Largest broadband companies funded a secret campaign to influence the FCC's repeal of net neutrality

[Nevilledog]

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Tweet text:
Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D
@RVAwonk
NEW (via NY AG Letitia James): “After a multi-year investigation, we found the nation's largest broadband companies funded a secret campaign to influence the FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules — resulting in millions of fake public comments impersonating Americans...”
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Unrolled thread here
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1390309703847227393.html

NEW (via NY AG Letitia James): “After a multi-year investigation, we found the nation's largest broadband companies funded a secret campaign to influence the FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules — resulting in millions of fake public comments impersonating Americans...”
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The NY Attorney General's investigation into this astroturf campaign found 18 million fake comments were filed with the FCC and half a million fake letters were sent to Congress. Many of the fake comments provided “cover” for the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality rules.

The OAG also found another 9.3 million fake comments that used fictitious identities. Most of these came from *one person* — a college student using automated software. In all, nearly 18 million of the 22+ million comments to the FCC on repealing net neutrality rules were fake.

To help generate these comments, the broadband industry hired commercial lead generators that used prizes — like gift cards — to lure consumers to their websites and join the campaign. However, nearly every lead generator simply fabricated consumers’ responses instead.

The OAG investigation also found that the fraud infected other govt proceedings. Three of the lead generation firms had also worked on more than 100 other, unrelated campaigns to influence regulatory agencies & public officials. In nearly all of these, the firms engaged in fraud.

“As a result, more than 1 million fake comments were generated for other rulemaking proceedings, and more than 3.5 million fake digital signatures for letters and petitions were generated for federal and state legislators and government officials across the nation,” per the OAG.
Three of the lead generators that were responsible for millions of the fake comments submitted in the net neutrality proceeding:
-Fluent, Inc. (4.8 million fraudulent comments)
-Opt-Intelligence, Inc. (250,000)
-React2Media, Inc. (329,000).
Statements from victims of impersonation in the fake comment scheme:

- “I am appalled to find my LATE husband’s name was fraudulently used... My husband passed away last year...after a valiant battle with cancer.”
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More statements from victims of impersonation:

“These are the kinds of actions that make the population lose faith in the system..”

“I find it extremely sick & disrespectful to be using my deceased dad to try to make an unpopular decision look the opposite.”
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[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. I don't suppose anyone might be, I dunno ... going to jail, perchance? nt

[ShazamIam]

2. No mention of criminal charges in the post? Here is what Ajit Paij is up to these days:

https://www.aei.org/press/press-release-former-fcc-commissioner-ajit-pai-joins-the-american-enterprise-institute/

Rewards for service, think tanks is where the ones they can't park on Fox News go. Allen West for example was with a Texas based think tank but is now a Texas Republican Party leader: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Allen_West

[I_UndergroundPanther]

3. Biden should reinstate net neutality

And make free community internet available in towns and cities. Starve the comcast and verizon pigs out.

The net needs to be a public utility.

Fuck the greedy ceo's.

[UpInArms]

5. link to the full OAG report

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/oag-fakecommentsreport.pdf

111. The Country’s Biggest Broadband Companies Spent $8.2 Million to Oppose Net Neutrality, Including Generating 9 Million Fake Comments and Letters in Opposition

A. The Plan: Manufacture Grassroots Support In mid-January 2017, several days before Donald Trump was inaugurated as president and set to install a new FCC Chairman, a document was circulated among a small group of senior broadband industry executives laying out a plan to overturn the FCC’s existing net neutrality regulations. The document, obtained by the OAG in its investigation, proposed a campaign that would provide support for an anticipated “FCC action to stop the current rule and initiate a new [rulemaking] proceeding.”10

The actions under consideration included financing a campaign to collect and submit a “high-volume [of] comments” to the FCC.11 The proposed campaign would also urge Congress to pass broadband legislation that would be more permissive than the repealed FCC rules.12

Although the FCC did not publicly release a proposal to discard its existing net neutrality rules until April 27, 2017, by early April, the broadband group had already launched a campaign to collect and submit millions of comments to the FCC supporting the agency’s as-yet-unannounced plan. The campaign was run through a non-profit organization funded by the broadband industry called Broadband for America (“BFA”).13

BFA’s executive committee, made up of senior executives from the broadband companies and trade groups that had contributed to the effort, oversaw the campaign, along with its lobbying firm based in Washington, D.C., which managed the day-to-day operations.14 BFA hid its role in the campaign by recruiting anti-regulation advocacy groups — unrelated to the broadband industry — to serve as the campaign’s public faces.Planning documents obtained by the OAG show that the goal of the campaign was to manufacture “widespread grassroots support” (a practice often referred to as astroturfing) for the repeal of the FCC’s net neutrality regulations.15 The broadband group believed this support — in conjunction with press outreach, social media campaigns, and coordinated filings from the broadband industry and free-market economists — would “give [FCC Chairman Ajit] Pai volume and intellectual cover” for repeal.16

Indeed, one broadband industry executive — himself a former chairman of the FCC — advised members of BFA’s executive committee, in an email, that “we want to make sure Pai can get those comments in so he can talk about the large number of comments supporting his position.”

I wonder if the former FCC Chairman was no other than Michael Powell. I shall never forget when he said:

"I have no sense of public service."

editing to add:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Powell_(lobbyist)

Lobbying and net neutrality

On March 15, 2011, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) announced that Powell would take the helm from Kyle McSlarrow beginning April 25.[15] Powell left his advisory role with Providence Equity Partners. In 2012, he spoke with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and gave the keynote speech during the industry's Cable Show.[16] In April 2012, he contributed an opinion piece to Politico about the importance of cyber threats.[17]

As a lobbyist representing the telecommunications companies, Powell published numerous editorials and opinion pieces around the country claiming to support net neutrality and opposing the FCC's enforcement of net neutrality through broadband reclassification as a Title II service.[18]