The main story for last week’s Last Week Tonight was all about net neutrality, specifically the misinformation and risks coming from Ajit Pai (and his gigantic coffee mug), Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission head who is aiming to remove “Title II” classification. Oliver, just like with the previous time the show addressed net neutrality, called upon his viewers to go to the FCC’s public comment site to send a message. Staying on-brand with a catchy domain, commenters could do this by going to gofccyourself.com.
In a web-exclusive update, Oliver goes through the flood of comments on the FCC website which reached 1,612,752 filings. “And comment, you did,” says the host. As was expected, comments ranged from those in passionate support and fierce opposition to net neutrality, to pleas to not add lag to their streaming porn from a user who called themselves the “International Space Station (iss).” The comments, as one conservative writer also notes, were full of “fake names” from Donald Trump to John Oliver to Michael Jackson (whom Oliver points out lives at “420 Buthold Street”). They were also, as comment sections always are, full of bots (who the host points out should be in favor of a free internet), vulgarity, racist comments, and more.
“If any of those came from anyone who watches this show, stop it. Do not fucking do that. Writing racist things on the internet is not how you win the net neutrality debate … it’s how you win the presidency. We know that. We know that now.”
Mic. Drop.
Last Week Tonight didn’t post the update just to point out some funny comments and make jokes about how the news coverage thought he was Stephen Colbert, however. Oliver reminded viewers to comment in a “civil, clear fashion,” but “don’t actually do it right now.” The FCC is scheduled to vote on their net neutrality proposal Thursday, May 18th, but a “procedural quirk” means they will not be considering any submissions in the week before. As a result, he explains, gofccyourself.com is currently not redirecting users to the website. However, they will when the comments count again.
(image: screencap)
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