Still: YouTube.

Last time the FCC took on net neutrality, comedian John Oliver’s video about the issue was a turning point. The clip Went Viral, and led to thousands of public comments with the FCC in favor of rules enforcing net neutrality. Now that the FCC is seeking to smash those rules, Oliver is back again with another video explaining what the fuck net neutrality is and why it matters.


Just like last time, Oliver does great job breaking down the key points of a very boring-sounding and complicated issue. Essentially, he says, net neutrality is important because it mandates that internet service providers (ISPs) “should not be able to engage in any sort of fuckery that limits or manipulates the choices you make online.” He’s also very good at skewering FCC chair Ajit Pai’s friendly adorkable bullshit, and debunking ISPs’ claims that net neutrality harmed their investment.

Oliver’s show even registered a new URL, gofccyourself.com, which redirects to the FCC’s comment page for the net neutrality proceeding—and seems to have briefly crashed the FCC site with traffic. It’s back now, in case you did want to file a comment.




Perhaps that’s why the anti-net neutrality forces in DC are already trying to counteract Oliver’s video: They’re maybe just a little bit frightened of him. The think tank Tech Freedom, which has taken $157,500 from the ISPs’ lobbying group NCTA, according to tax documents accessed through the Center for Public Integrity’s Nonprofit Network tool, live-tweeted the segment:

And there were some extremely over-hashtagged #truthbombs from the Internet Innovation Alliance, which represents AT&T:


They didn’t even thread them!

Anyway, congrats to John Oliver, who forced some unfortunate lackey for the interests of some of the world’s biggest corporations to stay up late on a Sunday night tweeting about an HBO segment, and not even getting many retweets for it. That rules.