4 ms·

Duh. But why do FCC comments even matter? They mean literally nothing. You might as well be counting reddit comments.

FlyMoreRockets 8y ago
Federal agencies are required by law to request input from the public on policy changes. They are supposed to respond to this input when possible, though they are not necessarily restricted by it. https://www.federalregister.gov/uploads/2011/01/the_rulemaking_process.pdf https://www.federalregister.gov/uploads/2011/01/the_rulemaki...
r00fus 8y ago
They are required to consider them by law. What you're saying is that cheating is ok, and laws can be ignored. They may be routinely ignored, but there is a price to pay for ignoring the law. Even parking tickets you can brush off for a while but you'll pay (a lot) later. Or is something different for this administration?
- craftyguy 8y ago
  > What you're saying is that cheating is ok, and laws can be ignored. While I don't agree with GP (like, not at all), Pai has shown repeatedly that this appears to be true. The FCC remains completely unchallenged and OP.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    There's a new sheriff in the House. Things are (hopefully) going to change.
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      I'm hopeful that things will change for the better, but I'm curious how often congressional investigations ever amount to action, especially within the last decade.
- pweissbrod 8y ago
  "consider"
- jtms 8y ago
  Chairman waves hands in mystical fashion - "These comments have hereby been declared... considered!"
  - r00fus 8y ago
    It is simply rope given to the oversight committees... which are now interesting as the opposition party controls the House.
  - pessimizer 8y ago
    This is absolutely true, and also doesn't matter. There should be a record that the FCC proceeded over overwhelming public objection, and the content of that objection. If there was fraud to disguise that public sentiment, there should be a record of that, too, and a punishment.
- randyrand 8y ago
  > What you're saying is that cheating is ok, and laws can be ignored. Huh? All I'm saying is FCC comments don't matter. And therefore neither do fake ones. Not sure what you're referring to... If the comments matter only because the law requires them, that's a very weak argument.
  - kibwen 8y ago
    The premise that a someone went to lengths to fabricate a substantial portion of them would indicate that the comments do in fact matter to somebody, specifically somebody with a vested interest against NN.
    - vuln 8y ago
      Seems like any _hacker_ could code a python script to scrape publicly available data (White pages) using selenium / beautiful soup and use that data to post comments. Captchas can be solved for pennies.
  - ABCLAW 8y ago
    >If the comments matter only because the law requires them, that's a very weak argument. If the law requires that they be considered in the process of creating policy, then fraudulently spamming comments is a direct attempt to subvert the policy making function of the FCC. We cavalierly assume the comments do not matter because of an underlying assumption; that FCC Chair Pai will not actually consider them regardless of their contents, and that he functionally controls the decision to enact or repeal NN regulations. Imagine if we had a different FCC chair - would the comments still not matter? There are two problems preventing the comments from fulfilling their intended function, but the existence of a second problem (Pai's refusal to discharge the duties of his office honorably) does not negate the first (the fraudulent corruption of the public comments record).
    - upofadown 8y ago
      >If the law requires that they be considered in the process of creating policy, ... The important distinction here is that they have to be considered as comments, not votes. For example, if a whole lot of comments say more or less the same thing, then that only counts as one comment. In this case the politics had already been decided so no comment could affect the general outcome. In a very real sense the comments did not matter in this case. In other situations they can matter. The pointless distraction related to the various attempts to spam the FCC comments in the end prevented actual politics that could of possibly retained net neutrality.
- j4kp07 8y ago
  > Or is something different for this administration? lol...settle down Beavis.
  - sctb 8y ago
    We said please no personal attacks or we would ban the account, so we have. If you'd like to use this site as intended please email hn@ycombinator.com.
jayess 8y ago
> But why do FCC comments even matter? They don't, and everyone knows it. But this involved a charged political issue, so people act upset.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ggggtez 8y ago
The FCC is legally required to pay attention to the public comments before enacting a major policy change. It's essentially identity fraud to an official government entity. To quote the dissenting opinion - "roughly half a million comments were filed from Russian e-mail addresses. Something here is rotten". If this happened in an election, there would be rioting in the streets. This is blatant interference.
anigbrowl 8y ago
Then why does the alw require their collection and evaluation?

