A Closer Look At The Fake Comments Filed With FCC On Net Neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) proposal to repeal net neutrality was up for public comment. Over 20 million comments were registered but many turned out to be fake, some using phony names, stolen identities, and temporary or duplicate email addresses. With multiple requests for details went unanswered, the FCC still plans to go ahead with the vote tomorrow anyway.

WIRED decided to undertake an analysis, showing how bots and fraudulent comments can disrupt public consultation and, at the same time, break the law: knowingly making false statements to the federal government is a felony.

To produce evidence of corruption and hacking in the FCC comments database, WIRED went granular, analyzing all of the comments submitted under the single name of Nicholas Thompson. Out of 39 results, it identified 6 as bots, 11 as auto-generated form letters and 3 as confirmed Thompsons. 19 could not be properly verified.

WIRED’s simple, yet, insightful investigation, is in line with findings of other organizations, who also point to multiple irregularities tied to net neutrality feedback. According to Pew Research Center, of all the comments posted, 94% were submitted multiple times and 57% utilized duplicate or temporary email addresses. Moreover, for example, 72% of people surveyed by The Wall Street Journal said they had nothing to do with identical postings created using their emails.

“The utter messiness of this tiny sample alone demonstrates just how much is unknown about the comments the FCC received, and which it is required by law to consider. As a workaround, the FCC has decided to ignore the majority of comments submitted by the public in favor of lengthy legal arguments submitted by interest groups and corporations. In doing so, it undermines the only real tool the public has to express their opinions about the rules that govern them. It's silencing their voices more than a million bots ever could,” concluded WIRED.