Who Watches the Merger (WWTM) is a social media campaign crafted with the intent of stopping the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) from allowing the AT&T-Time Warner merger to occur. Though mergers transpire habitually (and often represent a mutually advantageous decision for both companies involved), the founders of WWTM believe that this particular merger will result in numerous detrimental effects to the companies’ respective customers. These negative outcomes include:
· Increased privacy breaches (“commercial surveillance”)
· Decreased capital expenditure on current services
· Higher prices
· Future content prioritization
· Possible data charge favoritism
The WWTM campaign boasts a wide variety of methods for warning consumers about these diverse issues. These methods include a robust Facebook page full of articles, analyses, and poignant quotes, a Twitter feed dedicated to informative, inventive memes, and a website that functions as the hub where all these sources of information meet.
Since Time Warner owns DC comics (and its film adaptations), the theme that connects these varying media outlets is Alan Moore’s famous DC comic Watchmen published in the 1980s and recently adapted for film in 2009. Throughout Moore’s classic, the famous author poetically asks, “Who watches the Watchmen?” In other words, who oversees the overseers of society? This campaign seeks to answer a similar question: “Who watches the FCC?” The answer is you, the consumer. And we humbly ask you to join us in condemning this merger. We are the “puppets who see the strings.” We are the ones who watch the watchers. We are WWTM.
