FCC Chairman Ajit Pai canceled his appearance at CES because of death threats | Hacker News Reader

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai canceled his appearance at CES because of death threats

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58 pointsmoonka48 comments

While I don't doubt the legitimacy of the death threats, I can't help but to think Pai is taking advantage of the situation in order to fashion himself as a martyr figure, especially in the eyes of Trump's hyper-reactive base.

You agree that people are trying to kill him, yet by not attending (and not getting killed) he's a "martyr?"

Your argument doesn't make sense.

According to dictionary.com, a martyr doesn't strictly have to die. A martyr "endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause". His argument makes perfect sense and I agree with it.

No. You're "cherry picking."

Why did you not quote the entire definition you cited? Here it is. It clearly mentions death as the relative level of suffering.

Full definition:

>"a person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause" [0]

What you quoted:

>"or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause"

[0] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/martyr

I'm no fan of his, but he has been getting a lot of hate lately. After the signs[1] at his home, I imagine he's a little rattled.

[1] http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fcc-chairman-ajit-pais-fam...

When you're a public official who intentionally and gleefully ignores the people you're paid to represent, I guess you shouldn't be surprised when those people get extremely angry with you. You chose to ignore them to enrich yourself at the detriment of an entire nation... And now you want us to feel sorry that someone posted a sign in front of your house? HAH!

While this may very well be true, I encourage everyone to consider deeply whether you think this to be likely because of the specifics of the situation, or because you disagree with Ajit Pai's policies.

Also in the future, be consistently skeptical when you hear news stories about people you are sympathetic to also saying they've been experiencing tons of death threats or harassment online.

So with the repeal of net neutrality the FCC can't afford to have Pai video-conference in?

He could use Cisco's Telepresence with sure mute technology: https://vimeo.com/53993957

I can't say I like Pai, but I find death threats even worse.

Is this Fake news to make those for net neutrality look like looney tunes?

Such threats have to be taken with a grain of salt. Daniel Tosh famously gets thousands of death threats, all from fans. Anyone who has run a website or had a clip go viral has received such threats. Many a cop or prosecutor has still gone to work after receiving much more personal and specific threats. I interviewed for an internship once where I was asked point blank whether I would be able to work the day after some angry person screamed such a threat at me in court. For a controversial federal official to take pathetic online threats as a real danger, absent any actual evidence, is at best a convenient reason to avoid an appearance. At worst, it's plain cowardice.

While I understand and agree with you, I feel it's important to note that death threats are never okay, even if (and especially if) "everyone gets them"

The 8th thing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhT6H6pRWg I think it is more likely that he didn't want to face criticism. I am going to have to call cite.

From that video:

"Recently there's been quite a bit of conversation about my plan to restore internet freedom."

Tom Wheeler certainly wasn't a paragon of courage and clarity before he started to feel the pressure to reclassify ISPs under Title II. But before that, I sure don't remember him taking his opponents' own language like "internet freedom" and brazenly applying it to his own position.

Did he ever do anything like that?

Edit: added apostrophe

I love how he trivializes and mocks the citizenship's use of the internet as a funhouse of mirrors for blubs.

Threats to hurt someone are always out of line. Did you read that the recent source of the swatting attack that killed the poor innocent person walking out of his house also is apparently the guy who called in the bomb threat before the vote for network neutrality at the fcc [1].

There are sadly people out there who could hurt any public official. He and everyone should be safe, but I also think he doesn't want to face a very very angry public about his joyous destruction of n.n.

[1] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/12/kansas-man-killed-in-swa...

Are they really though? Violence, and the threat of it, is literally what keeps society together at all, and what enforces all of our laws.

Kind of sad to read this thread and see everyone sitting on their high horse thinking they are amazing people for being non-violent while this guy gets away with what is probably worse than murder. When did humanity ever reach such a pathetic state where we let people just walk over us like this?

You think Reddit posts and Hackernews posts are going to ever change anything? These people are probably just laughing at us twiddling our thumbs pretending to actually do something.

There was also a bomb threat when voting on net neutrality, but he definitely didn't miss that.

also breaking: Internet cancels appearance at FCC hearings because of death threats.

How about threats-of-butt-probes-before-next-flight?

I'm pretty sure that one is more likely.

(edit: I interpreted "Internet" as in "Internet users", but I now see it was a joke for the Internet itself)

Not in favor of death threats, but if you are a public official and you do something so unpopular without a clear moral agenda (such as equal rights in the 60s) that it results in the vast majority of the people you ought to represent being so outraged that some threaten your life, maybe you ought to reexamine your policy choices.

Vast majority of your friends and like-minded people does not imply a “vast majority”. The sad reality is the actual vast majority of people don’t have a clue what Net Neutrality means, or what is implied by its repeal.

So as far as net neutrality goes: it's very vague, in favor of companies like Netflix that want cheap peering(?) at the expense of ISPs (which are acquiring each other, getting huge similar to before Bell was broken up). It's a corporation vs corporation fight

Why aren't ISPs public utilities? These technologies were developed using tax payer money at DARPA, or in government sanctioned monopolies like Bell Labs

I would be interested to hear more about the relationship between South Korea's subsidy of internet and the rise of starcraft and the high tech service economy there

Weak. The person or people issuing death threats are idiots, but my guess is that Pai seized upon a probably-not-credible threat as an excuse to avoid being utterly humiliated in a public forum. Accountability is not his style.

It definitely could be. But FCC commissioner doesn’t get a security detail. And if you go to local police they aren’t going to fly people around to protect you, they’ll just tell you to lie low.

In his situation, would you risk your life at a big public event?

Maybe he should hire private security and send the bill to Comcast.

Death threats are Very convenient for him. Makes him look persecuted while he sells out to comcast.

Judging by the number of fake net neutrality comments submitted, I bet my deceased grandfather called in a couple death threats too.

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