[Infowarrior] - Ajit Pai Attacked Hollywood & Silicon Valley Because Even Republicans Are Against His Net Neutrality Plan

[Richard Forno]

Ajit Pai Attacked Hollywood & Silicon Valley Because Even Republicans Are Against His Net Neutrality Plan

from the that's-a-temper-tantrum,-not-leadership dept

We were mystified last week when FCC chair Ajit Pai decided to attack both Hollywood and Silicon Valley because some (not all) people in both communities have spoken out against his plans to gut net neutrality. The attacks were weird on multiple levels. Regarding Hollywood, the comments were strangely personal -- picking out a list of entertainers, often taking their comments out of context, and attacking them in very personal ways. It was, to say the least, unbecoming of an FCC chair to directly pick on entertainers for voicing their opinions. The attacks on Silicon Valley were... even stranger. First, he claimed that the demand to keep net neutrality was really a ploy by the largest internet companies (i.e. Google & Facebook) to keep their dominant position. But that ignores the fact that without net neutrality, they're well positioned to further entrench their position. More importantly, it totally ignores the fact that neither Google nor Facebook have been strong advocates of net neutrality (and, in many cases, have pushed back against net neutrality).

Bloomberg now has an article up explaining why Pai would make these attacks: apparently even among Republican activists, there's effectively no support for his plan to kill net neutrality. So, rather than (1) admit he's made a huge mistake or (2) give good reasons for his plan, he thought he'd pull a sort of Trumpian game of blaming other people that Republicans are supposed to hate, in the (not very accurate) stereotypical view of the US from the reality distortion field known as Washington DC.

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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171204/09513338736/ajit-pai-attacked-hollywood-silicon-valley-because-even-republicans-are-against-his-net-neutrality-plan.shtml