19 ms·

Opposition to net neutrality was faked, New York says

549 points by u678u 5y ago

barbazoo 5y ago
Is this different than what was reported more than 3 years ago [0]? [0] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=net%20neutrality%20fake&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- barbazoo 5y ago
  I'm getting downvoted, but why, I don't understand.
  - danaris 5y ago
    a) There are HN guidelines that warn you not to complain about downvotes. b) This is an article in the NYT that came out today, about findings by the NY AG released today. Yes, we all more or less "knew" that most of the comments were bogus all along, but having an official finding that says that is still extremely important, and is news in its own right.
  - lakecresva 5y ago
    Because you're saying up-front that you didn't even bother to click the link to see whether it was different, and you're suggesting that corporate malfeasance is only worthy of scrutiny if it's fresh.
pessimizer 5y ago
This announcement may be an intentional excuse to give Biden a new progressive thing to do domestically (it's not new information.) Maybe I'm just hopeful. The administration seems (to me) to be trying to convert/retain the left-of-Democrats audience who only reluctantly turned out for him. They're going to need it. edit: I'd love a net neutrality bill or order, but I'd prefer net neutrality + prison time for those responsible for the fraud.
- bigphishy 5y ago
  If I understand this article correctly, the information is not new, but the report is following an investigation which has been on-going since the initial FCC comments began. However I don't see the report linked anywhere in the article, but I do see sporadic statements from the NY A.G. which were made 5/6/2021. If these were criminal actions created by the previous FCC chair, e.g. using a citizen's name to submit a false comment, the actors at the FCC and at "Broadband for America" should to be held accountable.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    This seems exactly like the kind of pain-free win that the Biden admin has been pulling lately for the base. I suspect coordination, but at this point it's just wishful thinking. Especially at this particular time: good luck trying to incite an anti-NN right-wing response right now when the primary rhetoric among the right currently is about internet censorship.
rectang 5y ago
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?
- BikiniPrince 5y ago
  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.
  - Natsu 5y ago
    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.
    - dsr_ 5y ago
      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.
      - pydry 5y ago
        Then he released this cringefest: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhT6H6pRWg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhT6H6pRWg
CyberRabbi 5y ago
In reality the whole debacle was astroturfed from both sides, one side just did it better. The pro “net neutrality” movement was funded by google and Netflix and promoted laughable propaganda such as: What. If. Every. Thing. You. Did. On. The. Internet. Took. This. Long. Give me a break. There were no “good guys” in this debate, just corporations scrambling to control the popular narrative to suit their business interests.
- bombcar 5y ago
  It amazes me that "we don't want to pay for peering" became such a popular "grassroots" movement.
  - advisedwang 5y ago
    Net neutrality is not not just the fight over peering. It's also: * Can an ISP have charge for access to Spotify but not YouTube Music (and presumably get a kickback from YT) * Can an Mobile phone forbid you tethering on you unlimited use plan? * Can an ISP ban you using bittorrent?
    - badmadrad 5y ago
      Your questions are making the assumption that this would cost more and limit choice. This is not how markets work, this is exactly what government regulation and crony capitalism does. Even in the case of your Spotify but not YT music example, what if there was a 5/month offer for 15mb internet with spotify streaming. Because spotify and your provider made a deal that subsidized the plan? At the end of the day, partnerships are not bad for the consumer. YT music could make a competing for deal for less money with more Google offerings. Also, this wouldn't eliminate an unlimited option across the board. When has competition made something more expensive? Its regulations like NN which pour amber over a system and make it impossible to be cheaper or better.
      - advisedwang 5y ago
        The questions simply state the scope of the debate.
u678u 5y ago
Probably a better link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/technology/internet-providers-fake-comments-net-neutrality-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/technology/internet-provi...
- oftenwrong 5y ago
  Yes, the current link sends me to an article 'State Claims for Unemployment Benefits Drop Again: Live Updates' - not anything related to net neutrality. Your link seems to point to the correct article, but it is paywalled.
- coolreader18 5y ago
  Mods, could this be substituted?
- dang 5y ago
  Changed from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/06/business/stock-market-today https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/06/business/stock-marke.... Thanks!
neilv 5y ago
There are some attacks against our system of government that we seem to tolerate, maybe because they are so familiar. This particular attack seems less familiar. I'm wondering whether we'll deliver such a firm corrective "no" on this attack, that actors decide not to do anything too similar in the future.
- cure 5y ago
  We could rate-limit Ajit Pai's internet to 25 down, 3 mbit up for the rest of his life (because that is enough for everyone, he said). But, I'm guessing there will be no firm corrective "no". The parties involved will get away without any consequences. Maybe a slight slap on the wrist for one or two of the minor corporations involved.
  - briandear 5y ago
    And yet without NN, internet speeds have gotten faster.
jtms 5y ago
We just barely stopped an actual coup attempt. I think preventing or punishing this is sort of corruption is unlikely given the amount of money behind it.
- lazide 5y ago
  Not producing clear consequences for this behavior will only embolden even more. If there is penalty for clearly corrupting a democratic process, more people will go from ‘doing nothing’ to ‘doing something subtle’ and the people who were previously being ‘subtle’ won’t bother.
- seriousquestion 5y ago
  That was a protest that devolved into a riot, armed with phones for selfies and a viking LARPer as the centerpiece. Please see Myanmar for what a coup looks like; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Myanmar_coup_d'%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Myanmar_coup_d'%C3%A9tat edit; Myanmar is implicitly an example of both an attempted coup and successful coup. If they failed, it would still be an example of what a coup looks like. It's not protesters and rioters with iphones. It's soldiers with guns and vehicles. The capitol riot was terrible and should be denounced (as it has by almost everyone), but to describe it as an attempted coup is straight up gaslighting.
  - smt88 5y ago
    Is it just a "protest" if the organizers intended to storm into a federal building and use force to prevent a free and fair election?
    - mint2 5y ago
      That answer probably depends on whether one supported or is sympathetic to their cause or not, even although it really shouldn’t.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      The election had already occurred. The protest=>riot was attempting to stall the certification of that election while possibly removing a few members of Congress.
