SoylentNews

Bot Floods the FCC's Website with Anti-Net Neutrality Comments

posted by martyb on Thursday May 11 2017, @09:30AM   
from the duplicitous-comments dept.

DeathMonkey 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.

Late last month, FCC chairman Ajit Pai announced his agency's plans to roll back an Obama-era framework for net neutrality, which rule that internet providers must treat all internet content equally.

Since then, the FCC's public comments system has been flooded with a barrage of comments -- well over half-a-million responses at the time of writing -- in part thanks to comedian John Oliver raising the issue on his weekly show on Sunday.

[...] But a sizable portion of those comments are fake, and are repeating the same manufactured response again and again:

[...] "The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation," the comment says. "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."

NotSanguine called it! https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=19421&cid=506966

http://www.zdnet.com/article/a-bot-is-flooding-the-fccs-website-with-fake-anti-net-neutrality-comments/

---

Original Submission

• Why those comments are fake:Why those comments are fake: (Score: 3, Interesting) by FakeBeldin on Thursday May 11 2017, @11:54AM (1 child)

  by FakeBeldin (3360) on Thursday May 11 2017, @11:54AM (#508037) Journal

  But a sizable portion of those comments are fake

  The fine article does not make any statements on how many of those identical comments are fake. But ZDNet reached out to 24 commenters. Only three of those reacted... but none of them had left a comment.
  That coupled with the alphabetic order in which the comments were (apparently) submitted, led ZDNet to suspect a bot.

  For me, that's enough due diligence to indeed warrant a suspicion of bot use.
  (of course, suspicions aren't facts - but without further investigation, I'm disinclined to accept these comments as originating from more than one person.)

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+1
  Interesting=1, Total=1
  Extra 'Interesting' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		3

• Re:Why those comments are fake:(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:25PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:25PM (#508197)

  The fine article does not make any statements on how many of those identical comments are fake.

  Presumably all of them.

  Parent