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FCC Chair Ajit Pai “jokes” about being a Verizon shill
- AdmiralAsshat 9y agoAjit Pai being an ass is not news. The more interesting item is the FCC's implicit assertion that submitting comments under fake names is not against the law.[0] That's the part that should have people overturning tables. The FCC also said that Schneiderman has not "identified any specific law or legal authority" to support its assertion that submitting comments under fake names violates state law. [0]https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/fcc-chair-still-refuses-to-help-investigate-net-neutrality-comment-fraud/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/fcc-chair-still-...
- Glyptodon 9y agoWhat do identity fraud statutes cover (NY, national, or otherwise)?
- paxy 9y agoPretending to be another (real) person is different from using a fake name.
- emiliobumachar 9y agoA lot of "Pretending to be another (real) person" is being alleged. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171030/11255938512/dead-people-mysteriously-support-fccs-attack-net-neutrality.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171030/11255938512/dead-...
- strictnein 9y agoSo what is the "specific law or legal authority" that makes it illegal?
- pdonis 9y agoSo if it's not against the letter of the law, that makes it ok?
- geodel 9y agoI imagine so, as that point it would be a matter of taste.
- strictnein 9y agoWhen did I claim that?
- dominotw 9y agoYes. Thats the basis of legal system.
- blfr 9y agoI would say that submitting a public comment under a pseudonym is OK even if it was against the law.
- vec 9y agoMaybe it is, maybe it isn't, but that's not actually the issue in question. The comments to the FCC board were made using (publicly available) real name and address pairs. Someone submitted a comment using my legal name and current address. Whether that person should have been able to comment pseudonymously or not is beside the point. What they actually did is make a public statement in my name, which may or may not reflect my actual views, and which definitely impedes my ability to express those actual views if and when I desire to.
- nkw 9y ago18 U.S.C. § 1001 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001
- nkw 9y ago
- rdtsc 9y agoThis might be a more thorough source for that instead of arstechnica http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/11/29/public-comments-to-the-federal-communications-commission-about-net-neutrality-contain-many-inaccuracies-and-duplicates/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/11/29/public-comments-to-the... About 6% where unique. Most were against net neutrality, but the single most repeated one was a pro-neutrality comment submitted 2.8M times. > That's the part that should have people overturning tables. Overturning tables because it is not against the law, so they should make it illegal, or because it is against the law and he was lying?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- geodel 9y agoBut any humor that one does not like can be branded as some type of racism, bigotry, sexism, chauvinism, profanity and so on. So in a way this quote is correct. What liberal would consider as humor conservatives might not and vice versa.
- davidcbc 9y ago> But any humor that one does not like can be branded as some type of racism, bigotry, sexism, chauvinism, profanity and so on. This is the kind of thing people who want to make racist, sexist, etc. jokes end up saying because they want to be able to keep making offensive jokes and blame it on a difference of opinion. Offensive jokes are offensive whether or not they are funny. Unfunny jokes are unfunny whether or not they are offensive. Unfunniness and offensiveness are not necessarily related.
- ravitation 9y agoThis isn't a new, or original, thought. It's an allusion to an ongoing conversation within what is considered mainstream comedy about why we (as a culture) seemingly have a plethora of mainstream liberal comedians (especially political comedians), but a dearth of conservative ones. And, this conversation is an extremely important one to have. It relates deeply to the whole "fake news" obsession that seems to have taken hold of particular strains of "conservatism" (the right).
- rhapsodic 9y ago> This isn't a new, or original, thought. It's an allusion to an ongoing conversation within what is considered mainstream comedy about why we (as a culture) seemingly have a plethora of mainstream liberal comedians (especially political comedians), but a dearth of conservative ones. Fair point. However, many liberal comedians, such as Jerry Seinfeld[1], will no longer perform on college campuses, because they don't want to deal with the blowback from the leftist students who take offense at seemingly anything that does not espouse their party line. [1] http://college.usatoday.com/2015/06/08/jerry-seinfeld-espn-college-campuses-politically-correct/ http://college.usatoday.com/2015/06/08/jerry-seinfeld-espn-c...
- QAPereo 9y agoA line from THGTTG springs to mind... ...A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes...
- r00fus 9y agoFirst against the wall? More likely they'll be sipping margaritas in the Caymans, Vanuatu, or wherever they can go to avoid extradition. Former mass murdering dictators freely roam international waters, what's a bit of crony capitalism.
