Net Neutrality II

After a surge of comments supporting net neutrality that were inspired by Oliver's episode, the FCC voted to reclassify broadband as a utility in 2015.

Afterward, Oliver describes the reason for his second episode: the Trump administration is rolling back Obama-era regulations, including Wheeler's net-neutrality rules.

The comedian next explains Titles I and II of the Communications Act of 1934; the ruling provided by Comcast v. FCC; and Pai's appointment by President Trump.

Oliver says that based on this context, Verizon's bid for a "different legal footing" was akin to "O. J. Simpson asking why you won't let him hold any of your samurai swords".

[3] Pai's easygoing attitude, casual quotations of The Big Lebowski on his Twitter account, and affinity for his large Reese's-branded coffee mug made him personable, and according to Oliver, even more dangerous.

[3] Oliver says that Pai is a former lawyer for Verizon[4] who has said that "we were not living in some digital dystopia before the partisan imposition of a massive plan hatched in Washington saved all of us",[5] to which the comedian adds, "Except for Pizza Rat".

Oliver then takes a serious tone, saying that reclassification of ISPs was the only way to regulate them, and points out that Pai had erroneously said that there is no evidence of throttling by cable companies.

One alternative stipulated that ISPs simply include a voluntary statement in their terms of service indicating that they would not throttle or block content,[7][8] which Oliver says would "make net neutrality as binding as a proposal on The Bachelor".

[1][2][8] He says, "Every Internet group needs to come together like you successfully did three years ago … gamers; YouTube celebrities; Instagram models; Tom from MySpace, if you're still alive.

Oliver describes that some media had doubts about this net-neutrality drive, with one news anchor alleging that there were 128,000 spambot comments with fake names.

[13] As with the previous "Net Neutrality" segment, the FCC site was thought to have crashed temporarily as a result of the surge in commenting.

[16] BuzzFeed journalist Kevin Collier filed a lawsuit against the FCC after it refused to publish data related to the outage under the Freedom of Information Act.

[17] In response to the segment, Ajit Pai made a video in which he read and responded to mean tweets about himself in the style of a Jimmy Kimmel Live!

[18][19] Gizmodo criticized Pai's video, saying that he refused to debate Oliver's points and instead "addresses a bunch of Twitter eggs", anonymous user profiles, "with the implication that anyone who opposes his cash grab for corporations is a moron".