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Ajit Pai Posts an Unlisted Selfie Travelogue to YouTube

The FCC Chairman inexplicably uploaded a bizarre video to YouTube on Wednesday.
Image: Ajit Pai/YouTube

June 22, 2018: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has since deleted the video he posted to YouTube. A spokesperson for the agency told Motherboard:

"The video in question is no longer on YouTube because today it is going to be posted directly to Twitter. That is how his videos are generally distributed so they are easier for people to view (rather than having to click through a YouTube link). In this instance, it went up first on YouTube because of a technical difficulty."

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"Chairman Pai has been traveling across the country on digital divide trips (he has been to 31 states since January 2017)," the spokesperson added, "and uses videos as a way to share insights from the road."

Least-liked-man-on-the-internet and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai posted an unlisted video to YouTube for ??? reasons yesterday. In it, Pai appears in Twin Falls, Idaho to ramble about its natural beauty and rural broadband projects in the area. Everyone please like and subscribe to Pai’s foray into vlogging, and don't forget to smash that bell.

The video, which was pointed out by The Verge editor Chris Welch, is unlisted and posted under the “Comedy” category.

It’s called Twin Falls 2, which begs the questions: Is there a Twin Falls 1? (A perfunctory search revealed no hits.) If so, why didn’t Pai post it? Or did he post it? Why are the videos unlisted, and not shared to the FCC YouTube channel? The public deserves to know.

Pai tweeted the video from his Twitter account, and was then retweeted by the FCC whose role now sadly includes promoting the vlogs of its thought-leader.

Over the past week, Pai has been sharing updates from Idaho. Like this trip to Craters of the Moon National Monument, and visit to the Idaho National Laboratory. Here he is holding some potatoes:

“Part of the reason I'm on this trip to Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington,” Pai told Fox News Radio, “is to see some of the challenges and some of the opportunities and to see in the community where some interest access is and where it isn't.”

This is despite Pai’s plan to cut broadband access from poor people by gutting an important FCC program.

Pai, as we know, is no stranger to propaganda videos. His infamous Harlem Shake video—about which the FCC refused to release emails, citing a nebulous FOIA exemption rule—tried to convince Americans that without net neutrality the internet would be better. In another, he attempted a failed comedy bit mocking Twitter users who’d been mean to him.

It’s not immediately clear who filmed today’s video (it looks like a selfie.) Or why Pai thinks confessional-style videos are an effective way of doing his job. But we’re happy to keep making fun of them!