- QAPereo 9y agoI’m guessing you’re not familiar with the referenced work of satirical fiction.
- CodeWriter23 9y agoIMO proving the guy has some form of Antisocial Personality Disorder.
- 013a 9y agoIs Gizmodo seriously not a banned source on HN? Its banned on practically every major subreddit, as were all of the former Gawker properties.
- ravitation 9y agoHow about Ars Technica? Or, Fortune? This isn't a Gizmodo original...
- jasonkostempski 9y agoYes.
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- rory096 9y agoThis will probably get me some hate, but that speech was genuinely funny. Anyone who can't put aside their political differences and laugh along with it is a wet blanket. And it points out how ridiculous the Verizon shill claim is — Pai worked there from 2001-03 when he was 3 years out of law school, then worked for DoJ and various congressional committees, then went to the FCC in 2007. Claims that he's beholden to Verizon are exactly as absurd as that Manchurian Candidate sketch.
- thg 9y ago> Claims that he's beholden to Verizon are exactly as absurd as that Manchurian Candidate sketch. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171205/10255738745/days-before-doing-verizons-bidding-ajit-pai-gives-talk-verizon.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171205/10255738745/days-... He sure isn't making a very good job at not looking corrupt beyond any doubt.
- rory096 9y agoColor me unimpressed. Tom Wheeler spoke at the 2016 event and their 2015 annual convention. [0] https://www.iicom.org/events/telecommunications-and-media-forum/item/tmf-washington-2016 https://www.iicom.org/events/telecommunications-and-media-fo... [1] http://www.iicom.org/events/item/annual-conference-2015-confirmed-speakers http://www.iicom.org/events/item/annual-conference-2015-conf...
- bduerst 9y agoTom Wheeler didn't promote the removal of net neutrality protections, an act which would benefit Verizon. This "it's just a joke" is about as funny as if Tom Wheeler had said the same thing Pai did while taking the same stance. That's because it's indefensible, which is why you're pointing fingers to Wheeler instead of defending it.
- rory096 9y agoIt's almost like speaking at an International Institute of Communications forum is not correlated with shilling.
- inDigiNeous 9y agoIf you study human psychology, you start to meet up with this phenomena of people telling you the truth in front of your face, by using some sort of roundabout way of it. Many politicians do this by using the "not" prefix, "we are not going to cut down on support for schools", when in reality they will do just that. I have been studying and thinking about this subject for a long time, and it seems to be an inheret nature of our human nature to need to tell the truth in one way or another. Jokes and making stories out of things is also one way to achieve this, as you are getting the truth out of your conscience, even in the form of a joke. We can see this behaviour recently for example with comedian CK Lewis, who did exactly that, telling jokes about him masturbating in front of people, when in reality he did just that. This seems to be another case of this, telling us the truth all along the way, but just in form of making jokes of it. This way you are not exactly being dishonest, but you are disguising the truth in some way of shrouded communication, but still getting the information basically out there, and getting it out of your system. Maybe it's a way of dealing with being dishonest, as you can tell yourself "But I told the truth to you just there" ? So, when politicians and people are telling you "I did not do that" or they joke about the subject directly to your face, I would be wary. I don't know if there's a name for this behaviour, would be interested in hearing if there is a name for it.
- Fede_V 9y agoPai's speech was funny, but his behaviour as chairman is completely indefensible, especially with all the evidence that the comment submission process was fraught with irregularities. To put it more concretely: if you think he has no ulterior motive in acting the way he is acting, what betting odds would you give against him being given a very lucratively paid sinecure as vp in some sort of telecom as soon as he is legally allowed?
- tomcam 9y agoIt always helps to remember that our political opposites may also possess a sense of humor
- madcoder253 9y agoFYI Those were not fake names, they were stolen identifies, including correct addresses and phone numbers. I know that because my mom who passed away 2 years ago was on the comments list posted in August of this year against net neutrality. Regarding duplicates entries, that is explained by multiple sites making it easy to post for net neutrality, using the same language for each person who posted.
- thomastjeffery 9y agoWhether or no Pai has a confict of interest is not very relevant. Whether Pai's conclusions are based in personal opinion, or not is irrelevant. The problem is that Pai is ignoring those whom it is duty to serve, and abusing the authority of his chairmanship to dictate policy for an entire country without any meaningful discussion.
- RickJWag 9y agoI saw the quotes around "jokes" and didn't read the article. Bias is obvious, it's not going to be informative reading.