12 ms·

Some background: 28 senators, and the New York Attorney General, had to tell Pai to stop the FCC voting on new rules last year because of all the fraudulent co

Some background: 28 senators, and the New York Attorney General, had to tell Pai to stop the FCC voting on new rules last year because of all the fraudulent comments. The fake comments were made apparent over a year ago. https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-fcc-ajit-pai-bots-senators-letter/ https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-fcc-ajit-pai-bots-s... The FCC refused to provide records to the NY AG in order to investigate the possibility of fake comments. In other words, the NY AG was the only part of the government investigating the fake comments, and the FCC actively worked against investigating them. https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/12/10/0037222/fcc-refuses-records-for-investigation-into-fake-net-neutrality-comments https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/12/10/0037222/fcc-refuses... Pai's office issued this response to calls to delay the vote: This is just evidence that supporters of heavy-handed Internet regulations are becoming more desperate by the day as their effort to defeat Chairman Pai's plan to restore Internet freedom has stalled. The vote will proceed as scheduled on December 14. As promised, the FCC voted to repeal Net Neutrality. And now, 7 months later, the FCC is saying there were fraudulent comments, and maybe they should redesign their website.

craftyguy 8y ago
So basically, it doesn't really matter if comments are fake or legitimate, if pai is going to ignore them anyways.
- MBCook 8y ago
  They’re also going to drop unofficial complaints against ISPs. You’ll have to pay the $230 to make an official complaint if you think they’re doing something illegal.
  - RIMR 8y ago
    Making people pay to report illegal activity is just insane. This is literal fascism - and I'm not just being hyperbolic.
    - 24gttghh 8y ago
      I'm not trying to defend this, just providing the FCC's context: >`Complaints filed through the Consumer Complaint Center are categorized as "informal" complaints. There is no fee for filing an informal complaint. If you are not satisfied with the response to your informal complaint, you can file a "formal" complaint. Your formal complaint must be filed within six months of the date of the response to your informal complaint. The current fee for filing a formal complaint is $225.00, but it is subject to change. Formal complaint proceedings are similar to court proceedings. Each party must comply with specific procedural rules, appear before the FCC and file documents that address legal issues. Parties filing formal complaints usually are represented by lawyers or experts in communications law and the FCC's procedural rules. No attorneys fees may be awarded.`[0] Question is, does this jive with similar methods of launching court-proceedings in civil-court as an example? [0]https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/205082880?from=button#question_14 https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/2050828...
      - nkassis 8y ago
        One thing that seems to have changed is informal complaints won't be looked at by people at the FCC but will go directly to the ISPs. Meaning the FCC won't be monitoring for any issues and only care about formal complaints
        rayiner 8y ago
        Incorrect. Under both the current and revised versions of 47 C.F.R. 1.717, the complaint goes to the FCC; the FCC forwards it to the respondent, and may order it to file a response which either states the complaint has been satisfied, or explains why the carrier cannot or will not do so: > The Commission will forward informal complaints to the appropriate carrier for investigation and may set a due date for the carrier to provide a written response to the informal complaint to the Commission, with a copy to the complainant. The response will advise the Commission of the carrier’s satisfaction of the complaint or of its refusal or inability to do so.
        8y ago
  - dv_dt 8y ago
    All that the fee will accomplish is that entities with deep pockets can flood the comments whenever they wish. And there will be fewer other comments to overcome.
  - inetknght 8y ago
    Wait, what? Where's info on this?
    - 24gttghh 8y ago
      https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/205082880?from=button#question_14 https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/2050828...
      - inetknght 8y ago
        This made me sad. Not your fault, I asked for it. Thanks
        24gttghh 8y ago
        I too am saddened by this information :(
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 8y ago
    If you're referring to this article from Ars today, it's misleading: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/ajit-pais-fcc-wants-to-stop-reviewing-your-complaints-unless-you-pay-225 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/ajit-pais-fcc-wa.... Here are the proposed rules: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-351867A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-351867A1.pdf. What Ars is worked up about is footnote 14, which revises 47 CFR 1.717: > 14 We also clarify rule 1.717, which addresses informal Section 208 complaints. See 47 CFR § 1.717. In addition to wording revisions that do not alter the substance of the rule, we delete the phrase “and the Commission’s disposition” from the last sentence of that rule because the Commission’s practice is not to dispose of informal complaints on substantive grounds. Contrary to the Ars article, the FCC is not "drop[ping] unofficial complaints." The current wording suggests that each complaint will result in an investigation and a "disposition" (i.e. formal agency decision). In reality, the FCC does not necessarily start an investigation and reach a formal disposition in response to every complaint. Rather, it handles informal complaints exactly how you'd expect an agency to handle informal complaints--based on the complaints, it may or may not initiate an investigation and an enforcement action. But it is not obliged to investigate and formally dispose of each and every complaint. The wording update simply reflects that. A "formal" complaint is not just an "official" complaint. It is a lawsuit in the FCC: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/part-1/subpart-E https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/part-1/subpart-E. The telecommunications provider is required to show up and defend the lawsuit, there are motions, briefing, discovery, etc., and if a violation of the law is found, the respondent can be held liable for damages to the complainant. The filing fee reflects the fact that a formal complaint initiates court-like proceedings in the FCC.
    - shmerl 8y ago
      Pai looks for any excuse to stonewall public complaints about monopolistic abuse. No need to whitewash his intentions. It's as corrupt as it gets.
  - aplummer 8y ago
    What the heck - if you complain about an ISP in Australia it’s free for you and the ISP gets fined (a small amount even if the complaint isn’t genuine).
- kevin_b_er 8y ago
  He will ignore any comments that go against his politics of maximal corporate profit and minimal service to the public citizenry.
  - briandear 8y ago
    I am not a corporate person and I am in the “public citizenry” and I oppose so-called net neutrality. If the public citizenry is unhappy, they are invited to vote. As Obama famously said, elections have consequences. We should be demanding policies that encourage ISP competition instead of demanding policies that would ultimately suppress it.
    - Daishiman 8y ago
      You totally sound like a corporate shill.
    - lists 8y ago
      Except it's prohibitively expense to compete in that space hence the regulation.
    - root_axis 8y ago
      One does not preclude the other. We'll set policies that increase competition among ISPs aside because literally everyone says that they agree with that idea. Moving passed that, what is your specific reasoning for opposing NN, and if you don't mind, could you offer up your definition of NN in practice, just to be sure we're addressing the actual policies and not semantics.
    - benlorenzetti 8y ago
      I agree with you and its annoying when people say you sound like a corporate shill. I don't think it should be federal level government doing net neutrality. I worry about these studies too, because I know my "unique comment" was surrounded by at least a hundred on either side opining the same pro-net neutrality text.
      - 8y ago
- testaccount7 8y ago
  Yes
- kanox 8y ago
  Yes, because ignoring comments from internet forums is the right approach.
- Delmania 8y ago
  Right, this is a poor attempt to save face. Pai was going to repeal net neutrality no matter what, his corporate sponsors/donors/masters demanded that. Now that he's achieved his single goal, now he can pretend to care about everyone else in an attempt to influence the midterm elections.
  - pishpash 8y ago
    On the one hand, there is the rhetorical question of: Why isn't he impeached for Bribery. On the other hand, he may be acting on his regulatory opinion regardless of bribes, and on that possibility, he doesn't need to heed comments anyway, since they're advisory in nature. Using fake comments as a political shield is unfortunately not a high crime or misdemeanor. Civil officers are political in nature.
    - ModernMech 8y ago
      > Why isn't he impeached for Bribery Who is going to impeach him, exactly? If you haven't noticed, our government is corrupt from the top down. Everyone has their hand in the cookie car, from Trump to Pruitt (well, not anymore but for long enough he did) to Pai. The head of state sets the tone for what is acceptable.
      - throwaway5752 8y ago
        "our government is corrupt from the top down" That's just not true and it doesn't help anything. There are hundreds of thousands to millions of civil servants doing good work at mid/low levels. The top level is as dirty any anything in my lifetime by orders of magnitude.
    - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
      >Why isn't he impeached for Bribery. Man, this is reading a lot like Reddit all of a sudden. Citations please?
testaccount7 8y ago
Public opinion matters but were these comments anything more than a symbol for headline clicks?
czr 8y ago
That response seems incredibly disingenuous. There's a nice analysis of the comments here https://hackernoon.com/more-than-a-million-pro-repeal-net-neutrality-comments-were-likely-faked-e9f0e3ed36a6 https://hackernoon.com/more-than-a-million-pro-repeal-net-ne.... Key findings of the analysis: > One pro-repeal spam campaign used mail-merge to disguise 1.3 million comments as unique grassroots submissions. > There were likely multiple other campaigns aimed at injecting what may total several million pro-repeal comments into the system. > It’s highly likely that more than 99% of the truly unique comments³ were in favor of keeping net neutrality. The most important chart is here: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*Sc4-R2waeRrGnNL90dO3JA.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*Sc4-R2waeRrGnNL90... > From this chart we can see that the pro-repeal comments (there are approximately 8.6 million of them) are much more likely to be exact duplicates (dark red bars) and are submitted in much larger blocks. > On the other hand, comments in favor of net neutrality were more likely to deviate from a form letter (light green, as opposed to dark green bars) and were much more numerous in the long tail.
internetman55 8y ago
Haha, I feel like he is learning from Trump
Rapzid 8y ago
Ha, "restoring internet freedom" is the fakest comment of them all! So how does this work, does Pai get a fat retainer for doing nothing from ATT after he is out? This is why I don't believe people who have developed there political views(beliefs, ideology ?) working for special interests are good for the people when they need to start thinking about the whole forest; they can't get over their trees. Certainly not at the cabinet level, hopefully not at many levels below either. You see it with Pai, Devos, Pruit, etc. What a disaster.
scarejunba 8y ago
Haha this reads like some Ministry of Truth release. > Through the bravery and foresight of Chairman Pai, freedom is preserved despite our enemies growing ever desperate.

craftyguy 8y ago

So basically, it doesn't really matter if comments are fake or legitimate, if pai is going to ignore them anyways.

MBCook 8y ago
They’re also going to drop unofficial complaints against ISPs. You’ll have to pay the $230 to make an official complaint if you think they’re doing something illegal.
- RIMR 8y ago
  Making people pay to report illegal activity is just insane. This is literal fascism - and I'm not just being hyperbolic.
  - 24gttghh 8y ago
    I'm not trying to defend this, just providing the FCC's context: >`Complaints filed through the Consumer Complaint Center are categorized as "informal" complaints. There is no fee for filing an informal complaint. If you are not satisfied with the response to your informal complaint, you can file a "formal" complaint. Your formal complaint must be filed within six months of the date of the response to your informal complaint. The current fee for filing a formal complaint is $225.00, but it is subject to change. Formal complaint proceedings are similar to court proceedings. Each party must comply with specific procedural rules, appear before the FCC and file documents that address legal issues. Parties filing formal complaints usually are represented by lawyers or experts in communications law and the FCC's procedural rules. No attorneys fees may be awarded.`[0] Question is, does this jive with similar methods of launching court-proceedings in civil-court as an example? [0]https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/205082880?from=button#question_14 https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/2050828...
    - nkassis 8y ago
      One thing that seems to have changed is informal complaints won't be looked at by people at the FCC but will go directly to the ISPs. Meaning the FCC won't be monitoring for any issues and only care about formal complaints
      - rayiner 8y ago
        Incorrect. Under both the current and revised versions of 47 C.F.R. 1.717, the complaint goes to the FCC; the FCC forwards it to the respondent, and may order it to file a response which either states the complaint has been satisfied, or explains why the carrier cannot or will not do so: > The Commission will forward informal complaints to the appropriate carrier for investigation and may set a due date for the carrier to provide a written response to the informal complaint to the Commission, with a copy to the complainant. The response will advise the Commission of the carrier’s satisfaction of the complaint or of its refusal or inability to do so.
        8y ago
- dv_dt 8y ago
  All that the fee will accomplish is that entities with deep pockets can flood the comments whenever they wish. And there will be fewer other comments to overcome.
- inetknght 8y ago
  Wait, what? Where's info on this?
  - 24gttghh 8y ago
    https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/205082880?from=button#question_14 https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/2050828...
    - inetknght 8y ago
      This made me sad. Not your fault, I asked for it. Thanks
      - 24gttghh 8y ago
        I too am saddened by this information :(
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 8y ago
  If you're referring to this article from Ars today, it's misleading: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/ajit-pais-fcc-wants-to-stop-reviewing-your-complaints-unless-you-pay-225 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/ajit-pais-fcc-wa.... Here are the proposed rules: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-351867A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-351867A1.pdf. What Ars is worked up about is footnote 14, which revises 47 CFR 1.717: > 14 We also clarify rule 1.717, which addresses informal Section 208 complaints. See 47 CFR § 1.717. In addition to wording revisions that do not alter the substance of the rule, we delete the phrase “and the Commission’s disposition” from the last sentence of that rule because the Commission’s practice is not to dispose of informal complaints on substantive grounds. Contrary to the Ars article, the FCC is not "drop[ping] unofficial complaints." The current wording suggests that each complaint will result in an investigation and a "disposition" (i.e. formal agency decision). In reality, the FCC does not necessarily start an investigation and reach a formal disposition in response to every complaint. Rather, it handles informal complaints exactly how you'd expect an agency to handle informal complaints--based on the complaints, it may or may not initiate an investigation and an enforcement action. But it is not obliged to investigate and formally dispose of each and every complaint. The wording update simply reflects that. A "formal" complaint is not just an "official" complaint. It is a lawsuit in the FCC: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/part-1/subpart-E https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/part-1/subpart-E. The telecommunications provider is required to show up and defend the lawsuit, there are motions, briefing, discovery, etc., and if a violation of the law is found, the respondent can be held liable for damages to the complainant. The filing fee reflects the fact that a formal complaint initiates court-like proceedings in the FCC.
  - shmerl 8y ago
    Pai looks for any excuse to stonewall public complaints about monopolistic abuse. No need to whitewash his intentions. It's as corrupt as it gets.
- aplummer 8y ago
  What the heck - if you complain about an ISP in Australia it’s free for you and the ISP gets fined (a small amount even if the complaint isn’t genuine).
kevin_b_er 8y ago
He will ignore any comments that go against his politics of maximal corporate profit and minimal service to the public citizenry.
- briandear 8y ago
  I am not a corporate person and I am in the “public citizenry” and I oppose so-called net neutrality. If the public citizenry is unhappy, they are invited to vote. As Obama famously said, elections have consequences. We should be demanding policies that encourage ISP competition instead of demanding policies that would ultimately suppress it.
  - Daishiman 8y ago
    You totally sound like a corporate shill.
  - lists 8y ago
    Except it's prohibitively expense to compete in that space hence the regulation.
  - root_axis 8y ago
    One does not preclude the other. We'll set policies that increase competition among ISPs aside because literally everyone says that they agree with that idea. Moving passed that, what is your specific reasoning for opposing NN, and if you don't mind, could you offer up your definition of NN in practice, just to be sure we're addressing the actual policies and not semantics.
  - benlorenzetti 8y ago
    I agree with you and its annoying when people say you sound like a corporate shill. I don't think it should be federal level government doing net neutrality. I worry about these studies too, because I know my "unique comment" was surrounded by at least a hundred on either side opining the same pro-net neutrality text.
    - 8y ago
testaccount7 8y ago
Yes
kanox 8y ago
Yes, because ignoring comments from internet forums is the right approach.
Delmania 8y ago
Right, this is a poor attempt to save face. Pai was going to repeal net neutrality no matter what, his corporate sponsors/donors/masters demanded that. Now that he's achieved his single goal, now he can pretend to care about everyone else in an attempt to influence the midterm elections.
- pishpash 8y ago
  On the one hand, there is the rhetorical question of: Why isn't he impeached for Bribery. On the other hand, he may be acting on his regulatory opinion regardless of bribes, and on that possibility, he doesn't need to heed comments anyway, since they're advisory in nature. Using fake comments as a political shield is unfortunately not a high crime or misdemeanor. Civil officers are political in nature.
  - ModernMech 8y ago
    > Why isn't he impeached for Bribery Who is going to impeach him, exactly? If you haven't noticed, our government is corrupt from the top down. Everyone has their hand in the cookie car, from Trump to Pruitt (well, not anymore but for long enough he did) to Pai. The head of state sets the tone for what is acceptable.
    - throwaway5752 8y ago
      "our government is corrupt from the top down" That's just not true and it doesn't help anything. There are hundreds of thousands to millions of civil servants doing good work at mid/low levels. The top level is as dirty any anything in my lifetime by orders of magnitude.
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    >Why isn't he impeached for Bribery. Man, this is reading a lot like Reddit all of a sudden. Citations please?

testaccount7 8y ago

Public opinion matters but were these comments anything more than a symbol for headline clicks?

czr 8y ago

That response seems incredibly disingenuous. There's a nice analysis of the comments here https://hackernoon.com/more-than-a-million-pro-repeal-net-neutrality-comments-were-likely-faked-e9f0e3ed36a6 https://hackernoon.com/more-than-a-million-pro-repeal-net-ne.... Key findings of the analysis: > One pro-repeal spam campaign used mail-merge to disguise 1.3 million comments as unique grassroots submissions. > There were likely multiple other campaigns aimed at injecting what may total several million pro-repeal comments into the system. > It’s highly likely that more than 99% of the truly unique comments³ were in favor of keeping net neutrality. The most important chart is here: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*Sc4-R2waeRrGnNL90dO3JA.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*Sc4-R2waeRrGnNL90... > From this chart we can see that the pro-repeal comments (there are approximately 8.6 million of them) are much more likely to be exact duplicates (dark red bars) and are submitted in much larger blocks. > On the other hand, comments in favor of net neutrality were more likely to deviate from a form letter (light green, as opposed to dark green bars) and were much more numerous in the long tail.

internetman55 8y ago

Haha, I feel like he is learning from Trump

Rapzid 8y ago

Ha, "restoring internet freedom" is the fakest comment of them all! So how does this work, does Pai get a fat retainer for doing nothing from ATT after he is out? This is why I don't believe people who have developed there political views(beliefs, ideology ?) working for special interests are good for the people when they need to start thinking about the whole forest; they can't get over their trees. Certainly not at the cabinet level, hopefully not at many levels below either. You see it with Pai, Devos, Pruit, etc. What a disaster.

scarejunba 8y ago

Haha this reads like some Ministry of Truth release. > Through the bravery and foresight of Chairman Pai, freedom is preserved despite our enemies growing ever desperate.