It’s now just over a month since we launched our Don’t Disconnect Us campaign against the government’s misguided proposals for tackling illegal filesharing which gave sweeping powers to the Government to require ISPs to disconnect people from the Internet without proof that they did anything wrong. Since then the campaign has done better and reached a wider audience than even we anticipated.
Our petition on the Downing Street website has been signed by over 25,000 people at the time of writing – and it’s going up all the time. It’s currently the sixth most supported petition this year.
The petition was given a huge boost when a number of famous people – including Stephen Fry, the comedian Alan Davies, and former government minister Tom Watson MP – added their support.
Stephen Fry, in particular, has been vocal about his opposition to the proposals:
Dear Mandy, splendid fellow in many ways, but he is SO WRONG about copyright. Please sign and RT http://is.gd/50gQK #webwar #threestrikes
2:07 AM Nov 22nd
I’ll keep at this till a million sign! We mustn’t let Mandy do this WRONG thing. Please sign & RT: http://is.gd/50gQK #webwar #threestrike
8:00 AM Nov 23rd
Since then the petition has been featured in articles in The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph, among many others.
We’re delighted with the success of the campaign so far but there’s still a very long way to go, with debate about the bill having started in the House of Lords already. We will be working harder to persuade the government to drastically modify its plans but the more voices and the more outrage they hear the better. If you haven’t signed the petition, you can do so here.
If you’ve signed the petition and want to do more to help, let your friends know or contact your MP and ask them to support our campaign or support the Open Rights Group who are actively campaigning on this too.
By the way, we’re also fighting against the government’s proposed 50p per month broadband tax, which we think will unfairly hit poorer people to subsidise broadband for the wealthier homes that can afford higher speeds. We know that 1.7m households with more than one phone line will be charged more than once by this tax. Recently it’s also been revealed that the government is planning to put VAT on top of the 50p tax – in effect a tax on a tax. This adds insult to injury. We are working hard to persuade the government to scrap the tax.
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Hookjosh
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