dantheman 5y ago
Net neutrality was a solution in search of a problem, and massive overreach.
- badmadrad 5y ago
  this was a collaboration between between corporations like Google and Netflix that want to hamper their competition and leftist who aimed to nationalize the internet. this was the vehicle by which they essentially wanted to seize telecom companies.
bjt2n3904 5y ago
Petition to re-title this, "No, you're a towel"? We're in this incredibly undesirable place where instead of debating something, we have this meta debate. "Net neutrality is valid because it's opponents astroturf." It's pretty funny, because I have the same opinion, but in reverse. Net Neutrality disappeared off the radar, and now all of a sudden it's on HN every other week. Looks like astroturfing to me! "No, you're a towel!" But you know what? Whether or not something is being AstroTurfed is entirely irrelevant, and debate is fruitless. We can have a debate on Net Neutrality without pointing fingers at who has genuine interest, and who is astro turfing.
- danaris 5y ago
  I mean, I'd be happy to have educated discussions about net neutrality, if I'd ever seen an argument against it that didn't boil down to "I think ISPs should be allowed to make things worse for everyone else—customers, streaming providers, game companies, everyone—just to increase their own already-obscene profits." And yes, that includes "they should be allowed to do the above Because Freedom".
- badmadrad 5y ago
  There isn't any major political stance that doesn't use social media and PR groups to astroturf. Anyone pretending they aren't astroturfing are lying and you should be wary of them.
brokenkebab 5y ago
Companies opposing to NN paid for astroturfing campaign. While proponents based their marketing on fear-mongering ("The internet is dying" - NYT, "Death of the internet" - CNBC). Would be interesting to measure which was more efficient in terms of mobilizing voters, but worth keeping in mind that it's tangential to the discussion about NN's virtues, and deficiencies
- Fellshard 5y ago
  Are you kidding? The account of astroturfing on behalf of NN was far more widespread.
  - smt88 5y ago
    Why would NN need astroturfing when it's wildly popular?
    - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
      It wasn't a matter of need - it was just trivially easy to do. New York says they traced 7.7 million faked pro-NN comments to a single college kid who doesn't seem to have done anything more complex than run a script.
- xhkkffbf 5y ago
  Yeah... and I wouldn't be surprised if the proponents didn't pay for some astroturfing too. Like seriously, who has time to write an opinion to the FCC? Not even most people on HN who might even have real, honest opinions about net neutrality. And probably 99.5% of society doesn't have a clue what net neutrality might even be. Is it possible that there's one honest opinion in the batch? I suppose so, but it's probably like Ajit Pai's mom.
deleted 5y ago
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brightball 5y ago
NN is one of those things that I never really understood. I get that people want to "stick it" to their ISPs, but since the NN talk began my internet connection at home has gone from 8mb to 200mb without me having to pay another dime via Spectrum. They called me and just said, "Here, we're upgrading you. You need a new modem to get the speed so that's free too." I could get 400mb or 1gb if I wanted but 200mb has been more than enough. I assume there's just very different issues in other parts of the country, but where I live I haven't seen any need for NN so it makes me wonder if there will be some negative effect to my currently good experience?
- yulker 5y ago
  Net neutrality is not about the speed your ISP can provide you. It's about ensuring ISPs don't privilege some traffic over others.
  - Wistar 5y ago
    A packet is a packet is a packet. Well, ideally.
    - neocraftster 5y ago
      Not ideally to some. People with money want their packets treated differently than other packets, and their ideal is just worse for everyone else.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  NN isn't about the raw speed. It's about ensuring content from ISP's competitors is available at the same speed as your ISP's content. If ISPs were just a dumb pipe, this wouldn't be a problem. But most of the major players are part of massive media conglomerates and have incentive to throttle/restrict certain content. https://i.insider.com/5887a523f10a9a2a768b6ac9?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp https://i.insider.com/5887a523f10a9a2a768b6ac9?width=700&for...
  - 5y ago
lakecresva 5y ago
The whataboutism is already strong in here. Net neutrality is the battleground, but the issue is pretty universal. Corporate actors are signing off on illegal activity to directly undermine the democratic process in a way that should frighten you, and even when they're caught for it they're not being punished. Investigators with the NY AG's office "said that Broadband for America acted to give Mr. Pai “cover” to repeal the broadband regulations.". The companies fingered by the AG didn't even pay as much in penalties as they made under their contracts with the telecom companies. The fact that some other corporate actors might be doing similar shit in the other direction is totally irrelevant; if they got caught, we should all want to bring the hammer down on them too.
- dantheman 5y ago
  It's hard to say NN is a democratic process when it was done unilaterally by the FCC and not through congress.
  - lakecresva 5y ago
    It's actually very easy, regulators are directly subordinate to congress and leadership is appointed by the president and confirmed by congress. The fact that people were willing to spend millions of dollars engaging in widespread fraud solely for the purpose of manufacturing the appearance of broad popular support pretty strongly suggests that you're wrong. The campaign directly targeted congressional offices.
    - dantheman 5y ago
      If it had necessary support congress can pass a law to grant the FCC new authorities. It seems they can't and don't want to do that.
      - lakecresva 5y ago
        I wonder if the millions of communications that fraudulently bear the names of their constituents have anything to do with that lack of enthusiasm.
splitrocket 5y ago
If your identity was used without your consent, I wonder if you could sue?
- batch12 5y ago
  Who would you sue?
  - ViViDboarder 5y ago
    I am not a lawyer, but I thought in cases like this you can sue a “John Doe” and then ask the court to compel logs and data from an entity (in this case, the FCC, to then identify the defendant.
- varispeed 5y ago
  You can't. Did you lose anything? Did one spoofed message have any bearing on the result? Maybe if people came together it would be different, but whoever made the decision could say that they knew these messages were off and had no effect on the result.
wolverine876 5y ago
The headline news is that they do so with impunity and achieved their goals at no cost. The corporations ("like AT&T, Comcast and Charter"), their association (Broadband for America), the lobbying firm (unnamed - who is it?), and the FCC, to the degree it failed its duties, suffer no consequences - and indeed the corporations get what they wanted; their plan worked. > The report said investigators had not found evidence that Broadband for America or the lobbying firm it used for the campaign were aware of the fraud. But, the attorney general said, several “significant red flags” had “appeared shortly after the campaign started, and continued for months yet still remained unheeded.” > The attorney general’s office said it had reached agreements with three “lead generation” services that were involved — Fluent, Opt-Intelligence and React2Media, companies that gather customers for clients as part of marketing efforts. Under the agreements, the companies said they would more clearly disclose to individuals how their personal information was being used. The companies also agreed to pay over $4 million in penalties.
