Reddit Co-Founder at ‘BuzzFeed Brews’: ISP’s Are ‘Trying to Break the Internet’

By Jordan Chariton 

BuzzFeed BrewsLost Remote was at “BuzzFeed Brews” in New York City last night for an interview between Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and BuzzFeed’s Charlie Warzel.

The interview, which was streamed on Facebook for the first time, touched on net neutrality, congressional ignorance on technology, sexism in the tech industry, and rapid fire word association.

“It can use a mascot, if not a total rebrand,” Ohanian said about the term net neutrality. “It’s a terrible brand.” He also took on Internet service providers. “They are trying to break the Internet…they want your Internet to look like your cable bill,” he added, using a Bing vs. Google sales pitch as an example.

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“Well Bing is your default search, but Charlie, for an extra $20 dollars a month, we’ll give you Google,” he said of what ISP’s are trying to do.

He also noted the “extortion deal” between Comcast and Netflix, where Netflix’s streaming speed slowed down significantly during their standoff with Comcast and other broadband providers, forcing them to pay more to Comcast to get their speed back up.

“Looks like your traffic sucks…we can fix that, maybe if you pay us more money,” Ohanian said of the conversation that likely took place between Comcast and Netflix. “That kind of thing can’t happen.”

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