The Federal Communications Commission will not release emails about the "Harlem Shake" video of President Ajit Pai, even though there is a Freedom of Information Act request for those emails, as he saw it Motherboard . The emails refer to the planning of the infamous video Daily Caller in December, where Pai tackled the net's neutrality vote by making Harlem Shake while swinging a lightsaber and wearing a Santa suit.
Now it seems that FCC does not want to reveal any details about who planned this video. He is citing exemption b5, an excuse used by government regulators to prevent the publication of public documents. The b5 exemption applies to the internal documents of the agency that "would have privileges in the civil litigation", but due to its vague language, each group has interpreted those words to protect several different documents.
The Freedom of Information Act request was presented by JPat Brown, executive editor of the MuckRock public archives platform. The FCC said it had two pages of emails, but would not release them because "it would foreseeably damage the ability of staff to perform their functions by freely discussing relevant matters." In other words, the FCC staff would find it difficult to talk about things like Pai's questionable video if the FOIA was successful.
Pai could have tried to make the video a way to fit in with the Internet culture and show that the death of net neutrality would not end the memes and fun parts of the Internet. , but the video did not come out that way for many viewers. The video has 270,000 antipathies and only 11,000 I like at the time of writing. In December, Baauer, the DJ and producer behind "Harlem Shake," said he would do everything in his power to "stop this loser." But although the video was briefly dismantled in December, it is now back on YouTube and will remain there for the foreseeable future.