- kevingadd 5y ago
  In general, the people and groups in the US that hold real power largely hold power because they have realized that as long as you keep cheating, eventually you will control the people and agencies responsible for punishing cheating. Rigging a process or stealing an election is fine because by the time the court case gets a hearing from a judge, the answer will be "well, the process/election is over, so we can't do anything about it." As time passes we see more and more groups intentionally exploiting this and exploiting it more often, and it feels like it will only get worse, especially since we can see it happening overseas in major political referendums or elections. The impact only grows bigger as these systems are exploited to put people in lifetime positions, so that the damage can't be undone for decades. It's really unfortunate because the knowledge that the system works this way makes it very easy for people to make false claims about a particular election being stolen or the methods used - people seriously making claims that "fake ballots were flown over from China" [1] or things like that when the reality is that theft is simple and not the work of foreign spies, illegal immigrants, or hugo chavez [2] - it's our neighbors, fellow citizens, elected officials, etc 1: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/goofy-az-republican-vote-audit-examining-ballots-for-bamboo-because-china/vi-BB1goWuq https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/goofy-az-republican-vote-a... 2: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/18/fact-check-hugo-chavezs-family-does-not-own-part-dominion-voting-systems/3926344001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/18/fac...
chaosharmonic 5y ago
The real irony of NN opposition is that the dial-up era, which one would otherwise characterize as exactly the kind of thriving market-based competition that conservatives love, only existed in the first place because the phone lines that these small providers used to operate their businesses were regulated as utilities. In effect, we had net neutrality in all but name until the Internet started to move to other, more vertically-integrated forms of infrastructure like DSL and cable. I would really love to see a Ted Cruz or Dan Crenshaw or some other disingenuous right-wing hack try to argue that, had it not already been illegal to do so, AT&T wouldn't have done the exact same things to AOL that Verizon and Comcast have gotten caught doing to Netflix. (EDIT: At least, it would amuse me in theory. In practice, my blood would probably start boiling about 30 seconds in.)
- briandear 5y ago
  How is Ted Cruz disingenuous?
  - chaosharmonic 5y ago
    There's that time he tried making some smug Twitter dunk about how anyone concerned about this is a "snowflake, believing online propaganda"[1], claiming that "the Internet grew up wonderfully free from govt regulation" as if he isn't old enough to have personally seen it grow up on publicly regulated phone lines. There's also the time he suggested that setting basic standards for ISPs amounted to "Obamacare for the Internet"[2], a patently ridiculous statement clearly designed to pander to a base that thinks any government is too much government. (Crenshaw has made similar comments, claiming that "They want to do it by classifying the Internet under a law from 1934"[3] - referring to the Communications Act, literally the one that established the FCC and gave them the power to regulate the aforementioned phone lines. It was also superseded by the Telecommunications Act, passed in 1996, but who's counting?) There's also that whole thing where he's spent the last several months pretending that he didn't spread lies about the 2020 election that led directly to a terrorist attack, but now I'm getting off topic. Except not entirely, because there's also the time three days later that he called Donald Trump's Twitter ban "Big Tech's PURGE, censorship & abuse of power"[4] as if it weren't already well-documented that the only reason it didn't happen sooner - given his numerous violations of their ToS up to and including calls to violence - was his status as a head of state.[5][6] (I would link to examples of some of those violations, but... you know...) Which, specifically, also flies in the face of the same laissez-faire capitalism bit that he would throw around over topics like Net Neutrality - since, if he really believed that, a more logically consistent position would be that Twitter is a private company and is allowed to make its own policies. In a broader sense, the GOP spent the entire Reagan administration maligning the Office of Technology Assessment, a Congressional office whose literal job was to educate lawmakers so that they have more knowledge about these topics than Ted Cruz displays in public, before eventually defunding it in the mid-90s - an act which directly contributed to a Congress which has issues like this, or like "Senator, we run ads,"[7] or like that time AOC apparently had to explain to colleagues what Twitch even is while they were attempting to legislate about it.[8] [1] https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/941489723901665280 https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/941489723901665280 [2] https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/531834493922189313 https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/531834493922189313 [3] https://twitter.com/RepDanCrenshaw/status/1116005136269217793 https://twitter.com/RepDanCrenshaw/status/111600513626921779... [4] https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1347919674101657602 https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1347919674101657602 [5] https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/worldleaders2019.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/worldlead... [6] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/bot-banned-from-twitter-for-repeating-trumps-tweets-verbatim/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/bot-banned-from-... [7] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/10/17222062/mark-zuckerberg-testimony-graham-facebook-regulations https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/10/17222062/m... [8] https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1288971591968333826 https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1288971591968333826
briantakita 5y ago
Not all opposition to Net Neutrality was faked. An argument is that Net Neutrality regulation can be gamed to harm independent ISPs via regulatory capture, where NN protects against throttling traffic by ISP's to harm independent content providers. The people who thought the cure of regulation was worse than the disease opposed Net Neutrality. Correct me if I'm wrong, but would Net Neutrality effectively subsidize high bandwidth providers, such as Netflix & torrent providers, presumably creating latency across the network? It may no longer be an issue, as rate-limiting can be applied to the consumer. The context of the Net Neutrality debate is different today than it was a few years, as content providers have more capitalization compared to ISPs, technology has improved, & new markets are in play. A big benefactor to NN nowdays seems to be distributing computing platforms such as IPFS, cryptos, Holochain, etc; which I find beneficial. But then, as systems are designed, where does Net Neutrality stop? If there were a bill that includes NN, would it be written in a way where lawfare can be abused to require any load balancer or proxy service to provide NN? Which leads back to the primary legitimate (IMO) concern of regulation being abused by entrenched powers to stifle competition. Is regulation better or is less more? At this time, what harm is being perpetrated that NN would solve?
