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Bots Flood FCC Website With Fake Anti-Net-Neutrality Comments

Thanks in large part to John Oliver's recent piece on net neutrality, the FCC's comment system has seen a massive spike in user comments on the subject. As of this writing, more than 555,972 comments have been filed with the FCC regarding the agency's plan to kill popular net neutrality protections for consumers, which still pales in comparison to the record 4 million public comments filed when the FCC crafted the rules back in 2015.

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But over at Reddit a number of users this week began to notice a group of 128,000 (and counting) duplicate comments -- filed in perfect alphabetic order -- all opposing net neutrality. All of the comments made the same (misleading) statement:
quote:
"The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation," the comment says. "I urge the Federal Communications Commission to end the bureaucratic regulatory overreach of the internet known as Title II and restore the bipartisan light-touch regulatory consensus that enabled the internet to flourish for more than 20 years."
It should go without saying by now that blindly gutting consumer protections and letting Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and Charter blithely abuse the lack of last-mile competition doesn't magically create jobs or aid the economy. And, as we've explained at length, FCC boss Ajit Pai's plan to shovel any remaining oversight to the already over-extended FTC (authority which AT&T has shown can be easily tap danced around) could prove disastrous for broadband consumers.

The fact that there are duplicate comments in and of itself isn't alarming, given that net neutrality activists and ISP think tanks both use outrage-o-matic e-mail campaigns -- which let users file the digital equivalent of a form letter with the FCC. But ZDNet dug a little deeper into the comments and discovered they were being created by a bot that's pulling names alphabetically from a database (possibly public voter registration records or a previous data breach).

But the really interesting part: ZDNet managed to get a hold of the supposed owners of these names, many of which say they never filed comments -- and have no idea what net neutrality even is:
quote:
We reached out to two-dozen people by phone, and we left voicemails when nobody picked up. A couple of people late Tuesday called back and confirmed that they had not left any messages on the FCC's website. One of the returning callers specifically said they didn't know what net neutrality was. A third person reached in a Facebook message Tuesday also confirmed that they had not left any comments on any website.
It's still not clear who is spearheading the bot campaign, but crafting entirely phony opposition to net neutrality has been a tactic used by large ISPs in the past. In 2014 a lobbying group by the name of DCI Group (which takes funding from Verizon) was caught paying people to voice opposition to net neutrality online. You just know your argument is sound when you have to pay fake people (or bots) to parrot it.

Most recommended from 38 comments



SuperSpy
join:2012-06-15
Coldwater, MI

23 recommendations

SuperSpy

Member

How is this not 1000% illegal?

It's not exactly voter fraud, but it's very much in the same ball park.
b10010011
Whats a Posting tag?
join:2004-09-07
united state

1 edit

13 recommendations

b10010011

Member

Conservative operatives at work

Obviously a ploy by Conservatives to discredit ALL public comments on net neutrality.

Just like when Conservative members of Congress said all the "Don't take away my Obamacare" talk they were hearing from their constituents was all coming from paid Liberal operatives that snuck into their town hall meetings.

michieru
Premium Member
join:2009-07-25
Denver, CO

12 recommendations

michieru

Premium Member

This is ridiculous

The comments should be completely wiped clean and start fresh with Captcha and email or text verification. There still might be bots that could get through but the number will severely dwindle.
DeLiver3
Premium Member
join:2004-09-01
Cincinnatus, NY

7 recommendations

DeLiver3

Premium Member

Just curious...

How many posters here have submitted their reasoned, well thought out objections to the proposed rule change? I did.
priceshawnm
join:2013-06-12

4 recommendations

priceshawnm

Member

First amendment rights violation

Since the Supreme Court citizens united ruling corporations are considered to be people. So I think it is only fair that bots should be considered people and deleteing these comments would be a violation of their right to free speech.

sporkme
drop the crantini and move it, sister
MVM
join:2000-07-01
Morristown, NJ

1 edit

3 recommendations

sporkme

MVM

Site broken?

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So as of right now, when I enter a comment, the second step where my comment is displayed for confirmation, the giant blue button that says "submit" just does... nothing. On purpose? Site overwhelmed? DIdn't bother testing on Chrome?

Ah, I see. The submit is an ajax request, and their backend is f*cking up and giving a 503. Nice error handling, guys. Zero user feedback unless you open dev tools and watch the console. That should certainly help the bots win. I hope Pai's mug is full of steaming hot coffee and it gets dumped in his lap.