Andrea O’Sullivan is program manager for the Technology Policy Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and the coauthor of “Bitcoin: A Primer for Policymakers.” @anjiecast
Many people are in a veritable state of hysteria following the Federal Communications Commission vote on Chairman Ajit Pai’s “Restoring Internet Freedom” (RIF) order. It’s a nasty state of affairs, and it’s one unfortunately driven by a lot of false rhetoric and outright fearmongering over how policy is actually changing. Telling people that a policy change will “end the internet as we know it” or “kill the internet” can agitate troubled people into doing crazy things.