So we've been noting for a while that the FCC doesn't appear to care that a bot is stuffing the ballot box with phony support for the agency's quest to kill net neutrality. The agency also doesn't much appear to care that people's identities are being hijacked to falsely support the agency's goal (check out this comment made in my (and our) name supporting killing net neutrality, for example). It's fairly clear the FCC is ignoring the problem to help downplay the extreme unpopularity of their plan to kill the consumer protections.
This week, Democratic lawmakers
fired another letter off to the FCC urging it to investigate these "irregularities."
"We ask you to examine these serious problems and irregularities that raise doubts about the fairness, and perhaps even the legitimacy, of the FCC's process in its net neutrality proceeding," the lawmakers wrote in their letter to the FCC. "Giving the public an opportunity to comment in an open proceeding such as this one is crucial -- so that the FCC can consider the full impact of its proposals, and treat everyone who would be affected fairly."
Consumer advocates similarly say a recent supposed "DDoS attack" on FCC systems, combined with a failure to police fraud, has compromised the integrity of the entire FCC commenting process.
"Large numbers of people were prevented from voicing their legitimate concerns about the agency's plan to dismantle net neutrality protections, while at the same time they have refused to do anything about the massive number of fake anti-net neutrality comments that have been submitted using stolen names and addresses," Greer said in a statement.
And while you'll often see news reports stating that fake comments is something "both sides" are doing, no objective data scientists (without funding ties to the telecom industry) have confirmed this. Objective data scientists have confirmed, however, that as much as 40% of the 5 million comments so far have been posted by a hacker's bot in opposition to net neutrality.
Again, the FCC's apathy here is because net neutrality rules have
broad, bipartisan support. And if they can undermine the integrity of the commenting process by refusing to police fraud, they can downplay the massive public opposition against what most see as a horrible, anti-consumer idea.