Friend,

At the end of May, we released our "Americans’ Opinions on Media, Technology and Democracy” poll. After poring over the results, one thing became clear:

People across the political spectrum strongly feel that the current media and tech ecosystem is not meeting their civic-information needs or giving them the tools they need to connect and communicate freely and safely in a democracy. At its worst, it’s helping spread the sort of misinformation that undermines people’s ability to be well informed in an election year.

We can do something about that dissatisfaction, and our 2024 Media and Technology Policy Platform is Free Press Action’s response. It offers a roadmap for lawmakers to meet their constituents’ needs — not the needs of corporations and law-enforcement agencies that seek to monetize and control our data and expression.

Will you add your name to endorse our 2024 Media and Technology Policy Platform? It’s a small but important way of showing candidates and policymakers that the time for action on protecting our right to connect and communicate is now.

We urge candidates and policymakers get to work on:

• Ending the digital divide and making broadband affordable for everyone.
• Passing comprehensive federal privacy and civil-rights protections.
• Upholding the FCC’s authority to safeguard broadband users and protect Net Neutrality.
• Building resilient communications infrastructure as the ever-worsening climate crisis threatens internet, mobile phone and other networks.
• Supporting efforts to end exorbitant prison-phone rates.
• Stopping the government from buying people’s private information.
• Eliminating algorithmic discrimination and biased artificial intelligence (AI) that perpetuates biases that create inequitable experiences for users.
• Requiring transparency from social-media platforms on how they use our personal information.
• Keeping platforms open for user-generated content while holding them accountable for harms to users and not shutting down sites or silencing disfavored speech.
• Fostering diverse media ownership and community-rooted solutions to the local-news crisis.
• Protecting journalism jobs and investing in civic media’s future.
• Advocating for reparation proposals and reparative actions that redress the harms the media and policymakers have inflicted on Black people and Black communities.

At a time of rising distrust in mainstream media, declining local-news coverage and the rise of social media as a source of news and information, we can’t wait any longer for real change. If you agree, add your name to endorse our 2024 Media and Technology Policy Platform.

Thank you for your support,

All of us at Free Press Action
freepress.net

P.S. A significant and bipartisan majority of Americans want to make sure their communications and internet activity are private, and do not want to see discrimination or intentionally false information online. We demand action: Add your name in support of our comprehensive 2024 Media and Technology Policy Platform today.