John Oliver has sent out a warning over the Trump administration’s attack on net neutrality, detailing the problems that it could bring.
On his HBO show, Last Week Tonight, the comic spoke about the president’s desire to roll back Barack Obama’s attempts to prevent companies from exerting control over people’s access to certain sites.
“It seems that the Trump era will basically control-Z everything that happened on Obama’s watch,” he said, referring to the “undo” keyboard command. “I genuinely would not be surprised if one night Trump went on TV to say that he personally killed every turkey Obama ever pardoned.”
Oliver explained net neutrality in more detail, saying it essentially restricted the ability of internet service providers (ISPs) to make it easier to connect to sites they favor. He spoke about Verizon, a company that has sent out a contradictory message. “So when Verizon claims: ‘Hey, we love the open internet but why don’t we just put it on a different legal footing,’ it’s basically OJ Simpson asking why you won’t let him hold any of your samurai swords,” he said.
The new head of the FCC is Ajit Pai, a man who has asked for less regulation and has previously worked for Verizon. Some of his rhetoric has alarmed Oliver. “‘Days are numbered’ and ‘take a weed whacker’ are serial killer talk,” he said.
Pai’s Twitter feed is filled with quotes from The Big Lebowski, something that has also annoyed Oliver. “Quoting The Big Lebowski is fine in certain contexts, for example, if you’re an actor and it’s 1998 and you’re filming the movie The Big Lebowski, but it is completely intolerable in any other context,” he said.
He went on to say that “there are multiple examples of ISP fuckery over the years” so restrictions are important.
“I do not particularly trust this or any Congress to get something as complicated as this right, and I definitely wouldn’t want the current president involved as, and this will not surprise you, he doesn’t seem to have any idea what any of this is,” he said.
Oliver finished with a plea, asking people to lodge their concerns on the FCC site.
“Every internet group needs to come together, like you successfully did three years ago,” he said. “Every subculture must join as one: gamers, YouTube celebrities, Instagram models, Tom from MySpace, if you’re still alive. We need all of you – and I cannot believe I’m saying this, but Donald Trump’s internet fans on sites like 4chan and Reddit, the most powerful online trolls of all.”
He continued: “If the internet is evidence of nothing else, it is evidence that we all have way too much time on our hands.”
