FCC Chairman Admits Russia Meddled In Net Neutrality Debate (engadget.com)

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has admitted that around 500,000 comments submitted during the net neutrality public comment period were linked to Russia email addresses. "Pai noted in a court filing that most of the comments were in favor of net neutrality, which the FCC repealed last December," reports Engadget. From the report: The New York Times and BuzzFeed News have filed freedom of information requests in the hopes of uncovering the extent of fraudulent comments and Russian influence in the net neutrality process. Pai's filing was part of an FCC memorandum that addressed the requests, and the agency has argued that releasing the data could expose the U.S. to cyberattacks.

Pai's concession underscores how Russia's influence on U.S. democracy extends beyond headline-grabbing election interference and fake news peddling, and it also reflects the litany of issues the FCC faced during the net neutrality comment period. Over half of the almost 22 million comments came from phony, temporary or duplicate email addresses, according to a study, and reportedly only 17.4 percent of the comments were unique.

Comments

hard to predict

[bussdriver]

When it was done in such an easy to detect way one has to question the motives. If it was a state based attack, they are capable of doing a much better job than illustrating how the FCC didn't filter it's comments for duplicate emails...

If they want to be caught on 1 level, it can undermine the side they are supporting by lowering the credibility of that side as a bunch of hackers and not REAL people. On another level it can look like the SuperKendall thinks it does because they assume you think they really are that sloppy.

Helping the telcos only makes people upset and stand up more against the corruption; Russian tactics are the opposite. They want you to feel powerless and cynical as hell. So helping telcos cheat can do that to some degree but past a certain point it does good long term; as reforms can happen. The goal is to make reform so pointless people won't bother. Killing grassroots reform by undermining it does far more damage; getting the culture to discourage all traits that keep things functioning.

Like having provocateurs throwing rocks at cops in a peaceful protest; encouraging the fools and nutcase fringe to unknowingly harm their side by empowering them; otherwise, they'd be largely ignored by their own side. This way protesters and cops get divided even more despite it becoming public later that only 2 people involved; or even if 1 of the two was fake.

Re:hard to predict

[AmiMoJo]

The goal was to create chaos and undermine democracy in the US. The fact that it was easily detected just makes it easier to prove that Pai and the FCC must have known but covered it up because it produced the result they wanted.

Re:Take that in Slashdot, you are siding with Russ

[Jane Q. Public]

Ridiculous.

According to the very study cited, while most of the emails might not have been legit, of the ones that WERE, fully 99.7 of them supported Net Neutrality.

And there are a lot of VERY damned good reasons for that, too.

Why would he care either way

[HalAtWork]

What I don't get is why he was featured in propaganda: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...

Why would he want to placate people in such a transparent way and taunt people and take sides instead of taking a diligent role in objectively looking into the issues of concern, or why he would refuse to help investigate the comments.

This truly shows how out of touch and ineffective he is.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has ALLEGED

[Anonymous Coward]

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has alleged evil Russians were involved, so as to distract you from the fact 99% of legitimate responses were in fact in favour of keeping net neutrality.