Ajit Pai is a DJ from Goa, India, who unfortunately shares a name with the controversial FCC figurehead. Shockingly, some online commenters have failed to draw the distinction and have flocked to Pai’s social accounts to yell about net neutrality.
Pai first learned that he shared a name with the chairman six months ago, but it had never been a problem until that comment. Last week, as the FCC vote to remove established net neutrality rules became a national controversy, Pai suddenly found himself at the center of the public’s rage about losing access to an unregulated internet.
“I’ve been getting death [threats] and abusive calls the whole night, since we are 10 and half hours ahead of your time [in India],” he tells The Verge via email. “My mailbox on www.ajitpai.com is flooded and I need to make my admin empty it out every two days. I can’t even count the number of mentions and comments I get every day.”
DJ Ajit Pai has stated that he is in support of net neutrality, citing that India grazed through a like situation last year for Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. “No one has the right to differentiate between who should be allowed to breathe more or breathe less,” states Pai. While he may never be able to face the FCC’s Ajit Pai, he most certainly has a message for him:
“If the inventors of the internet never kept a patent, or any kind of control nor rights for themselves over their invention, and gave it to the world for free… not you, neither any greedy politician nor any over-ambitious corporate has the right to control its flow.”