Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over Data On Fake Net Neutrality Comments

[ancianita]

The FCC dragged its knuckles for three years, but it's finally gotta hand over the fake bot identical postings that it counted to justify Adjit Pai's destructive net neutrality ruling.

Here's what all the bot public said, identically and in perfect alphabetical order:

"The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation. 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."

(The fuller story from TechDirt: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170510/08191137334/bot-is-flooding-fcc-website-with-fake-anti-net-neutrality-comments-alphabetical-order.shtml)





How this "astroturfed public" hit the courts:

Numerous journalists like Jason Prechtel have submitted FOIA requests for more data (server logs, IP addresses, API data, anything) that might indicate who was behind the fraudulent comments, who may have bankrolled them, and what the Pai FCC knew about it.

Thanks to that effort, early last year, Gizmodo's Dell Cameron worked with Prechtel to link some of the fake comments to Trump associates and some DC lobbying shops like CQ Roll Call. Then late last year, Buzzfeed's Kevin Collier and Jeremy-Singer Vine showed how, unsurprisingly, the broadband industry funded at least some of the fraudulent efforts.

Keep in mind this sort of thing wasn't a one off; numerous regulatory agencies have been plagued by similar efforts for years. Generating bogus support for shitty government policy is now just an additional service many law, lobbying, and PR firms offer corporations and clients as an added service.

But much like astroturfing -- which often extends to real world protests -- it's such an obscure concept to most people it never warrants a second thought.

But it's ethically grotesque all the same, especially given it pollutes some of the only opportunities the public has to comment on harmful government policies.


At this point there's enough evidence to reasonably conclude that the broadband industry and GOP hired a bunch of K Street firms to "stuff the ballot box," and the FCC -- likely knowing the broadband industry's involvement -- took steps to try and help cover it up.

This lawsuit is likely to reveal even more data to help bolster that conclusion.

The question now is whether the courts (or anybody else) will actually care, and whether anybody's going to do anything about it.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200504/07061944426/judge-orders-fcc-to-hand-over-data-fake-net-neutrality-comments.shtml?fbclid=IwAR02IDIoyDkW9MxsSvovAi4DXHcPk4pSWcyFuu3l68VOzShp6e8qU20Q-EE

Given the machinery of "public input," it looks as if the Republicans are headed toward running a country of, for, and by corporate bot persona.

[alwaysinasnit]

1. K&R Thanks for posting.

[gratuitous]

2. Ends justifying the means again

As long as the FCC reached the regulatory conclusion that the industry wanted, who cares how it happened? It's not like we're supposed to have a representative form of government. Americans pay the highest rates for the shoddiest internet access on the planet. But the big boys are making money, and that's all that counts.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. That's how GOP rationalizes their election fraud efforts, too!

[BComplex]

4. Boom!

They do indeed! This is how they've been fucking up our country for years. They have weaponized dirty tricks.

[ancianita]

5. This is what captured corporate government does: eliminate human free will and create fake govt.

While the very real peons (in their world view) are forced to "get back to work" on the plantation, told they're inferior to the owners who "know best," and become the inhabitants of a shit hole country, seen as no different from the creatures who infect them with coronavirus.

[Midnight Writer]

6. "Judge orders FCC"? And the White House can just ignore any ruling. Again. Who's gonna stop them?

[ancianita]

7. Courts enforce through fines. Possibly jail. This is a felony that's harmed the American public

under the First Amendment.

We know the iron curtain that blocks much constitutional enforcement, but we'll see what enforcement this judge uses before we can write off the courts.

This could end up in SCOTUS. Who knows at this point.