- monocasa 5y ago
  > Correct me if I'm wrong, but would Net Neutrality effectively subsidize high bandwidth providers, such as Netflix & torrent providers, presumably creating latency across the network? Yeah, this is wrong. Netflix is already paying it's ISP, and both sides of a BitTorrent connection are paying theirs. Someone like Comcast wanting to charge Netflix just because too many of Comcast's customers are requesting Netflix traffic is ridiculous. Comcast already got paid... by their customers.
  - briantakita 5y ago
    > Someone like Comcast wanting to charge Netflix just because too many of Comcast's customers are requesting Netflix traffic is ridiculous. Comcast already got paid... by their customers. I don't have a preference who gets paid what in this situation as both are multi-billion dollar companies. Netflix serves as a middleman in a big machine as does Comcast. I have to care about my direct interests instead of spending energy on a crusade on behalf of a big tech company with the liability of the cost & making sure that the legislation does have any unintended consequences. Knowing politicians & lobbyists, there are always unintended consequences to any piece of legislation. From what I'm seeing, the argument for NN is moot, heavy-handed, & rife with unintended consequences; Unless you can provide information about how somebody like me is adversely affected by something that only NN legislation would solve, why should somebody like me support NN when there are many alternatives that would be better for me? With NN, Comcast, Verizon, etc. are only going to capture the regulators to crack down on their competition (e.g. independent ISPs). Focusing on providing better competition for underserved markets, included distributed networks & community wifi, would probably be more effective at keeping the quality of ISP market high. Improving distributed tech & removing (or rendering obsolete) legislation that limit competition to 1-2 ISPs in a region would also truly be beneficial. I also care about distributed systems. Is there something that regulation would do that the free market would not? I'm a wee bit tired of NN being an oxygen-sucking rallying cry wedge issue that does not solve the root issues that affect me personally, but instead could be another regulatory tool to crack down on independent providers & distributed platforms. NN is another of a long list of schemes to crack down on independent providers to capture yet another set of markets by the govt, lawyers, technocrats, etc. I wouldn't put it past Comcast to act as the heel in this charade.
betwixthewires 5y ago
So was the support. The NN debate online was a massive propaganda warfare campaign between two teams of huge corporations, neither of which had any of our interests in mind. We were squeezed in the middle of it and everyone was pressured to take sides.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  I haven't come across accusations that pro-NN were systematically submitting fraudulently support comments to the FCC. Absent that, there's no "both sides" argument here.
  - dexen 5y ago
    The pro-NN were systematically publishing fraudlent, alarmist opinion pieces in the media. That the channel is different and more dignified (citizen feedback vs big-name publications) doesn't make it any better.
    - betterunix2 5y ago
      Actually it makes a big difference, because the FCC has an obligation to consider comments submitted as part of the public comment process.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      Anti-NN were doing the same, so on that account perhaps they're equally awful. But defrauding the democratic process of public commentary & input into the policy making decisions of a major governmental organization rises to quite a higher level.
  - travismark 5y ago
    the WSJ piece mentions fake comments on both sides (paywall..) https://www.wsj.com/articles/fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-marred-by-millions-of-fake-comments-11620309351 https://www.wsj.com/articles/fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-ma... "Investigators also found 9.3 million comments supporting net neutrality that used fictitious identities, most submitted by one California college student majoring in computer science."
bmmayer1 5y ago
Maybe, but also maybe we shouldn't be making policy based on how many people wrote things on an internet comment forum.
binarymax 5y ago
Why the misnomer in the headline? Let’s call this what it is: fraud. These companies committed fraud. All involved should be prosecuted accordingly and the regulation rolled back and re-reviewed.
- varispeed 5y ago
  But nothing is going to happen. Nobody wants to go through it again and nobody wants to go to jail. People will complain for a bit and next week or month almost everyone will forget about it. Furthermore, there are legislation coming e.g. from the EU (terreg) that makes hosting of projects with user generated content prohibitively expensive for small players, not to mention hobbyists. The internet as we know has ended.
npsimons 5y ago
No fucking shit. What gave it away, the dead people opposing it, or the millions of identical comments opposing it?
- briandear 5y ago
  Kind of how I feel about dead people voting. Or people voting who don’t live where they are registered. Or votes being counted without valid signatures.
  - npsimons 5y ago
    Oh, you're one of those. Kind of wish HN had user blocking or misinformation flagging/reporting like reddit does. Let me guess, Bill Gates put microchips in vaccines to track us too?
floren 5y ago
We did some analysis back in 2017 and found some interesting stuff. Highlights: automated comment submission with broken templates so comments were coming from {STATE} and {CITY}, and over a million submissions from @pornhub.com email addresses. Analysis here: https://www.gravwell.io/blog/discovering-truth-through-lies-on-the-internet-fcc-comments-analyzed https://www.gravwell.io/blog/discovering-truth-through-lies-... (disclaimer: I work for Gravwell)
Proven 5y ago
It doesn't matter, in this case. NN is a ludicrous concept that increases prices and decreases choices. Why would I care if someone faked my opposition to it?
spanktheuser 5y ago
If these companies fraudulently stole the identity of individual Americans why aren’t they facing criminal charges? The Francis Wilhoit definition of conservatism as a form of aristocracy seems applicable: “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
ffggvv 5y ago
for all the crying, none of the doomsday scenarios people were claiming would happen have happened at all. and the internet is the same as it’s ever been. tel me why i should care now
briandear 5y ago
Without NN for a few years now, have any of the bad things promised happened? It seems to me that there should be “social media neutrality” — the very real effects of corporate-sponsored censorship have caused more harm than a lack of NN.
WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
It's awesome what isn't a crime when you're a major campaign donor.

