Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai is expected to continue to defend the agency’s controversial decision to rescind net neutrality protections when testifying before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation today.
In his remarks, Pai blasts those who opposed the FCC’s decision and mocks “hysterical predictions of doom” from proponents of net neutrality in the lead up to the FCC’s vote.
“We were told that it would be the destruction of the Internet, or as some outlets put it, ‘the end of the Internet as we know it,’” Pai’s opening statement reads. “And the official Twitter account for Senate Democrats made the following assertion (one word per line in the actual tweet): ‘If we don’t save net neutrality, you’ll get the internet one word at a time.’ This claim was baseless when it was made…The claim remains false today.”
Pai is expected to be grilled by Senators about the agency’s claim that it was subjected to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on its public comment system after John Oliver, of Last Week Tonight, urged his listeners to leave comments in support of keeping net neutrality protections.
Net neutrality advocates immediately took issue with the claim and asked for the FCC to release evidence of the alleged attack.
The claim that the FCC was hit was a DDoS attack was deemed false by a report from the Inspector General last week, and Pai blamed the agency’s former chief information officer for providing “inaccurate information” about the alleged DDoS attack.
In his opening remarks, Pai does not address the alleged attack or Inspector General report.
You can read all of the opening remarks submitted to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation here.
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