FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Just Doesn’t Want to Do Shit, Eh?

You know that feel when you just really can not be vex to do any piece of work ? Of of course you do ! It ’s Friday good afternoon . You ’re staring at the concealment , waiting in vain for Twitter to bring home the bacon some decent distractions , maybe scroll through OpenTable for brunch reservations , fantasizing about sleeping in tomorrow . Someone who certainly sleep with that feel is FCC chair Ajit Pai , who , consort to late reports , outlined a programme this week to get last disinterest off his dental plate . Because , ugh , maintaining an open internet is gruelling , you guys .

Several outletsreportedlast night that Pai talk about a plan with telecom trade group this week to revolutionise net disinterest convention , and return lapse of internet companies to the FTC . The architectural plan would also admit a voluntary agreement with internet service provider to abide by certain net neutrality principles , such as not blocking certain web site .

Details are still relatively scarce , and neither Pai nor the FCC have given much in the mode of an official Good Book . But this could extend us to one possible finis : This man is lazy as hell .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

The FTC has a much broad , and much unaccented , form of inadvertence . As we ’ve writtenbefore , the FTC mostly regulates companies ’ trade practice session on whether they ’re unfair or deceptive , whereas the FCC is able to use a broader public interest standard . And whereas the FTC does n’t really cut rules , the FCC can , intend it can prevent abuses by ISPs rather than just penalise them after they ’ve already happened .

press supervision to the FTC has two advantages for Ajit Pai : One , it ’s likely to be favorable to his BFFs at the telecom companies , because the FTC ’s oversight is so much weak . Two , he just does n’t have to deal with that shit anymore .

Pai has previously indicate his , uh , strong penchant for letting the FTC deal things . On broadband seclusion , for example , Pai hasconsistentlyadvocated for FTC inadvertence . And in an op - ed published late in theWashington Post , Pai and Maureen Ohlhausen — who also happens to be the acting chairman of the FTC — noted that , with heed to the controversy over arecent decisionto dial back internet privateness linguistic rule , “ we ’ll be working together to regenerate the FTC ’s authority to police ISPs ’ secrecy practices . ” ( Free - market conservatives havepushedfor the FTC to take over broader internet oversight for year . ) Clearly , Pai has thought a gravid deal about how he want to spend his clip , and it for certain seems like he ’d rather just let the FTC lineal traffic and drink a beer in his backyard hammock instead . *

William Duplessie

Net disinterest , which ensures that net service provider ca n’t prioritise traffic , was brought in by Obama ’s FCC in 2015 when itenactedthe Open Internet Order . That order reclassified internet services as “ common carriers , ” like earphone company , known as the Title II reclassification , mean the FCC could regulate it .

But regulating ISPs is so much work . And candidly Jerry in HR try those FTC guys go home at like 3 autopsy on Fridays and take at least an hour for dejeuner , so why should n’t they do it , too ?