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A Bot Is Flooding the FCC's Website With Fake Anti-net Neutrality Comments (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the what's-happening dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A bot is thought to be behind the posting of thousands of messages to the FCC's website, in an apparent attempt to influence the results of a public solicitation for feedback on net neutrality. A sizable portion of those comments are fake, and are repeating the same manufactured response again and again, ZDNet reports. So much so that more than 58,000 identical comments have been posted since the feedback doors were opened, now representing over one-in-ten comments on the FCC's feedback docket. The comment reads as following: "The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation. I urge the Federal Communications Commission to end the bureaucratic regulatory overreach of the internet known as Title II and restore the bipartisan light-touch regulatory consensus that enabled the internet to flourish for more than 20 years."

ZDNet claims that all other comments follow the same pattern: the bot appears to cycle through names in an alphabetical order, leaving the person's name, and postal address and zip code. And some -- if not all -- of these comments are fake, the publication adds, claiming that it reached out to the people and many of them confirmed that they had not left any comments on the website.

15 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. FCC comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation. I urge the Federal Communications Commission to end the bureaucratic regulatory overreach of the internet known as Title II and restore the bipartisan light-touch regulatory consensus that enabled the internet to flourish for more than 20 years."

    That was my comment, and I can assure you I am entirely real person.

    -Anonymous Coward

  2. Great by dejitaru · · Score: 4, Funny

    Watch Ajit Pai use that as enough excuse to "give the people what they want" and destroy net neutrality, regardless if it only accounts for 10% of the posts.

    Who am I kidding, he doesn't care to explain himself...

    1. Re:Great by lgw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not remotely credible. It presumes that a government agency would actually read comments from citizens. Not a feature of large governments. They are required to accept comments, of course. Of course.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    2. Re: Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Right? It's really damned tough to hack a new road out of the forest, just to go to work every day. Having to hire your own security forces, fire department, and emergency responders is so expensive today.

      I could go on, but I suspect the effort would be wasted.

  3. False flag? by StikyPad · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As much as I wish ISPs and their shills would be this transparent, this seems like a false flag to me. ISPs exert enough influence that they don't need to fabricate a grassroots effort, let alone one that's so clearly astroturf. OTOH, I can believe some script kiddy thinking this would somehow appear damaging to ISPs.

    --
    https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
    1. Re:False flag? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As much as I wish ISPs and their shills would be this transparent, this seems like a false flag to me. ISPs exert enough influence that they don't need to fabricate a grassroots effort, let alone one that's so clearly astroturf. OTOH, I can believe some script kiddy thinking this would somehow appear damaging to ISPs.

      They exert influence by doing exactly what you say they don't do. They fabricate grassroots coalitions fighting for the 'people', when in reality they are fighting for their own side.

      A lot of these organizations popped up during the #UnlockTheBox saga. An accidentally leaked document in a court case against Comcast showed that they spent $120M lobbying on the efforts.

    2. Re:False flag? by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

      Normally sure, but ISPs might have realized that lobbying is pointlessly expensive and unnecessary given recent political events. The dumber the approach, the more likely it is to succeed. Anyone paying attention will realize only the most hated companies in america will benefit from this, while everyone else will suffer. But clearly, most people are paying no attention. "Half the comments on this boring internet thing were happy about it, so you can ignore it" is probably all the cover they'll need.

    3. Re:False flag? by sl3xd · · Score: 2

      I can believe some script kiddy thinking this would somehow appear damaging to ISPs.

      My bet is it's just a hacktivist trying to make his/her views seem more mainstream and popular than they really are.

      Let's face it; history is full of examples where adherents to a fringe belief lie to themselves (and others) and promote it as being mainstream.

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
  4. False Flag, or just an idiot? by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I suppose it's possible that someone is trying to invalidate any legitimate responses from the public on this subject by doing this.
    I also suppose it's possible that some well-meaning idiot is doing it thinking they're helping the cause of Net Neutrality.
    Either way they need to knock it the hell off. Stop attempting to subvert the will of the people.

    1. Re:False Flag, or just an idiot? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's obviously an idiot. You can tell by the premise.

      Welfare programs are expensive. An undeveloped economy can't afford welfare programs; a highly-developed economy can implement more-effective welfare for lower costs than scaled-beyond-sustainable older welfare programs.

      Feudalism, baronies, and serfdom allowed countries to flourish for hundreds of years. Poor houses--prisons amounting to forced labor camps for the poor, reducing the cost of feeding them by using them as cheap labor--worked for decades after the industrial revolution. Modern welfare systems are threatened by newer systems like an expanded social security.

      The Internet has grown in scope. The things that worked in the past won't continue to work when the Internet is a different thing, just like governments don't continue to function when economies are different things.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    2. Re:False Flag, or just an idiot? by geekmux · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I suppose it's possible that someone is trying to invalidate any legitimate responses from the public on this subject by doing this. I also suppose it's possible that some well-meaning idiot is doing it thinking they're helping the cause of Net Neutrality. Either way they need to knock it the hell off. Stop attempting to subvert the will of the people.

      In case you hadn't noticed, the will of the people is dead. The average citizen doesn't have a fucking clue what Net Neutrality is, nor do they give a shit enough to care.

      It's the entire reason why it will ultimately be defeated by those who maintain Control.

    3. Re:False Flag, or just an idiot? by swillden · · Score: 2

      Sadly, if we were to remove all of the automated bot-driven content, there is likely a pathetic amount of feedback being posted from actual citizens who care enough.

      My perusal of the comments, as well as the numbers from the article, refute this. The bot comments seem to constitute at most half (the article says 10%) of the more than 500,000 comments received. I'll grant that John Oliver's show is probably the proximate cause of nearly all of the real comments received, but that's okay, it's still real people taking the time to speak up.

      500,000 comments. Coming from a population of over 300 million citizens.

      The comment period is open until August.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  5. A distraction? by grasshoppa · · Score: 2

    The attempt seems pitifully inept. To me, it seems designed to grab attention, which makes me suspicious that something else is going on. Distraction from some other part of the process, or for something completely unrelated?

    Of course, it could just be a script kiddie or some other idiot. Hanlon's razor may apply here: "any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice"

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
  6. FCC incompetence on full display by WaffleMonster · · Score: 2

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  7. Well they said it was a *Distributed* DOS attack by tlambert · · Score: 2

    Well they said it was a *Distributed* DOS attack...

    What's more distributed than all the devices of a certain broadband provider, and who would have the list of names and addresses associated with those routers?