Federal agencies are required by law to request input from the public on policy changes. They are supposed to respond to this input when possible, though they are not necessarily restricted by it. https://www.federalregister.gov/uploads/2011/01/the_rulemaking_process.pdf https://www.federalregister.gov/uploads/2011/01/the_rulemaki...

r00fus 8y ago

They are required to consider them by law. What you're saying is that cheating is ok, and laws can be ignored. They may be routinely ignored, but there is a price to pay for ignoring the law. Even parking tickets you can brush off for a while but you'll pay (a lot) later. Or is something different for this administration?

craftyguy 8y ago
> What you're saying is that cheating is ok, and laws can be ignored. While I don't agree with GP (like, not at all), Pai has shown repeatedly that this appears to be true. The FCC remains completely unchallenged and OP.
- r00fus 8y ago
  There's a new sheriff in the House. Things are (hopefully) going to change.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    I'm hopeful that things will change for the better, but I'm curious how often congressional investigations ever amount to action, especially within the last decade.
pweissbrod 8y ago
"consider"
jtms 8y ago
Chairman waves hands in mystical fashion - "These comments have hereby been declared... considered!"
- r00fus 8y ago
  It is simply rope given to the oversight committees... which are now interesting as the opposition party controls the House.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  This is absolutely true, and also doesn't matter. There should be a record that the FCC proceeded over overwhelming public objection, and the content of that objection. If there was fraud to disguise that public sentiment, there should be a record of that, too, and a punishment.
randyrand 8y ago
> What you're saying is that cheating is ok, and laws can be ignored. Huh? All I'm saying is FCC comments don't matter. And therefore neither do fake ones. Not sure what you're referring to... If the comments matter only because the law requires them, that's a very weak argument.
- kibwen 8y ago
  The premise that a someone went to lengths to fabricate a substantial portion of them would indicate that the comments do in fact matter to somebody, specifically somebody with a vested interest against NN.
  - vuln 8y ago
    Seems like any _hacker_ could code a python script to scrape publicly available data (White pages) using selenium / beautiful soup and use that data to post comments. Captchas can be solved for pennies.
- ABCLAW 8y ago
  >If the comments matter only because the law requires them, that's a very weak argument. If the law requires that they be considered in the process of creating policy, then fraudulently spamming comments is a direct attempt to subvert the policy making function of the FCC. We cavalierly assume the comments do not matter because of an underlying assumption; that FCC Chair Pai will not actually consider them regardless of their contents, and that he functionally controls the decision to enact or repeal NN regulations. Imagine if we had a different FCC chair - would the comments still not matter? There are two problems preventing the comments from fulfilling their intended function, but the existence of a second problem (Pai's refusal to discharge the duties of his office honorably) does not negate the first (the fraudulent corruption of the public comments record).
  - upofadown 8y ago
    >If the law requires that they be considered in the process of creating policy, ... The important distinction here is that they have to be considered as comments, not votes. For example, if a whole lot of comments say more or less the same thing, then that only counts as one comment. In this case the politics had already been decided so no comment could affect the general outcome. In a very real sense the comments did not matter in this case. In other situations they can matter. The pointless distraction related to the various attempts to spam the FCC comments in the end prevented actual politics that could of possibly retained net neutrality.
j4kp07 8y ago
> Or is something different for this administration? lol...settle down Beavis.
- sctb 8y ago
  We said please no personal attacks or we would ban the account, so we have. If you'd like to use this site as intended please email hn@ycombinator.com.

jayess 8y ago

> But why do FCC comments even matter? They don't, and everyone knows it. But this involved a charged political issue, so people act upset.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

ggggtez 8y ago

The FCC is legally required to pay attention to the public comments before enacting a major policy change. It's essentially identity fraud to an official government entity. To quote the dissenting opinion - "roughly half a million comments were filed from Russian e-mail addresses. Something here is rotten". If this happened in an election, there would be rioting in the streets. This is blatant interference.

anigbrowl 8y ago

Then why does the alw require their collection and evaluation?