Breitbart News, the online haven for white nationalists (AKA the alt-right,AKA PizzaGate conspiracy theorists AKA Alex Jones AKA actual Nazis) thought they had were being real clever when they retweeted a ‘joke’ about the potential doom of net neutrality.
Twitter user and Daily Beast contributor Ken Klippenstein tweeted a joke about how in the event net neutrality is killed, Breitbart will be the only site with video capability. The alt-right platform retweeted Klippenstein’s message and said “This, but unironically.”
Klippenstein promptly changed his Twitter name to “Breitbart ❤️s Nazis.” The website refuses to delete the tweet despite the name change, going one step further to (sorta) explain why:
Basically, Breitbart thinks the idea of monopolies are ‘awesome’ and wants props for never pivoting to videos. Gotta give ’em that, I guess???
Net neutrality, by the way, is essentially democracy of the Internet. Currently, the Federal Communications Commission wants to stop treating the internet as a public good, which means internet service providers will give different types of access to websites depending on how much those websites pay them. It is consolidating information into the hands of few. It is anti-American and anti-democracy.
It's been two hours. At this point, we can just assume Breitbart's response to @kenklippenstein is, "Yeah, and?" pic.twitter.com/HZbOvxQ2uf
— Ben Wolford (@BenWolford) November 21, 2017
Who would have guessed that the person running the Breitbart Twitter would be a dipshit
— Connor Wroe Southard (@ConnorSouthard) November 22, 2017
But this isn’t surprising. If history has shown us anything, it’s that the autocratic and the corrupt are hellbent on keeping a tight rein on information. Here are a few tweets that help clear up the importance of keeping net neutrality around, as well as provide resources for what you can do to help: