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Dead People Are Posting Anti-Net Neutrality Comments to FCC Website
- KiDD 9y agoOld people always complaining about stuff they don't understand!
- daxfohl 9y agoI hope that when I die I can stay as far away from politics as possible.
- thrownblown 9y ago"I hope that when I die I can stay as far away from politics as possible." -Seth Rich
- DannyB2 9y agoDead people have opinions about net neutrality too. Since ping times from the afterlife have such bad latency, they don't mind letting ISPs get away with whatever they want.
- ams6110 9y agoA public comment forum is full of fraudulent posts? No!
- sixothree 9y agoI think the disappointing thing here is that the anti-neutrality voice is most entirely corporate suggesting someone has paid to get these comments added.
- westbywest 9y agoThe URL syntax to search comments for the docket in question is straightforward, in case you felt the desire to check on the quickness of the dead: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/filings?proceedings_name=17-108&q=filers.name:(Firstname%20Lastname)&sort=date_disseminated,DESC https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/filings?proceedings_name=17-...
- morrad 9y agoInterestingly, according to that link Mr./Mrs. Firstname Lastname left them a reply indicating his or her support for strong net neutrality. :)
- coldcode 9y agoIt doesn't matter, they will do whatever they want anyway. Perhaps if the dead start rising form their graves... maybe not even then.
- flatroze 9y agozombie apocalypse, finally
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ouid 9y agoThat's reasonable. Politicians have long searched for a way to exploit the dead vote.
- bogomipz 9y agoSure, they tax figured out how to tax dead people, so they probably figure 'why stop there?': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_State...
- AlexandrB 9y agoYup, we should just go to full oligarchy and let real wealth stay with the 1% families while we fight for their scraps!
- bogomipz 9y agoMy comment was sarcasm, that since dead people were being taxed they should be allowed to vote. But thanks for the donwvotes, sorry about the humor.
- CtrlAltT5wpm 9y agoAccording to your link, "If an asset is left to a spouse or a federally recognized charity, the tax usually does not apply. In addition, up to a certain amount varying year by year can be given by an individual, before and/or upon their death, without incurring federal gift or estate taxes:[2] $5,340,000 for estates of persons dying in 2014,[3] $5,430,000 for estates of persons dying in 2015,[4] and $5,450,000 (effectively $10.90 million per married couple) for estates of persons dying in 2016.[5] Because of these exemptions, only the largest 0.2% of estates in the US will have to pay any estate tax." No one in my family has ever had that much. I won't, either; I'll probably die somewhat above the level of "hovel," but far below "estate." I can't find it within me to get too worked up about the Estate Tax.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- awalton 9y agoIt honestly doesn't matter. Nobody at the FCC is going to read these things - it's there because it has to be there, not because they intend on listening. They've set their agenda, now they're executing it. They have absolutely no plans on listening to anyone along the way. Nobody in this entire administration does.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Nobody at the FCC is going to read these things Yes, they will. And the final rule that is issued (and the almost inevitable dissent) will probably directly acknowledge them (though one side dismissively.)
- ChuckMcM 9y agoBut it does matter, because it shows malice and intent. All three data points have to be taken together (FCC Opens up comments, Comments criminally spammed, FCC decides the issue X). Given the clear and convincing evidence of malfeasance in the comment stream, the FCC's actions can be judged as reasonable or unreasonable. So what matters is that we shine light on their agenda so that it is not possible for them to credibly deny they are not following their own policies.
- evanlivingston 9y agoShine a light for who to see?
- PerryCox 9y agoHopefully the EFF can challenge this in court and this provides good evidence that the FCC is ignoring what Americans want.
- rayiner 9y agoIgnoring what Americans want is almost the entire point of regulatory agencies like the FCC. They're a bureaucratic/technocratic check on the democratic process. (Which is why, in my opinion they're unconstitutional, but that's an argument for another day.)
- notadoc 9y agoWow incredible. Who would have thought the first time humanity would see large scale resurrections of the dead would be so that the corpses could post internet comments about how much they hate the idea of net neutrality and show their support and love for monopolies? Simply amazing, I knew people would be passionate about net neutrality but I wouldn't have guessed it was powerful enough to resurrect the lifeless. Do you think they will start using this technique in medicine soon? In the ER or hospitals? Imagine the amazing sequence of events: "We're losing him, we're losing him... he just has no more will to live" 'No wait, give me that laptop.' "He's dead, flatlined" 'SIR, SIR, HOW MUCH DO YOU HATE NET NEUTRALITY' ... grumble grumble.... beep beep beep beep "Incredible! We have a pulse again!" 'SIR, DO YOU LOVE MONOPOLIES, YOU MUST COMMENT ON THE INTERNET ABOUT THIS, HERE TAKE THIS LAPTOP' ... beep beep beep beep beep beep beep ..... "I... am ... I do.... I do love... I.... I DO LOVE MONOPOLIES, I.... I DO HATE NET NEUTRALITY.... FINALLY... A REASON TO LIVE!! GIVE ME THAT LAPTOP NOW!!!!" 'It's a medical miracle!!!!!!'
