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Comment by rectang | Hacker News Reader

It was obvious at the time. I recall many people reporting that fake comments antithetical to their own beliefs had been submitted using their identities.

Why was FCC head Ajit Pai able to get away with citing fraudulent evidence? How can we stop such blatant corruption of the FCC's policy-making process in the future?

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To be fair, the FCC ignored the automatically generated comments and focused on comments that were unique, detailed, and relevant. The actual scandal should be what they did with those comments: those that supported rolling back the NN rules were accepted as fact, those opposed (i.e. those in favor of NN regulation) were dismissed as "not compelling." I know this because my comment was among those dismissed as "not compelling," including specific sections that dealt strictly with the factual errors in Ajit Pai's proposal. The only reason they bothered citing my comment (and numerous others by actual technical experts who took the time to comment) was to avoid being sued for ignoring the public comments (they are legally required to consider public comments when making a decision).

It is also worth mentioning that Ajit Pai differed from his predecessor Tom Wheeler. Wheeler had intended to introduce rules that allowed various NN violations but changed course in response to public comments and went with the stronger regulations. Pai never cared what the public had to say and made that very clear in his public statements, where he basically said that the only thing that would change his mind would be comments concerning the FCC's legal authority (not that there was any serious dispute about that legal authority).

These consultations are just legally-mandated hoops that the regulators jump through. The fact that you or another individual put forward an interesting or important comment really doesn’t matter at all, no matter what side you’re on.

To be clear, I don't believe Wheeler's statements about his motive for changing course; I think he changed because the administration believed it would be politically advantageous.

I disagree. Comments cited by the FCC's final report and decision are part of a permanent public record that can be scrutinized, including in lawsuits (such as the one filed by the EFF) and by politicians considering legislative changes in response to regulatory failures. Ajit Pai was forced to publicly dismiss comments containing only facts related to the technical details of the Internet, which made it harder for the FCC to defend its decision in court (as they are supposed to consider those technical details).

Also, it may seem hard to believe, but some regulators do actually care and they do pay attention to expert comments that the FCC (or whoever) receives. Sometimes they will invite the author of a well-research comment to meet with their staff and discuss the issue in more depth. The system is not as completely corrupted by money as people sometimes claim (not that there is no corruption at all; it is almost obvious that deep-pocketed corporations have outsized influence in these processes).

I think the vast majority of regulators really care, and almost none are paid shills doing it for the money. It seems they're happy to discuss the academic nuances of their positions, but vanishingly unlikely to switch sides.

This is not accurate, and it feels like it is the only clear detail provided in your post:

Ajit Pai was forced to publicly dismiss comments containing only facts related to the technical details of the Internet, which made it harder for the FCC to defend its decision in court (as they are supposed to consider those technical details).

People had claimed their own email address had been used to post a message. The messages themselves were repetitive and clearly had generated names. Someone ran the entire thing through and reduced the bulk messages down to a handful. I believe there were some attempts to add filler words, but for the most part someone just put together spam bots.

What I don't get is why this is so important. Someone spammed a web form but... this isn't a vote. This is a chance to provide information, which spam by definition does not contain.

If they wanted to make legal or technical points, it doesn't even matter who they are, the points are true (or not) no matter who said them.

So I just don't see what the big deal is here, because someone spammed meaningless comments into a comment form and it's not like they really took any of our opinions into account when making the ruling to begin with.

The Chair of the FTC used the number of comments against Net Neutrality as "proof" that people did not want Net Neutrality. He then refused to investigate the obvious forgeries.

Then he released this cringefest: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhT6H6pRWg

HOLY CRAP that's insane. Wow, we can still participate in the pop culture of the day that the pop culture czars want us to keep doing? Sweet!

If I can still keep doing all these cool things, why the need for repealing the Obama-era regulations (his words) in the first place?

also starring a pizzagate promoter, which seems a whole lot darker now than it was at the time: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/fcc-chai...

Ouch. It's disturbing to see a politically nominated official, who is in his position presumably because of world-class leadership and communication ability, be SO OUT OF TOUCH that he doesn't recognize that what he is doing appears as satire.

Elections matter.

Appears? This guy was constantly making jokes and memes and he did so to appeal to the internet trolls that were his base. Right leaning millennials loved this guy; you must not have seen his back and forth with John Oliver over his Reece’s cup. For context https://www.chron.com/national/article/net-neutrality-repeal...

FCC, but yes. Another demonstration of how election choices have consequences.

The thing is, I don't for one minute believe that they would've made a different decision if the comments were different. This is just a legally-mandated hoop they jump through before doing what they want to do.

For the record, I support the goal of NN, I just am too cynical to believe that these comments ever mattered.

They matter because the inevitable lawsuits can/will point to the multitude in support of NN and demand the FCC explain why they decided against keeping it. They’re not just a bureaucratic hoop to jump through; they actually have to consider and weigh them all. A reason of “it’s ‘Obama era’ regulations that we don’t need” isn’t enough. “It’s bad for economic growth” would require them to explain how.

Obviously, one that just says “** you Ajit” or whatever doesn’t need to be considered, but ones voicing concerns or similar have to be.

Even if you say that, that just means it's the contents of the comments that matter--not who sent them. So the wrong thing is faked under that analysis.

I agree that Ajit made the wrong decision, I just facepalm when I see people raising this as an argument as to why when there are so many better arguments than whether someone spammed an insecure comment box.

This absolutely happened. My parents, who have never heard nor cared about NN, had both their emails used by bots posting anti-NN comments. It was blatantly obvious to anyone who didn't have a stake in killing NN.

Happened to my wife. All the messages were obviously fake as they would say the exact same thing with a word here or there changed.

While I remember it being a big deal in tech news I don't recall it gaining a lot of traction in the establishment press.

My mother, who is dead, somehow rose from the grave and posted in support of repealing NN. That there will be no criminal consequences makes me very, very angry.

I look forward to the GPT-3 Assisted astroturfing campaigns in the future, only a matter of time

Hopefully by then we have some sort of anonymous “voting” technology so that each individual can have a vote on all public issues. It’s a pain to hold a referendum now, but if we could answer in 2min on our phones and know that our vote was secure, reliable, and 100% anonymous, we could reshape bureaucracy in an instant.

We can stop this blatant corruption by handing a very long federal prison sentence to Mr. Pai. It’s not really that complicated.

Just wait for the pendulum swing !

What law was broken?

Don't elect blatantly corrupt heads of state (or legislators who would be able to subvert the results of a free and fair election in 2025.)

I can't imagine anyone believing that there is some grassroots concern about net-neutrality. Ordinary people don't care about this. You and I may care about it, but not the general population. And I only slightly care about it -- say a lot less than copyright extensions but a lot more than hair extensions.

The level at which the grassroots don't care about anything is not even funny. If Fox News did not talk about this incessantly, and people "cared" about it - something was wrong.

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