549 points by u678u 5y ago

Is this different than what was reported more than 3 years ago [0]? [0] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=net%20neutrality%20fake&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

barbazoo 5y ago
I'm getting downvoted, but why, I don't understand.
- danaris 5y ago
  a) There are HN guidelines that warn you not to complain about downvotes. b) This is an article in the NYT that came out today, about findings by the NY AG released today. Yes, we all more or less "knew" that most of the comments were bogus all along, but having an official finding that says that is still extremely important, and is news in its own right.
- lakecresva 5y ago
  Because you're saying up-front that you didn't even bother to click the link to see whether it was different, and you're suggesting that corporate malfeasance is only worthy of scrutiny if it's fresh.

pessimizer 5y ago

This announcement may be an intentional excuse to give Biden a new progressive thing to do domestically (it's not new information.) Maybe I'm just hopeful. The administration seems (to me) to be trying to convert/retain the left-of-Democrats audience who only reluctantly turned out for him. They're going to need it. edit: I'd love a net neutrality bill or order, but I'd prefer net neutrality + prison time for those responsible for the fraud.

bigphishy 5y ago
If I understand this article correctly, the information is not new, but the report is following an investigation which has been on-going since the initial FCC comments began. However I don't see the report linked anywhere in the article, but I do see sporadic statements from the NY A.G. which were made 5/6/2021. If these were criminal actions created by the previous FCC chair, e.g. using a citizen's name to submit a false comment, the actors at the FCC and at "Broadband for America" should to be held accountable.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  This seems exactly like the kind of pain-free win that the Biden admin has been pulling lately for the base. I suspect coordination, but at this point it's just wishful thinking. Especially at this particular time: good luck trying to incite an anti-NN right-wing response right now when the primary rhetoric among the right currently is about internet censorship.

rectang 5y ago

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?

BikiniPrince 5y ago
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.
- Natsu 5y ago
  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.
  - dsr_ 5y ago
    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.
    - pydry 5y ago
      Then he released this cringefest: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhT6H6pRWg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhT6H6pRWg

CyberRabbi 5y ago

In reality the whole debacle was astroturfed from both sides, one side just did it better. The pro “net neutrality” movement was funded by google and Netflix and promoted laughable propaganda such as: What. If. Every. Thing. You. Did. On. The. Internet. Took. This. Long. Give me a break. There were no “good guys” in this debate, just corporations scrambling to control the popular narrative to suit their business interests.

bombcar 5y ago
It amazes me that "we don't want to pay for peering" became such a popular "grassroots" movement.
- advisedwang 5y ago
  Net neutrality is not not just the fight over peering. It's also: * Can an ISP have charge for access to Spotify but not YouTube Music (and presumably get a kickback from YT) * Can an Mobile phone forbid you tethering on you unlimited use plan? * Can an ISP ban you using bittorrent?
  - badmadrad 5y ago
    Your questions are making the assumption that this would cost more and limit choice. This is not how markets work, this is exactly what government regulation and crony capitalism does. Even in the case of your Spotify but not YT music example, what if there was a 5/month offer for 15mb internet with spotify streaming. Because spotify and your provider made a deal that subsidized the plan? At the end of the day, partnerships are not bad for the consumer. YT music could make a competing for deal for less money with more Google offerings. Also, this wouldn't eliminate an unlimited option across the board. When has competition made something more expensive? Its regulations like NN which pour amber over a system and make it impossible to be cheaper or better.
    - advisedwang 5y ago
      The questions simply state the scope of the debate.

u678u 5y ago

Probably a better link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/technology/internet-providers-fake-comments-net-neutrality-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/technology/internet-provi...

oftenwrong 5y ago
Yes, the current link sends me to an article 'State Claims for Unemployment Benefits Drop Again: Live Updates' - not anything related to net neutrality. Your link seems to point to the correct article, but it is paywalled.
coolreader18 5y ago
Mods, could this be substituted?
dang 5y ago
Changed from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/06/business/stock-market-today https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/06/business/stock-marke.... Thanks!

neilv 5y ago

There are some attacks against our system of government that we seem to tolerate, maybe because they are so familiar. This particular attack seems less familiar. I'm wondering whether we'll deliver such a firm corrective "no" on this attack, that actors decide not to do anything too similar in the future.

cure 5y ago
We could rate-limit Ajit Pai's internet to 25 down, 3 mbit up for the rest of his life (because that is enough for everyone, he said). But, I'm guessing there will be no firm corrective "no". The parties involved will get away without any consequences. Maybe a slight slap on the wrist for one or two of the minor corporations involved.
- briandear 5y ago
  And yet without NN, internet speeds have gotten faster.

jtms 5y ago

We just barely stopped an actual coup attempt. I think preventing or punishing this is sort of corruption is unlikely given the amount of money behind it.

lazide 5y ago
Not producing clear consequences for this behavior will only embolden even more. If there is penalty for clearly corrupting a democratic process, more people will go from ‘doing nothing’ to ‘doing something subtle’ and the people who were previously being ‘subtle’ won’t bother.
seriousquestion 5y ago
That was a protest that devolved into a riot, armed with phones for selfies and a viking LARPer as the centerpiece. Please see Myanmar for what a coup looks like; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Myanmar_coup_d'%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Myanmar_coup_d'%C3%A9tat edit; Myanmar is implicitly an example of both an attempted coup and successful coup. If they failed, it would still be an example of what a coup looks like. It's not protesters and rioters with iphones. It's soldiers with guns and vehicles. The capitol riot was terrible and should be denounced (as it has by almost everyone), but to describe it as an attempted coup is straight up gaslighting.
- smt88 5y ago
  Is it just a "protest" if the organizers intended to storm into a federal building and use force to prevent a free and fair election?
  - mint2 5y ago
    That answer probably depends on whether one supported or is sympathetic to their cause or not, even although it really shouldn’t.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    The election had already occurred. The protest=>riot was attempting to stall the certification of that election while possibly removing a few members of Congress.

