The video was published by the conservative news site the Daily Caller and pushed on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. But the musician who created the Harlem Shake song was not pleased. “I support Net Neutrality like the vast majority of this country and am appalled to be associated with its repeal in anyway," said the producer and DJ Harry Rodrigues, who goes by the stage name Baauer. In a tweet Thursday, the record label Mad Decent said that neither it nor Baauer gave permission to the Daily Caller to use their music, and do not agree with the video’s message. “We have issued a takedown will pursue further legal action if it is not removed,” the tweet said. While the video on YouTube appeared to have been taken down on Friday morning, it was back online later that day. In a post on the Daily Caller website, publisher Neil Patel said that Google "had censored the video based on a bogus claim from a politically motivated man." Google is YouTube's umbrella company, which is a subsidiary of Alphabet.

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YouTube responded on Friday. "YouTube doesn’t determine who owns the rights to what content. That is between the parties involved -- the uploader, rights holders, and courts -- to determine. We do provide tools to rights holders and uploaders to help them mediate copyright claims," a company spokeswoman said. "We act quickly to remove content when notified as is required of us by law and, when we see that there is a potential case for fair use, we ask the claimant to make sure they’ve conducted that analysis."

Pai's video came just a day before the commission voted in a 3-to-2 party-line vote to repeal net neutrality rules set in 2015. Under Pai's new plan, Internet providers would be allowed to speed up service for some apps and websites and block or slow others.

The video speaks to Pai's quirky sense of humor and his belief that the Internet and the public's relationship to it won't be harmed after net neutrality rules are dismantled.

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“Quite simply, we are restoring the light-touch framework that has governed the Internet for most of its existence,” he said in comments leading up to the FCC vote Thursday.

The absurdist video seized on the widespread outcry against Pai's moves, portraying the concerns of many consumers, technology companies and civil society groups as doomsday hysteria. But Pai's critics, including two of his fellow commissioners, see the repeal as an affront to free expression and a vibrant Internet marketplace. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel described the process leading up to the vote as “corrupt,” adding, “I dissent from the contempt this agency has shown our citizens in pursuing this path today.”

Pai has not shied away from controversy. Since President Trump elevated him to lead the commission earlier this year, he's moved swiftly to deregulate Internet service providers and squash rules designed to limit the reach and power of broadcasting companies, which experts say may lead to greater consolidation.

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Pai was first appointed to the FCC by President Obama in 2011. Before that, he was a partner at the law firm Jenner & Block and held several positions as a staffer at the FCC, including deputy general counsel. In the early 2000s, he worked as a senior counsel at the Department of Justice, deputy chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, and was a lawyer for Verizon. Pai’s parents immigrated from India. He was raised in Kansas.

Pai's tongue-in-cheek video stands in stark contrast to the often testy give-and-take that has surrounded much of the net neutrality debate. In recent weeks, as a vote approached, Pai and his family even became targets of harassment. In one incident, cardboard signs naming his two children were left outside of his home in Arlington. “They will come to know the truth. Dad murdered Democracy in cold blood,” one sign read. A spokesperson for the FCC said that Pai’s family has received many threats, and that his wife has been receiving harassing emails at work.

The tone of the video should not have come as a surprise. People who know Pai describe him as an ebullient presence, given to occasional cornball humor. As a policymaker, he has consistently championed the same views he held when Democrats controlled the commission, in the pre-Trump era.

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“People have known what is coming and what he cares about by watching what he cared about as a minority commissioner, when he had little power to direct the agency,” said Joshua Wright, a law professor at George Mason University and a former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission.

Like Pai, Wright was appointed by Obama to hold a post reserved for the GOP, and the two became friends inside Democratically controlled agencies. Wright described Pai as generous and principled, and a person willing to engage with his critics. Whether people are upset by Pai’s actions as chairman or are drawn to him because of it, his effectiveness can’t be denied, he said. “I can’t think of a more effective regulatory commissioner than Ajit Pai.”

Others say Pai's pleasant demeanor can mask destructive policy views. “His general friendliness can sometimes cover up an agenda that harms consumers,” said Chris Lewis, the vice president of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group. Lewis said that he doesn't know Pai well, but he would occasionally exchange greetings with him in the hallways of the FCC, when they were both staffers.