It's official: the Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is as much of a dumpster fire as the monstrosity in the White House. In a speech Tuesday, Ajit Pai declared that Twitter banning Nazis is an attack on the conservative movement and that the real threat to the open internet is coming from liberals who are using the internet to speak freely, sort of making our point about the threat he poses to democracy in ending net neutrality.
The Federal Communications Commission chairman defended his plan as a return to a light regulatory framework established by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s at the dawn of the commercial internet. Then he went on the attack against social media platform Twitter, accusing it and other, unnamed internet companies of censorship. […]
"Let's not kid ourselves. When it comes to an open internet, Twitter is part of the problem," Pai said at an event hosted by the R Street Institute in Washington. "The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate." […]
He also attacked celebrities who've taken to Twitter and other social media networks to criticize his new policy. He poked fun at actress Alyssa Milano's tweet last week that said the FCC's move puts democracy at risk. Milano, who starred with Tony Danza in the 1980s hit TV show "Who's the Boss?" has advocated for net neutrality in the past.
"I'm threatening our democracy? Really?" Pai quipped. "If this were 'Who's the Boss?' this would be an opportunity for Tony Danza to dish out some wisdom about the consequences of making things up."
That was kind of a mistake on his part. In an epic tweet storm, Milano answered his "misogynistic, personal attack" with one of the most well-informed and lucid discussions of the open internet you're likely to read, remembering all the time that Pai is a twitter fiend and using his handle, @AjitPaiFCC, to make sure they showed up in his feed.
That’s an own.