LGBT Tech Files Comments to FCC Urging Preservation of E-Rate

Today, LGBT Tech filed comments to the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to update the E-Rate program. The Commission’s adopted item asks whether E-Rate should be narrowed or reoriented, whether social networking services should receive different treatment under CIPA, whether filtering requirements should extend to personally owned devices, and whether E-Rate funding should be conditioned on screen-time restrictions, parental opt-outs, or other requirements.

LGBT Tech supports practical, age-appropriate, evidence-based measures that help children use technology safely and productively, while also acknowledging that they can encounter harassment, exploitation, misinformation, inappropriate content, unwanted contact, privacy violations, and manipulative design online. However, protecting young people and preserving their access to information are not competing objectives.

In our filing, LGBT Tech contends that a policy that purports to protect against digital harm but eliminates access to those benefits does not actually protect children. We understand that for LGBTQ+ people, digital access is often a route to education, healthcare, opportunity, safety, and community. That’s why our filing urges the Commission to ensure that efforts to protect young people online do not close those routes for the broader LGBTQ+ community that depends on them.

Full comments can be found here.