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Comcast Gets Hard Up At FCC Meeting
alphadogg notes a story over at portfolio.com claiming, and presenting evidence, that Comcast paid people off the street to take up room at yesterday's FCC hearing in Massachusetts. Comcast acknowledges that it paid people to hold places in line for its employees. But Save The Internet claims that people were bussed in by Comcast and then took up almost all available seats in the meeting room 90 minutes before the meeting opened, blocking scores of interested people from attending. Such tactics are not unheard of in Washington DC, but how appropriate are they in a regional meeting on a college campus?
What I want to know is how much one could get per hour as a professional "warm butt"--and what sort of requirements for participation there may or may not be. Are you contractually obligated to applaud, shout, and carry on? Or can you just sit and read a book?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
It was touching when Bill the Wino, whom Comcast had been promised a fifth of vodka to fill a seat, entered a rare moment of lucidity and shouted, "I will not sell my soul for liquor anymore, net neutrality for all!"
Microsoft has been using the same tactic for the OOXML meetings (remember the incident in Sweden?) I guess manipulating public meetings is the next form of business competition.
Looks like the crack R&D team at Comcast has branched out and found a way to manage congestion at FCC filings too.
A black hole is where God divided by 0
Such tactics are not unheard of in Washington DC, but how appropriate are they in a regional meeting on a college campus?
Huh? I am all for thinking that this is dick move but to ask "how appropriate" it is seems a little ridiculous. It's a fucking college campus -- if anything, it shouldn't be permitted in "Washington, DC" (whatever that means) but if someone wants to fill a campus auditorium with highlighter toting narcoleptics, so be it.
All this shows is that Comcast is willing to play dirtier than ever to ensure that their network operates in the manner they deem necessary. Normally I couldn't care less what a private business does with its customers but when they have a permitted monopoly in as many areas as they do, they should be held accountable for the bullshit they have been pulling using pipes that my tax dollars helped fund.
It almost seems like a move of desperation, I can't imagine why they would be that desperate though. Granted public opinion seems to be against what they are doing, but when has public opinion ever generated decent regulation from the FCC.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
... about the people who accepted money to "attend" a meeting they knew nothing about? Pretty shitty ethics on both sides of this transaction.For those who aren't aware, its common practice for Lobbyists to pay professional "line waiters" in Washington D.C.
Since lines form hours ahead of time for meetings and other public discussions, its a waste of time to force the lobbyist themselves to be waiting in line for 2-3 hours, so they pay someone to hold a place. I believe it was the Colbert Report that actually did a piece on this within the last couple of months. I think there was possibly some legislation being floated that would make some judgments on this practice.
It's Comcastic!
Frankly, someone should open an investigation as to how many hundreds or thousands of $$$$ of cash were paid. I'll bet Comcast doesn't have 1099s for the people they paid, which they probably illegally did with CASH...
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
With the rising unemployment in the US, Comcast could come to the rescue! Why don't they employ all the unemployed to 'reserve' spaces for their employees? What did they really hope to achieve with this blatant show of trickery?
My colleague and I run free wireless networks in housing projects. We both schlepped to attend this event and we were both turned away by Harvard cops because there was no room. It really drives me crazy that people whose livelihood is effected by net neutrality couldn't get in because comcast paid to pack the room.
The event was run by the Berkman Center and even people who identified themselves as working for Berkman were turned away. Even a reporter who just wanted to stand in the back and take photos was hassled by the cops - I didn't stay long enough to see if they let him in. There were a lot of people who arrived around the time I did (fifteen minutes early) and insisted that someone was holding their seat, so maybe there is some truth to the part about the people holding seats for Comcast employees - but - the Harvard cops wouldn't let these people by unless they called the person holding the seat and that person came out, so unless Comcast provided their employees with the cell numbers of the seat fillers they wouldn't have gotten in anyway.
I'm so mad about this that I want to tell everyone I know to cancel their comcast service, but because of the telecom duopoly most of the people I know who have comcast would probably have to pay a lot more to switch.
I'm a student at Harvard, and for what it's worth, I can confirm the Widener stretch of Massachusetts Ave was lined with an unusual (and infuriating) number of peter pan buses today (maybe 4-5 buses total). I had assumed it was a group of foreign tourists or a big alumni meeting (two busloads of said travelers are a common sight every month or so) but now that I know the truth, I'm fuming at the ears over this.
I'm contacting some friends in the Crimson to see if they plan to cover this in tomorrow's paper.
This is all part of Comcast's new Public Hearing Shaping technology.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.