John Legere defends Binge On in a Twitter rant against the EFF

By Lulu Chang Published January 8, 2016

t mobile q4 2014 report subscriber growth john legere un carrier event — Image used with permission by copyright holder

John Legere isn’t one to mince words, and yesterday, he set Twitter a-twitter with a rant against the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that included some choice vocabulary. On Thursday, the T-Mobile CEO posted a video of himself lambasting the non-profit after it raised questions about the cell phone provider’s “Binge On” program. In a recent report, the EFF accused Legere’s company of slowing down connections to video sites, which clearly infuriated the executive. “Who the f**k are you EFF, why are you stirring up so much trouble, and who pays you?” Legere asks in his video.

.@AvohkahTamer pic.twitter.com/x4CwHbmRQ6

— John Legere (@JohnLegere) January 7, 2016

Like its creator, Binge On has seen its fair share of controversy. A number of journalists picked up on some questionable aspects of the program, first introduced in November, most notably that T-Mobile’s “optimization” of video is applied agnostically, which basically means that everything is being slowed down. And on Monday, the EFF conducted an investigation of its own, concluding, “…our results show that T-Mobile is throttling video streams, plain and simple.”

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But according to Legere, everyone’s got it all wrong. “What Binge On does, it includes a proprietary technology and what the technology does is not only detect the video stream but select the appropriate bit rate to optimize to the video, the mobile device. That’s part A of my answer,” said the CEO in his Twitter rant. And Part B, if you were wondering, was the more impolite portion.

Twitter, of course, had plenty to say in response to Legere, and users were eager to tell the leader exactly who EFF was. One user tweeted, “Are you high John?! The EFF has been a huge part of ensuring digital rights for decades.”

https://twitter.com/Sonikku_a/status/685201480337379328

https://twitter.com/NeuroKit/status/685243579745185796?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/mattl/status/685224731667087360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

So to clarify, the CEO later noted that he did, in fact, have some background on the Foundation, writing, “This is not a personal campaign against EFF — It’s simply a topic in a broader conversation about customer choice, which I’m fighting for.” But he didn’t stop defending Binge On either, stating, “innovation can be controversial!”

Really, it just goes to show there’s never a dull moment on Twitter.

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