
The FCC's Ajit Pai now openly mocking net neutrality protesters with new video - gridscomputing
https://www.avclub.com/the-fccs-ajit-pai-now-openly-mocking-net-neutrality-pro-1821278546
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joelrunyon
To be fair - the guy has people literally photoshopping dicks on his face and
other horrible things. This is considerably less overt "mocking" than that -
and it's more at the outrage, not people individually.

Even if you think it's a horrible decision, I think he's allowed to make his
case in an internet culture way.

If people get outraged enough at this, maybe this will be the impetus for
people and startups to aggressively go after ISPs? You saw that happen when
the T-mobile/AT&T merger failed, T-Mobile got competitive and is one of the
major reasons you don't have 2-year contracts on phones anymore.

I'm not sold it's a great idea, but the people claiming Armageddon seem to be
overplaying their hand.

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socceroos
So many apologists appearing out of nowhere. It's almost like a paid campaign.

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vorotato
You don't have to be paid to be a sucker. For clarification, by sucker I mean
someone who is losing something in an exchange without getting anything in
return and thinks they somehow got the upper hand in a situation.

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notimetorelax
I often try to approach things from the perspective of empathy. To make that
video he has got to believe what he's saying... Is that possible?

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eduren
I agree that Ajit Pai is really hard to separate from how enthusiastically he
defends his actions.

Like, there's three options, none of which I like:

1\. NN is actually as unnecessary as he says and his memes are doing the
country a service.

2\. He genuinely believes the above statement despite most of the internet
disagreeing vehemently with him.

or

3\. He is really capable of shilling out for ISPs in such a in-your-face
manner.

He certainly doesn't fit into the typical politician/regulator mold. It's
baffling.

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nicolashahn
"He certainly doesn't fit into the typical politician/regulator mold. It's
baffling."

He's a shining example of Trump's promise to evict the political class in
exchange for the corporate class. Seems to make sense that he'd be so obvious
about being a shill, that's what we (as a country, not me or probably you in
particular) asked for when we elected Trump.

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eduren
While I agree in general that this is a trend and we will see more of it, keep
in mind that Pai was an Obama appointee (at the request of McConnell) in 2012
and Trump simply promoted him to Chairman.

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nicolashahn
True, but given Obama's stance on NN, if he had a theoretical third term I
don't think Pai would be Chairman.

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sitkack
I'd like to pay for the Democracy upgrade.

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spodek
The industry got its money's worth with this stooge.

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quickben
As a Canadian, I find it fascinating to watch this develops.

I'd like to say three things:

1\. It may be a bad move. Reasons are many and rehashed to death. Let me skip
this one.

2\. It may be a good thing. Especially if it pushes people away from FB,
Google, Instagram, etc. All of which are top supporters of it, have made
billions off user free content, and have stifled all inovation by various
means (patents, buying or suiting competition, etc). Maybe it will push people
away from monocultures and bring diversity to this stabilized ecosystem. Heck
I'm already seeing bunch of geeks starting their own ISPs in USA today.

3\. Most likely none of the above, whoever paid for this will try to milk it
in ways unimaginable. Trump+Aji appear to be great distraction so far.

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adam12
This administration and the direction we are heading reminds me of the movie
Idiocracy.

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username223
If "Office Space" chronicled the 1990s, and "Silicon Valley" the 2000s,
"Idiocracy" may predict the 2020s. Mike Judge for Prophet?

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kahlonel
Cringe.

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surrey-fringe
I'm going to cry because he mocked me

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RickJWag
Set aside for a moment your feeling on net neutrality.

We can all admire the way Pai is mocking the massive media machine that's been
picking on him for months. I'm glad to see it, I'm sick of the monopolistic
media machine.

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LyndsySimon
I agree. I'm amazed to watch the right take on the popular media in a mocking
and sarcastic way at the same time the left is approaching their own media
issues with rehearsed statements and carefully-worded press releases. It's
like the behaviors of the two parties have flip-flopped in the past ~3 years.

I've been hearing "The Left can't meme" for a few months now, and the right
seems to be proving it to be true.