- sbov 9y agoWhy use dead people? Property tax records are public information. There's more than one website that lets you go through them.
- courtf 9y agoI'm imagining that the dead are just a small fraction of the fake comments: just those who had died since whatever dataset being used was last regenerated/cleaned.
- Apocryphon 9y agoSimpsons did it.
- marcosdumay 9y agoWhoever did this probably did some mass data collection like you are suggesting. But some people died between collection date and message date, or the data was not up to date, so we got dead people commenting on the issue.
- upofadown 9y agoComments the say the same thing just count for a single comment ... and they don't count up. This isn't a vote. The FCC is a regulator. The government calls the shots. Misusing the comment process as a sort of virtual petition could in theory influence the government but there has to be a better way to do this sort of thing.
- Frqy3 9y agoExactly this. I've worked with many regulators on industry/public reviews. Submitting opinions or copy pasta achieves nothing, no matter how voluminous. It will at best end up refered to in the final report as something like "Mupltiple unsubstantiated submissions were made supporting net neutralitity." Things that make a difference, at least to the extent that some time and effort has to be made responding to them in the final report, include: 1. Summarising similar rulings in other jurisdictions. Ideally, including the reasoning why they made their decision, and some analysis of the impact. Comparisons of market similarities (e.g. level/structure of competition) helps to show why those decisions are relevant to the local market. 2. Arguing from local regulatory context. Working from the local competition/telecoms laws and previous decisions by the regulator, construct a structured argument why the desired outcome logically follows. 3. Arguing from first principles. Often involving some market/scenario modelling showing current market behaviour and how that would/would not change under different regulatory outcomes. Most competition/telecoms legislation is framed around benefits to consumers, so the modelling should focus on the consumer impact, not just competitor impact. Most industry submissions will utilise a combination of the above, and draw upon global experts to strengthen their case and add credibility to their analysis. I can't speak to the FCC and this particular ruling, but I have seen regulators change their draft recommendations on the basis of submissions received during the public review process. Even when the regulator has predetermined the outcome, having the submissions and the official responses recorded in the final report provides a reference basis for additional lobbying at a later date.
- jondubois 9y agoThe fact that big tech companies like Facebook support net neutrality actually makes me consider not supporting it. I just don't trust Facebook's motives - What I do trust is their ability and willingness to screw over society in order to maximise profits.
- alpha_squared 9y agoI understand this sentiment, but I also think it can be a little short-sighted. There can be cases where your best interests and those of a corporation can line up. This is one of those cases. It doesn't mean that you're now an evangelist of the company, just that you agree in this particular scenario. Having a stance on something purely because someone you like/dislike has a stance on it is extremely dangerous.
- funkyy 9y agoThey support it for publicity. Imagine if they wouldn't. They assume net neutrality will not pass, but they will make good face to a bad game.
- habitue 9y agoWhat you're doing is confusing a second-order signal when you have first-order knowledge. We should expect someone who doesn't understand net-neutrality at all to use second-order signals like "Big company X supports net neutrality, therefore I should do Y". If you actually understand net-neutrality, you can assign much lower weight of evidence to whether or not a company supports it, since you can decide from first principles whether you support the idea yourself. This is what a lot of partisan media commentary gets wrong, since they tend to focus on "So-and-so is a liberal/conservative, therefore everything they say is tainted. We can't trust anything they say!" When in reality, there are facts to be had, and you can investigate them, and ignore who is saying what. The taint argument is only a good heuristic when you're completely uneducated about a topic.
- acid__ 9y agoIsn't Facebook's Internet.org project a direct affront on net neutrality?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Rapzid 9y agoSo, my ashamedly limited historical understanding of this, brought to me by John Oliver, is that the FCC was assumed to have the powers of the whole Title II thing prior to losing a court case.. Is this the case? If that's the case, Pai's rationalization is very hand-wavy.
- Grue3 9y agoI never understood Americans' obsession of having the government control ISPs. Like, I'm sure most of people here are liberals who hate Trump. Do you seriously want the Trump administration having the means to control the way ISPs deliver content? Take it from somebody living in Russia, you really don't want that.
- sangnoir 9y ago> I never understood Americans' obsession of having the government control ISPs While I agree on principle, I always make exceptions for monopolies: ISPs in the US are local monopolies: they carved up the market geographically and deliberately choose not to compete. The perverse thing is that the Republicans echo your hands-off sentiment at federal level, while Republican-ruled states are busy passing hands-on laws that ban municipal networks.
- Stranger43 9y agoThe government is always a better steward then the Aristocracy, as the aristocracy tend to be able to ignore both market demand and popular demand where as the government have some accountability to the public. The free market ideology is based on a assumption that a actual free market exists and that assumption is false when it comes to most forms of infrastructure including Internet cables.
- Chris2048 9y agoMaybe the real solution is open alternatives to the current internet infrastructure? Is it possible to release technology under the GPL?
- majewsky 9y agoThe hard part is not putting out a spec for a decentralized internet (though that's an intellectually hard problem as well). The hard part is getting people to purchase the hardware for your new internet in sufficient volume.
- bobmno 9y agoWow, so democrats hate the open web?