Today’s Surprisingly Excellent Net Neutrality Explainer Is Brought to You by Burger King
If you stopped 10 people on the street and asked them the first thing they thought of when you mentioned Burger King, you’d probably hear about various types of Whoppers, with a potential mention of flame-broiled bovine or the odd reference to the company’s infinitely-inferior-to-the-Egg-McMuffin CROISSAN’WICH. Yes, it’s actually spelled that way.
What you probably wouldn’t hear are any references to net neutrality, FCC policy, or the state of broadband in America.
Burger King’s latest ad isn’t an attempt to convince you that downing a liter of cola, four pounds of salt-encrusted potato, and a half pound of cow topped with bacon constitutes an intelligent dinner decision. Instead, the new ad is a discussion of net neutrality principles, what net neutrality means to regular users, and why it matters, even if you haven’t heard of it. And here’s the weirdest part — it’s actually pretty damn good.
The ad was reportedly filmed with actors replacing normal Burger King staff, but with real restaurant patrons who are varying degrees of confused, unhappy, and downright angry over being told that their meal service will depend on their willingness to pay extra for a higher MBPS rate. That acronym, of course, stands for Making Burgers Per Second, as explained below:
If you’d asked me what level of expertise one should expect a fast food joint to bring to a net neutrality explainer a week ago, I’d have wound up somewhere between “manages to spell the topic correctly” and “doesn’t confuse the word ‘megabyte’ with a request for a large fry and half-gallon of pop.” Clearly BK has more on the ball than we’d have given them credit for.
Then again, someone at the company once signed off on this:
So I’m not sure our previous answer is entirely unreasonable. But seriously, give the video a watch. It may well be useful in explaining net neutrality to folks who want to understand the issue, but aren’t particularly technically inclined.
As of this writing, nothing much has changed in the overarching situation since earlier this month. The lawsuit by 21 states and the District of Columbia is still pending in federal court. The clock is still ticking down on the 60 day window between when the FCC formally began the repeal process (December 14) and when the repeal will take effect. And there are still just 50 votes in the Senate for a federal solution to the net neutrality reversal, and no word on any intent to take the topic up in the House, whether the Senate ever actually votes on the issue or not. The reversal of net neutrality is still on schedule.
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