MDF created the Open Internet Defense Fund to quickly address threats and opportunities relating to the future of the open internet, and organize funding strategies from a diverse range of partners to most effectively support the fight.
OIDF’s inaugural campaign focused on the national discussion of net neutrality during 2014. After the DC circuit court struck down the FCC’s first attempt at open internet rules, the FCC and Congress were considering a regulatory approach that would have allowed paid prioritization of content – a feature that is anathema to the internet as we know it, but would have provided enormous profits for internet service providers. In less than a year, MDF grantees and allies organized more than 4 million comment submissions to the FCC, managed to quash two regulatory approaches that would not have been sufficient to protect the open internet, and laid the legal groundwork for a regulatory regime that will ensure real net neutrality for the next generation.
INAUGURAL GRANTEES INCLUDED
Center for Media Justice
Center for Rural Strategies
Demand Progress
Fight for the Future
Free Press
National Hispanic Media Coalition
Open Technology Institute
Presente
Public Knowledge
Stanford Center for Internet and Society
