nikhil.io

“Gigantic Asshole Ajit Pai Is Officially Gone.”

I don’t think I’ve enjoyed an article’s title this much in a while.

Here is a list of harmful nonsense Pai and his FCC did over the last four years:

  • Killed net neutrality
  • Approved T-Mobile / Sprint merger
  • Repeatedly released reports that claimed U.S. broadband is fine
  • Defended murder of net neutrality in court
  • Flubbed Puerto Rico hurricane disaster response
  • Slow-walked and obstructed investigation into telecom company sale of your location data
  • Said FTC would protect net neutrality (it didn’t, and couldn’t)
  • Falsely claimed killing net neutrality was good for broadband access (it wasn’t)
  • Refused to brief Congress about telecom companies’ sale of their customers’ phone location data
  • Helped Comcast and other major telecom companies in their pursuit of monopolistic power
  • Oversaw America’s falling rank in an annual “Internet Freedom” index
  • Allowed Verizon to throttle California firefighters’ data while they were fighting unprecedented wildfires
  • Invented a DDoS attack that shut down the FCC’s net neutrality comment system
  • Lied to public about that fake DDoS attack that shut down the agency’s net neutrality comment system
  • Lied to Congress about that fake DDoS attack
  • Didn’t detect that dead people were leaving comments on net neutrality comment system
  • Refused to change the definition of ‘broadband’
  • Demanded $200 to release emails about his giant mug
  • Allowed scammers to submit fake comments about net neutrality under the names of two sitting senators
  • Did that dumbass Harlem Shake thing with a pizzagate conspiracy theorist
  • Became a rubber stamp for Sinclair Media and
  • Tried to kill a broadband assistance program that subsidized internet connections for the economically unstable and poor
  • Got a literal gun from the NRA for his “courage” in killing net neutrality
  • Was investigated by his own agency for alleged corruption as he pushed to dismantle media consolidation rules
  • Published report claiming broadband market was magically fixed by repealing net neutrality
  • Ignored 22 million comments supporting net neutrality
  • Tried to reclassify cell phone data service as “broadband internet”
  • Allowed phone call rates for incarcerated people to skyrocket

Here are 150 articles Motherboard wrote about Pai during his tenure.

and:

Those 25Mbps / 3Mbps speeds aren’t even minimums, by the way, because the Annual Broadband Report isn’t something meant to be enforced. It’s a benchmark by which the FCC determines whether it’s doing its job of helping to close the digital divide — where as many as 1 in 3 US households don’t have broadband internet access at all. Currently, if a single ISP claims it can deliver a single 25Mbps down / 3Mbps up internet connection anywhere in your entire census block, much less your home, the FCC considers its job done. Oh, and the FCC doesn’t even audit those numbers! It’s a “fox guarding the henhouse” kind of thing.

Sean Hollister, “Ajit Pai declares 3Mbps uploads are still good enough for you”, The Verge