AT&T is uniting its employees, friends and families against open internet principles

AT&T (T) is urging its store managers, as well as their families and friends, to oppose net neutrality, a hotly contested proposed federal regulation that would prohibit broadband carriers from favoring their own content over competitors’ programming.

In a surprisingly candid internal memo leaked to the Internet, Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s chief lobbyist, urges AT&T U.S. store managers to “join the voices telling the FCC not to regulate the Internet.”

“Those who want to impose extreme regulations on the network are flooding the site to influence the FCC,” Cicconi warns, calling on the company’s 300,000 employees to organize among their friends and families to oppose the new rules.