dantheman 5y ago

Net neutrality was a solution in search of a problem, and massive overreach.

badmadrad 5y ago
this was a collaboration between between corporations like Google and Netflix that want to hamper their competition and leftist who aimed to nationalize the internet. this was the vehicle by which they essentially wanted to seize telecom companies.

bjt2n3904 5y ago

Petition to re-title this, "No, you're a towel"? We're in this incredibly undesirable place where instead of debating something, we have this meta debate. "Net neutrality is valid because it's opponents astroturf." It's pretty funny, because I have the same opinion, but in reverse. Net Neutrality disappeared off the radar, and now all of a sudden it's on HN every other week. Looks like astroturfing to me! "No, you're a towel!" But you know what? Whether or not something is being AstroTurfed is entirely irrelevant, and debate is fruitless. We can have a debate on Net Neutrality without pointing fingers at who has genuine interest, and who is astro turfing.

danaris 5y ago
I mean, I'd be happy to have educated discussions about net neutrality, if I'd ever seen an argument against it that didn't boil down to "I think ISPs should be allowed to make things worse for everyone else—customers, streaming providers, game companies, everyone—just to increase their own already-obscene profits." And yes, that includes "they should be allowed to do the above Because Freedom".
badmadrad 5y ago
There isn't any major political stance that doesn't use social media and PR groups to astroturf. Anyone pretending they aren't astroturfing are lying and you should be wary of them.

brokenkebab 5y ago

Companies opposing to NN paid for astroturfing campaign. While proponents based their marketing on fear-mongering ("The internet is dying" - NYT, "Death of the internet" - CNBC). Would be interesting to measure which was more efficient in terms of mobilizing voters, but worth keeping in mind that it's tangential to the discussion about NN's virtues, and deficiencies

Fellshard 5y ago
Are you kidding? The account of astroturfing on behalf of NN was far more widespread.
- smt88 5y ago
  Why would NN need astroturfing when it's wildly popular?
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    It wasn't a matter of need - it was just trivially easy to do. New York says they traced 7.7 million faked pro-NN comments to a single college kid who doesn't seem to have done anything more complex than run a script.
xhkkffbf 5y ago
Yeah... and I wouldn't be surprised if the proponents didn't pay for some astroturfing too. Like seriously, who has time to write an opinion to the FCC? Not even most people on HN who might even have real, honest opinions about net neutrality. And probably 99.5% of society doesn't have a clue what net neutrality might even be. Is it possible that there's one honest opinion in the batch? I suppose so, but it's probably like Ajit Pai's mom.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

brightball 5y ago

NN is one of those things that I never really understood. I get that people want to "stick it" to their ISPs, but since the NN talk began my internet connection at home has gone from 8mb to 200mb without me having to pay another dime via Spectrum. They called me and just said, "Here, we're upgrading you. You need a new modem to get the speed so that's free too." I could get 400mb or 1gb if I wanted but 200mb has been more than enough. I assume there's just very different issues in other parts of the country, but where I live I haven't seen any need for NN so it makes me wonder if there will be some negative effect to my currently good experience?

yulker 5y ago
Net neutrality is not about the speed your ISP can provide you. It's about ensuring ISPs don't privilege some traffic over others.
- Wistar 5y ago
  A packet is a packet is a packet. Well, ideally.
  - neocraftster 5y ago
    Not ideally to some. People with money want their packets treated differently than other packets, and their ideal is just worse for everyone else.
alistairSH 5y ago
NN isn't about the raw speed. It's about ensuring content from ISP's competitors is available at the same speed as your ISP's content. If ISPs were just a dumb pipe, this wouldn't be a problem. But most of the major players are part of massive media conglomerates and have incentive to throttle/restrict certain content. https://i.insider.com/5887a523f10a9a2a768b6ac9?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp https://i.insider.com/5887a523f10a9a2a768b6ac9?width=700&for...
- 5y ago

lakecresva 5y ago

The whataboutism is already strong in here. Net neutrality is the battleground, but the issue is pretty universal. Corporate actors are signing off on illegal activity to directly undermine the democratic process in a way that should frighten you, and even when they're caught for it they're not being punished. Investigators with the NY AG's office "said that Broadband for America acted to give Mr. Pai “cover” to repeal the broadband regulations.". The companies fingered by the AG didn't even pay as much in penalties as they made under their contracts with the telecom companies. The fact that some other corporate actors might be doing similar shit in the other direction is totally irrelevant; if they got caught, we should all want to bring the hammer down on them too.

dantheman 5y ago
It's hard to say NN is a democratic process when it was done unilaterally by the FCC and not through congress.
- lakecresva 5y ago
  It's actually very easy, regulators are directly subordinate to congress and leadership is appointed by the president and confirmed by congress. The fact that people were willing to spend millions of dollars engaging in widespread fraud solely for the purpose of manufacturing the appearance of broad popular support pretty strongly suggests that you're wrong. The campaign directly targeted congressional offices.
  - dantheman 5y ago
    If it had necessary support congress can pass a law to grant the FCC new authorities. It seems they can't and don't want to do that.
    - lakecresva 5y ago
      I wonder if the millions of communications that fraudulently bear the names of their constituents have anything to do with that lack of enthusiasm.

splitrocket 5y ago

If your identity was used without your consent, I wonder if you could sue?

batch12 5y ago
Who would you sue?
- ViViDboarder 5y ago
  I am not a lawyer, but I thought in cases like this you can sue a “John Doe” and then ask the court to compel logs and data from an entity (in this case, the FCC, to then identify the defendant.
varispeed 5y ago
You can't. Did you lose anything? Did one spoofed message have any bearing on the result? Maybe if people came together it would be different, but whoever made the decision could say that they knew these messages were off and had no effect on the result.

