Rep. Ro Khanna’s tweet last month has
garnered nearly 65,000 retweets, but also
received criticism from FCC Chair Ajit Pai.
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17TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Rep. Ro Khanna has had it in for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai almost from Day One.
Upon Pai’s nomination to chair of the FCC in February, Khanna, himself, a newly-minted congressmember, called him a “poster boy” for placing corporate interest over those of the public, and his appointment by President Donald Trump as “one of the worst picks possible in government.”
“He is writing the rules of modern day capitalism in a way that privileges these elite telecom companies, with concentrated economic power, at the expense of low income Americans,” Khanna said earlier this year.
FCC Chair Ajit Pai |
Speaking in Washington Tuesday at the R Street Institute, a free market think tank, Pai mocked a series of Hollywood actors, including Kumail Nanjiani, Cher, Alyssa Milano, and Mark Ruffalo for describing the the potential repeal of net neutrality as “the end of the Internet as we know it.”
He then made reference to a tweet Khanna posted Aug. 26 on the impact on Web consumers in Portugal in the absence of net neutrality. Khanna’s posting has gone viral since, garnering nearly 65,000 retweets, as of Tuesday night.
In Portugal, with no net neutrality, internet providers are starting to split the net into packages. pic.twitter.com/TlLYGezmv6— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) October 27, 2017
Pai, however, did not direct his comments specifically toward Khanna, but instead to Star Trek actor George Takei, who retweeted the first-term congressmember. Khanna, nonetheless, lashed back at Pai on Twitter.
.@AjitPaiFCC attacked me today along with @MarkRuffalo & @Alyssa_Milano but got the facts wrong. Application-specific bundles like the Portugal MEO example would almost certainly have been revised by the Wheeler FCC under the 2015 order. Maybe read the order before repealing it?— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) November 29, 2017
Pai said curated Internet packages are lawful under rules adopted by the Obama administration and that net neutrality exists in Portugal and the European Union. “The conduct that is described in a graphic that is currently being spread around the Internet is currently allowed,” said Pai. “The complaints don’t hold water.”
This is a return to a policy that was in place during the Clinton administration, the Bush administration and Obama's first term. Why, all of a sudden, is this a major problem?
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