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

posted by martyb on Thursday May 11 2017, @09:30AM   Printer-friendly
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

 
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:09PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:09PM (#508191)

    Evil Trumpkins using technology to hold sway over the populace! But we must mindlessly follow along with whatever brainfart huffs out of John Oliver's faceanus!

    "You see comrade, unlike the capitalists, our astroturf is the real thing!"

  • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:28PM

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:28PM (#508198)

    People like to cling to the notion of having "free will", so do not like to be labelled as bots.

  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:51PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:51PM (#508211) Journal

    If real people are posting real comments under their real name, and not getting paid for it, then it's not astroturfing; by definition. [wikipedia.org]

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday May 11 2017, @06:42PM

    by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Thursday May 11 2017, @06:42PM (#508237) Journal

    Encouraging people to petition their government is fine. Using scripts/bots/programs to flood a system with identical comments is not.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]