wolverine876 5y ago

The headline news is that they do so with impunity and achieved their goals at no cost. The corporations ("like AT&T, Comcast and Charter"), their association (Broadband for America), the lobbying firm (unnamed - who is it?), and the FCC, to the degree it failed its duties, suffer no consequences - and indeed the corporations get what they wanted; their plan worked. > The report said investigators had not found evidence that Broadband for America or the lobbying firm it used for the campaign were aware of the fraud. But, the attorney general said, several “significant red flags” had “appeared shortly after the campaign started, and continued for months yet still remained unheeded.” > The attorney general’s office said it had reached agreements with three “lead generation” services that were involved — Fluent, Opt-Intelligence and React2Media, companies that gather customers for clients as part of marketing efforts. Under the agreements, the companies said they would more clearly disclose to individuals how their personal information was being used. The companies also agreed to pay over $4 million in penalties.

kevingadd 5y ago
In general, the people and groups in the US that hold real power largely hold power because they have realized that as long as you keep cheating, eventually you will control the people and agencies responsible for punishing cheating. Rigging a process or stealing an election is fine because by the time the court case gets a hearing from a judge, the answer will be "well, the process/election is over, so we can't do anything about it." As time passes we see more and more groups intentionally exploiting this and exploiting it more often, and it feels like it will only get worse, especially since we can see it happening overseas in major political referendums or elections. The impact only grows bigger as these systems are exploited to put people in lifetime positions, so that the damage can't be undone for decades. It's really unfortunate because the knowledge that the system works this way makes it very easy for people to make false claims about a particular election being stolen or the methods used - people seriously making claims that "fake ballots were flown over from China" [1] or things like that when the reality is that theft is simple and not the work of foreign spies, illegal immigrants, or hugo chavez [2] - it's our neighbors, fellow citizens, elected officials, etc 1: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/goofy-az-republican-vote-audit-examining-ballots-for-bamboo-because-china/vi-BB1goWuq https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/goofy-az-republican-vote-a... 2: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/18/fact-check-hugo-chavezs-family-does-not-own-part-dominion-voting-systems/3926344001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/18/fac...

chaosharmonic 5y ago

The real irony of NN opposition is that the dial-up era, which one would otherwise characterize as exactly the kind of thriving market-based competition that conservatives love, only existed in the first place because the phone lines that these small providers used to operate their businesses were regulated as utilities. In effect, we had net neutrality in all but name until the Internet started to move to other, more vertically-integrated forms of infrastructure like DSL and cable. I would really love to see a Ted Cruz or Dan Crenshaw or some other disingenuous right-wing hack try to argue that, had it not already been illegal to do so, AT&T wouldn't have done the exact same things to AOL that Verizon and Comcast have gotten caught doing to Netflix. (EDIT: At least, it would amuse me in theory. In practice, my blood would probably start boiling about 30 seconds in.)

briandear 5y ago
How is Ted Cruz disingenuous?
- chaosharmonic 5y ago
  There's that time he tried making some smug Twitter dunk about how anyone concerned about this is a "snowflake, believing online propaganda"[1], claiming that "the Internet grew up wonderfully free from govt regulation" as if he isn't old enough to have personally seen it grow up on publicly regulated phone lines. There's also the time he suggested that setting basic standards for ISPs amounted to "Obamacare for the Internet"[2], a patently ridiculous statement clearly designed to pander to a base that thinks any government is too much government. (Crenshaw has made similar comments, claiming that "They want to do it by classifying the Internet under a law from 1934"[3] - referring to the Communications Act, literally the one that established the FCC and gave them the power to regulate the aforementioned phone lines. It was also superseded by the Telecommunications Act, passed in 1996, but who's counting?) There's also that whole thing where he's spent the last several months pretending that he didn't spread lies about the 2020 election that led directly to a terrorist attack, but now I'm getting off topic. Except not entirely, because there's also the time three days later that he called Donald Trump's Twitter ban "Big Tech's PURGE, censorship & abuse of power"[4] as if it weren't already well-documented that the only reason it didn't happen sooner - given his numerous violations of their ToS up to and including calls to violence - was his status as a head of state.[5][6] (I would link to examples of some of those violations, but... you know...) Which, specifically, also flies in the face of the same laissez-faire capitalism bit that he would throw around over topics like Net Neutrality - since, if he really believed that, a more logically consistent position would be that Twitter is a private company and is allowed to make its own policies. In a broader sense, the GOP spent the entire Reagan administration maligning the Office of Technology Assessment, a Congressional office whose literal job was to educate lawmakers so that they have more knowledge about these topics than Ted Cruz displays in public, before eventually defunding it in the mid-90s - an act which directly contributed to a Congress which has issues like this, or like "Senator, we run ads,"[7] or like that time AOC apparently had to explain to colleagues what Twitch even is while they were attempting to legislate about it.[8] [1] https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/941489723901665280 https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/941489723901665280 [2] https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/531834493922189313 https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/531834493922189313 [3] https://twitter.com/RepDanCrenshaw/status/1116005136269217793 https://twitter.com/RepDanCrenshaw/status/111600513626921779... [4] https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1347919674101657602 https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1347919674101657602 [5] https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/worldleaders2019.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/worldlead... [6] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/bot-banned-from-twitter-for-repeating-trumps-tweets-verbatim/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/bot-banned-from-... [7] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/10/17222062/mark-zuckerberg-testimony-graham-facebook-regulations https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/10/17222062/m... [8] https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1288971591968333826 https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1288971591968333826

briantakita 5y ago

Not all opposition to Net Neutrality was faked. An argument is that Net Neutrality regulation can be gamed to harm independent ISPs via regulatory capture, where NN protects against throttling traffic by ISP's to harm independent content providers. The people who thought the cure of regulation was worse than the disease opposed Net Neutrality. Correct me if I'm wrong, but would Net Neutrality effectively subsidize high bandwidth providers, such as Netflix & torrent providers, presumably creating latency across the network? It may no longer be an issue, as rate-limiting can be applied to the consumer. The context of the Net Neutrality debate is different today than it was a few years, as content providers have more capitalization compared to ISPs, technology has improved, & new markets are in play. A big benefactor to NN nowdays seems to be distributing computing platforms such as IPFS, cryptos, Holochain, etc; which I find beneficial. But then, as systems are designed, where does Net Neutrality stop? If there were a bill that includes NN, would it be written in a way where lawfare can be abused to require any load balancer or proxy service to provide NN? Which leads back to the primary legitimate (IMO) concern of regulation being abused by entrenched powers to stifle competition. Is regulation better or is less more? At this time, what harm is being perpetrated that NN would solve?

