FCC Comment Page Buckles To Its Knees After John Oliver Asks Everyone To Comment

On Monday morning, we wrote about John Oliver’s brilliant report on net neutrality, which ended with a stirring "call to action" for internet commenters to tell the FCC why it should preserve a free and open internet. If you somehow missed it, here’s the clip again:

Many of our commenters noted that the FCC comment page that Oliver pointed to, FCC.gov/comments, appeared to be down for most of the day, either suggesting wonderful irony or that Oliver’s call to action has been monumentally successful. The FCC has put up some tweets in which it apologizes for technical difficulties, without explaining why they were occurring beyond "heavy traffic."

We’ve been experiencing technical difficulties with our comment system due to heavy traffic. We’re working to resolve these issues quickly.

— The FCC (@FCC) June 2, 2014

We’re still experiencing technical difficulties with our comment system. Thanks for your patience as we work to resolve the issues.

— The FCC (@FCC) June 2, 2014

Some of us quickly speculated that the two things were related, while some publications have simply assumed without question that it was Oliver’s pleas that brought the system down. To some extent I hope that’s the case, though I do fear a bit the kinds of comments people might be leaving.

Either way, the irony of the FCC having trouble under heavy loads concerning net neutrality was not lost on many people, who didn’t miss the opportunity to tweet some replies mocking the whole net neutrality proposal.

.@FCC can I haz priority access?

— Falk Steiner (@flueke) June 2, 2014

@FCC Don’t worry. If you pay $8M more to Comcast you might get a better connection. They might even throw in a $4M/m server lease agreement.

— Richard Risner (@Kowder) June 2, 2014

@FCC Maybe because you servers are running on the "slow lane" internet? Since when do you read comments that dont include cash bribes?

— Mark Rodgers ツ (@KC8GRQ) June 2, 2014