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Common Dreams reports
Last Week Tonight host John Oliver on [May 7] issued another powerful rallying cry to save net neutrality protections, and, repeating the outcome of his 2014 plea, his viewers flooded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) site, causing it to temporarily crash.
[...] Oliver said it's worth noting that [FCC Chairman Ajit] Pai is "a former lawyer for Verizon", a company which "won a lawsuit which meant that if the FCC wanted strong, enforceable protection, its only real option was to reclassify the ISPs, and yet he cheerily insists under questioning that there is just not evidence that cable companies were engaging in rampant wrongdoing".
"Title II is the most solid legal foundation we have right now for a strong, enforceable net neutrality protections", Oliver said, and urged "we, the people, [to] take this matter into our own hands".
To that end, Last Week Tonight bought the domain name gofccyourself.com, which redirects users to the official FCC page[1] where open internet advocates can leave a comment and call for these protections to remain in place. (Oliver notes that it simplifies the commenting process the FCC "has made more difficult since three years ago".)
"Everyone needs to get involved. Comment now, and then maybe comment again when the FCC makes its proposal official. Even call you representative and your senators", Oliver urged.
So successful was the start of his campaign, according to Motherboard, that there was such a high volume of traffic flooding the Federal Communications Commission that the site temporarily went down. As of this writing, it is up and running again.
[1] The fcc.gov page is almost entirely behind scripts.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday May 09 2017, @06:14PM (4 children)
A person can be both a professional comedian and somebody who understands how government works. The strongest example of that would be now-senator Al Franken, who as senator has been a fairly serious and dedicated legislator doing stuff like ensuring Zika got treated and trying to better link mental health care with crime prevention.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday May 09 2017, @06:53PM (3 children)
Back in the 90's I enjoyed Al Franken's book: Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot, And Other Observations.
The most memorable part that springs back to mind is the "simulated interview". (That may not be the exact description used, but I'm not going to go look it up.)
Rush did a "simulated interview" with Hillary Clinton. Rush would ask loaded questions, followed by Hillary's responses. Now the responses used direct quotes from Hillary, and cited the sources. He tried to make it seem like it was fair in some delusional way.
So Al Franken did a simulated interview with Rush, and it was hilarious. Rush's responses were direct quotes cited from Rush.
Al: So Rush, are you an idiot?
Rush: Yes [1]
Footnotes:
[1] some source where Rush at one time answered "Yes".
Of course, the whole point was that the whole simulated interview thing is a farce no matter how much you try to make it look fair. And no matter how easily your stupid gullible audience accepts it as gospel truth.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @07:39PM (2 children)
And no matter how easily your stupid gullible audience accepts it as gospel truth.
I no longer think that "guillible" is the right adjective for the talk-radio zombies.
It seems to be closer to wishful. Frustrated by reality's stubborn insistence on not cooperating with their prejudices, dittoheads and the like searched out someone who told them that reality was wrong and that they were right. Limbaugh didn't lead them into idiocy, he followed the money and no one has ever gone broke telling people what they want to hear.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday May 09 2017, @08:38PM (1 child)
Apparently by telling people what they want to hear you can become president, even if you are an illiterate inarticulate maroon.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:40PM
Apparently by telling people what they want to hear you can become president
That's hardly news.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..