monocasa 5y ago
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but would Net Neutrality effectively subsidize high bandwidth providers, such as Netflix & torrent providers, presumably creating latency across the network? Yeah, this is wrong. Netflix is already paying it's ISP, and both sides of a BitTorrent connection are paying theirs. Someone like Comcast wanting to charge Netflix just because too many of Comcast's customers are requesting Netflix traffic is ridiculous. Comcast already got paid... by their customers.
- briantakita 5y ago
  > Someone like Comcast wanting to charge Netflix just because too many of Comcast's customers are requesting Netflix traffic is ridiculous. Comcast already got paid... by their customers. I don't have a preference who gets paid what in this situation as both are multi-billion dollar companies. Netflix serves as a middleman in a big machine as does Comcast. I have to care about my direct interests instead of spending energy on a crusade on behalf of a big tech company with the liability of the cost & making sure that the legislation does have any unintended consequences. Knowing politicians & lobbyists, there are always unintended consequences to any piece of legislation. From what I'm seeing, the argument for NN is moot, heavy-handed, & rife with unintended consequences; Unless you can provide information about how somebody like me is adversely affected by something that only NN legislation would solve, why should somebody like me support NN when there are many alternatives that would be better for me? With NN, Comcast, Verizon, etc. are only going to capture the regulators to crack down on their competition (e.g. independent ISPs). Focusing on providing better competition for underserved markets, included distributed networks & community wifi, would probably be more effective at keeping the quality of ISP market high. Improving distributed tech & removing (or rendering obsolete) legislation that limit competition to 1-2 ISPs in a region would also truly be beneficial. I also care about distributed systems. Is there something that regulation would do that the free market would not? I'm a wee bit tired of NN being an oxygen-sucking rallying cry wedge issue that does not solve the root issues that affect me personally, but instead could be another regulatory tool to crack down on independent providers & distributed platforms. NN is another of a long list of schemes to crack down on independent providers to capture yet another set of markets by the govt, lawyers, technocrats, etc. I wouldn't put it past Comcast to act as the heel in this charade.

betwixthewires 5y ago

So was the support. The NN debate online was a massive propaganda warfare campaign between two teams of huge corporations, neither of which had any of our interests in mind. We were squeezed in the middle of it and everyone was pressured to take sides.

ineedasername 5y ago
I haven't come across accusations that pro-NN were systematically submitting fraudulently support comments to the FCC. Absent that, there's no "both sides" argument here.
- dexen 5y ago
  The pro-NN were systematically publishing fraudlent, alarmist opinion pieces in the media. That the channel is different and more dignified (citizen feedback vs big-name publications) doesn't make it any better.
  - betterunix2 5y ago
    Actually it makes a big difference, because the FCC has an obligation to consider comments submitted as part of the public comment process.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    Anti-NN were doing the same, so on that account perhaps they're equally awful. But defrauding the democratic process of public commentary & input into the policy making decisions of a major governmental organization rises to quite a higher level.
- travismark 5y ago
  the WSJ piece mentions fake comments on both sides (paywall..) https://www.wsj.com/articles/fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-marred-by-millions-of-fake-comments-11620309351 https://www.wsj.com/articles/fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-ma... "Investigators also found 9.3 million comments supporting net neutrality that used fictitious identities, most submitted by one California college student majoring in computer science."

bmmayer1 5y ago

Maybe, but also maybe we shouldn't be making policy based on how many people wrote things on an internet comment forum.

binarymax 5y ago

Why the misnomer in the headline? Let’s call this what it is: fraud. These companies committed fraud. All involved should be prosecuted accordingly and the regulation rolled back and re-reviewed.

varispeed 5y ago
But nothing is going to happen. Nobody wants to go through it again and nobody wants to go to jail. People will complain for a bit and next week or month almost everyone will forget about it. Furthermore, there are legislation coming e.g. from the EU (terreg) that makes hosting of projects with user generated content prohibitively expensive for small players, not to mention hobbyists. The internet as we know has ended.

npsimons 5y ago

No fucking shit. What gave it away, the dead people opposing it, or the millions of identical comments opposing it?

briandear 5y ago
Kind of how I feel about dead people voting. Or people voting who don’t live where they are registered. Or votes being counted without valid signatures.
- npsimons 5y ago
  Oh, you're one of those. Kind of wish HN had user blocking or misinformation flagging/reporting like reddit does. Let me guess, Bill Gates put microchips in vaccines to track us too?

floren 5y ago

We did some analysis back in 2017 and found some interesting stuff. Highlights: automated comment submission with broken templates so comments were coming from {STATE} and {CITY}, and over a million submissions from @pornhub.com email addresses. Analysis here: https://www.gravwell.io/blog/discovering-truth-through-lies-on-the-internet-fcc-comments-analyzed https://www.gravwell.io/blog/discovering-truth-through-lies-... (disclaimer: I work for Gravwell)

Proven 5y ago

It doesn't matter, in this case. NN is a ludicrous concept that increases prices and decreases choices. Why would I care if someone faked my opposition to it?

spanktheuser 5y ago

If these companies fraudulently stole the identity of individual Americans why aren’t they facing criminal charges? The Francis Wilhoit definition of conservatism as a form of aristocracy seems applicable: “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

ffggvv 5y ago

for all the crying, none of the doomsday scenarios people were claiming would happen have happened at all. and the internet is the same as it’s ever been. tel me why i should care now

briandear 5y ago

Without NN for a few years now, have any of the bad things promised happened? It seems to me that there should be “social media neutrality” — the very real effects of corporate-sponsored censorship have caused more harm than a lack of NN.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

It's awesome what isn't a crime when you're a major campaign donor.