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A lot of the spam is from adversarial interests against the general American population, such as ISPs, Russia, etc.

That may have different implications than you think. Per page 13 of this analysis of the comments, there were 444,938 comments submitted from Russia, and 444,925 of them were pro-NN.

The entire comment database is freely available for download if you'd like to check for yourself.

I had to check if my HOA had been duped too, because this is just the type of thing they would do. They're not on the list, but if anyone else is interested they should check the list themselves to see if any groups they're members of are on it.

Also, this is a tu quoque.

No, it is not. You asked why I didn't defend Vice. I'm not defending them because they are wrong, and they are arguably lying (i.e., they are wrong despite knowing the facts).

Nope. I was talking about you deriding an article that tries to make people a little bit more aware of how corporate interests are being 'masked' as messages from consumer advocacy groups.

They aren't being "masked". Vice claims they are being masked and they are wrong. BFA isn't astroturfing because they are clear about who their members are and where their money comes from.

Quote, please.

Look at BFA's web site; they tell you who their members are:

http://www.broadbandforamerica...

They aren't claiming to be a "grassroots" organization, hence they aren't astroturfing.

But I am pretty interested in how you propose achieving net neutrality, if not via the FCC or 'telecoms regulation'.

I'm not even sure net neutrality is a good idea. It's your and Vice's firm belief that it is, but you haven't made your case. Such regulations ultimately just shift costs around (since neither investors nor the corporations are going to pick up the cost), so one group of Internet users will end up subsidizing another. Why is that better than what we have now?

Here's one that's easy: outright lying. Unless you're arguing that fraud shouldn't be illegal, because it's just an expression of free speech. Astroturfing is a form of fraud: you're trying to present views as coming from someone else.

Broadband for America is quite clear about who their backers are: http://www.broadbandforamerica... And they didn't present themselves as a grassroots organization, SFGate (Hearst Corporation) did.

But the trouble with demanding truth in free speech is that somebody needs to determine what "truth" is. Either the executive or the courts have to adjudicate. Who do you think will be at the receiving end of determinations of untruth? What do you think the government position would have been on the truth of such statements like "Blacks and whites are equally capable", "Women and men are equally capable", or "Homosexuality is not a disease"? It's minority views that benefit most from being able to speak up against the majority opinion; tolerating lies and deception is the price we pay for that.

Astroturfing is when organizations pretend to be grassroots, community organizations but are clandestinely funded by corporate interests. There is nothing clandestine about the funding for Broadband for America; it's a PR and lobbying organization that consists of a lot of big businesses and some little businesses:

http://www.broadbandforamerica...

I don't see why people get their panties in a knot about companies presenting their point of view publicly; you can listen to their arguments and either agree with them or disagree with them.