or discriminate against certain text messages in exchange for new fees.

Just think of how this could be used to silence or shake down activists, businesses, or anybody who relies on text messages to communicate.

In 2007 action alert texts from NARAL were blocked because their messages were deemed “controversial.” In January 2019, Verizon threatened to charge massive new fees for a popular free texting service used by teachers and other community groups that actually threatened to shut the app down on Verizon’s network.

Cell phone users should not have their messages blocked because a telecom company disagrees with their point of view or wants to shake them down for more money. We cannot afford to let Big Telecom pick and choose which messages make it across their network.

Thanks to the hard work of our friends at Public Knowledge, the public now has until Tuesday, April 2nd to file a comment with the FCC asking the agency to reverse their terrible decision (docket WT 08-7). If we get enough people to speak out we can either convince the agency to reverse its course or use our numbers to show Congress–who is ultimately responsible for the FCC–that their constituents need them to step in and set this right.

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