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

Posted by BeauHD on from the ties-overseas dept.

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 "Pai noted in a court filing that most of the comments were in favor of net neutrality, which the FCC repealed last December," reports Engadget.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.

19 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Still won't change a thing by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Net Neutrality dies in 10 days. If you want it back you'll have to vote the bums out. And that means _all_ of them. You'll need to give a super majority of NN supporters the House, Senate and then a NN supporter the presidency. Otherwise whichever chamber they hold onto (Senate probably) will just keep blocking it and eventually you'll forget about it and move on with your lives; one more freedom shot down, one more victory lost.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Still won't change a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, you're a retard who thinks Conservatism is still viable and alive, it's not. You're a Libertarian idiot. Nobody is forcing AT&T to be an ISP. You want to be ISP, you play by ISP rules. Just like gas stations play by gas station rules.

      Don't like it? Go open a gas station at the bottom of the ocean, or out in the middle of the desert somewhere. Well, so long, get going Libertarian idiot who thinks laws don't apply and we don't need protections.

      Fuck right off.

    2. Re:Still won't change a thing by jeff4747 · · Score: 2

      The less laws you have regulating business the better for everyone.

      The quality of life in Somalia would seem to indicate otherwise.

      Fuck look at the Democrats trying to do Government healthcare

      It should be noted that the Democrats passed Bob Dole's plan for healthcare reform. Obama and company figured if they used a Republican plan, they could get a couple Republican votes. Didn't quite work out that way.

      That fucking imploded

      [Citation Required]

      Despite being a poorly-designed clusterfuck (as all Heritage Foundation plans are), the ACA has reduced the rate at which health care expenses are rising. But "Hurray! We brought down the second derivative" doesn't sell all that well politically.

  2. Re:Take that in Slashdot, you are siding with Russ by msauve · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Most of you here on Slashdot are supporting a side Russia is strongly supporting. Doesn't that tell you anything about how wrong it is to support Net Neutrality as the FCC had it?"

    Huh? Why? Are you unable to think for yourself, so you just have a knee-jerk reaction that anything the Russians might be for, for any reason, you're against?

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  3. hard to predict by bussdriver · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
  4. Re:Take that in Slashdot, you are siding with Russ by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  5. Why would he care either way by HalAtWork · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Twinstiq, game news
    1. Re:Why would he care either way by meglon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because he's a hyper-partisan piece of shit that doesn't want to govern... he just wants power.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  6. Re:Take that in Slashdot, you are siding with Russ by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just in case that needs clarifying:

    Of the approximately 3,828,000 legitimate email comments received by FCC:

    3,816,516 were in favor of Net Neutrality.

    Only 11,484 were not.

    Obviously the numbers are subject to rounding error. But rounding error is pretty irrelevant when the majority is that overwhelming.

  7. Re: Take that in Slashdot, you are siding with Rus by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 4, Funny

    And here is a wookie. The defence rests your honour.

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  8. I don't think lawsuits will work by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Informative

    the courts have been packed with pro-corporate judges for 30,40 years. They'll throw in with the side of property on this one. The EPA stuff is a bit easier to grasp since the ones that have been challenged have pretty immediate implications for the water table. NN doesn't really affect them. Worst case it doubles their cable bill but that'll be more than offset by the stock they own in AT&T and Comcast going up in value.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  9. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has ALLEGED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  10. Re:Take that in Slashdot, you are siding with Russ by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2

    This is the best that you can come up with for the new party line? "Net neutrality is a Russian plot to destroy the Internet"? That's not even clever.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  11. Re:Take that in Slashdot, you are siding with Russ by kenwd0elq · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The Russians don't back Trump, and never did. All they're trying to is stir up hate and discontent, which is exactly what you're helping to do.

    Comrade.

  12. "were linked to Russia email addresses" by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

    Yeah, right... we all know how that works

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  13. Re:You DO realize he's going to prison for colludi by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 2

    Why do people get trolled by this mediocre crapflooder?

    I'm stealing your bait, and snagging your hook in that sunken log over there.

    Have fun.

  14. Re:You DO realize he's going to prison for colludi by bobbied · · Score: 2, Informative

    Trump is about to face charges for ... (snip)

    Assuming you are talking about Trump Sr, you do realize that this is totally wrong. You CANNOT charge a sitting president with ANYTHING. DOJ regulations forbid this.

    So... If Trump Sr is about to face charges, real ones, he's going to either need to be impeached and convicted or resign office first. I don't think either of these situations is remotely possible, both politically and by Trump's personality traits. The Republicans in the Senate won't vote to convict Trump in sufficient numbers to get a conviction and Trump doesn't seem likely to resign, even under such pressure.

    Maybe, if he loses in 2020, you can charge him at 12:01 PM on January 20, 2021, or should he win reelection you will be waiting until January 20, 2025.

    So no, Trump isn't "about to face charges" (real criminal charges that is) regardless of what you believe he did. By law Mueller simply cannot bring criminal charges on a sitting president. Even if he did, the charges would be quashed by the courts, or at the very least, deferred until Trump left office. There would be no arrest, no perp walk nothing. And Mueller would be rightly chastised for doing it.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  15. WTF by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 2

    So out of 22 million public comments, 500,000 came from "Russian" email addresses. Seriously? How the fuck is this news.

  16. Re:NN was a rule for a while by jeff4747 · · Score: 2

    Did the internet improve under the new federal NN rules?

    Yes

    The same approved and NN ready paper insulated wireline kept the monopoly net slow for many.

    That monopoly is why you need net neutrality. Internet service can not be an efficient market because of the natural monopoly by the incumbents.

    Federal NN rules protected a set of monopoly telcos from new competition.

    [Citation Required]

    Also, two new Internet providers (AT&T and Google) started providing service to my house under Net Neutrality rules. How'd that happen if net neutrality forbade new competition?

    (Btw, they did that because their pockets are deep enough to be able to pay for the rollout despite the natural monopoly of my cable company. But you'll note Google has stopped rolling out fiber to new cities, largely due to problems caused by the incumbent's natural monopolies)

    A wealthy community can ask for its own community broadband now they are free of federal rules.

    Net Neutrality never required ISPs to serve poor areas, nor did it forbid wealthy areas from installing their own community broadband. You're thinking of the laws passed by Republicans in several states to forbid community broadband.