Net neutrality comment analysis reveals mass use of forms and bots, broad opposition to...

[William Gayde]

A third-party analytical study of net neutrality comments has revealed some very surprising statistics.

The study, conducted by consulting firm Emprata and funded by industry lobbyist group Broadband for America, reveals overwhelming support for net neutrality and a Title II classification among real people who wrote unique comments (as opposed to comment bots).

An initial analysis of the 21.8 million comments show 60 percent were opposed to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's plan while 39 percent were in favor of it. Once Emprata excluded duplicates to focus on legitimate feedback, the numbers shifted by a very large margin. Form letters (pre-generated portions of text) made up roughly 90 percent of comments supporting net neutrality and 99.6 percent of comments for Title II repeal.

With all of this taken into account, there were 1.52 million unique comments submitted against repeal and only 23,000 for repeal.

The study shows 98.5 percent of those people who took the time to write real comments oppose Ajit Pai's plan.

Interestingly enough, nearly 10 million comments listed the same physical address (mostly in comments against repeal). What's more, 1.72 million comments listed addresses that weren't even in the United States.

This is clearly not the result Broadband for America was looking for when they contracted Emprata to perform the study and is especially ironic given that Broadband for America has been called a front for the anti-net neutrality cable lobby by some. Many ISPs are still claiming to support net neutrality legislation in their words although their actions continue to show otherwise.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/70810-net-neutrality-comment-analysis-reveals-mass-use-forms.html

 

[Evernessince]

Well at least it's good to know the ISPs misinformation campaign isn't working. The NN put in place by Wheeler was very light handed, mostly creating guidelines and allowing the FCC to accurately collect comments specifically related to American's Internet service. I really don't know where Pai get's off saying communications aren't the jurisdiction of the federal communications commission, it's a pretty big facepalm.

This is the same we've seen everywhere else though, they want to get rid of the laws and come up with a replacement at some unannounced date that will never come.

 

[Uncle Al]

Considering the critical nature of this agency and it's wide spread impact on the American public, this is one position I think should be an elected position. There is little doubt this bum would be voted out of office on the first pass ......

 

[Panda218]

Considering the critical nature of this agency and it's wide spread impact on the American public, this is one position I think should be an elected position. There is little doubt this bum would be voted out of office on the first pass ......

Amen to that! Pai is an absolute bafoon.

 

[Evernessince]

Amen to that! Pai is an absolute bafoon.

He doesn't really hide the fact that he takes massive campaign contributions from the ISPs he's supposed to regulate and has always voted to further their interests. Heck, he's a former Verizon lawyer.

 

[wiyosaya]

10 M comments listing the same physical address. WTF? How could whatever entity did that figure that they would not be found out? Oh, wait - they were probably all generated by Verizon figuring that Pai would be dumb enough to accept them.

I find it very interesting that the results came out as they did especially since a telecom industry lobby group funded the study. I wonder if the company that performed the study was approached by those who paid for it in an effort to sway the results in favor of the industry?

The big question now is how does this affect any future action that the FCC/congress might take? I do not trust Pai to do the will of the people especially since our lovely congress made it a law to repeal NN. I'll keep my hopes up, but not too far.

 

[wiyosaya]

Considering the critical nature of this agency and it's wide spread impact on the American public, this is one position I think should be an elected position. There is little doubt this bum would be voted out of office on the first pass ......

Amen to that! Pai is an absolute bafoon.

Amen to that! Pai is an absolute baboon! Corrected that for you (at the risk of sounding racist)!

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Amen to that! Pai is an absolute bafoon.

He doesn't really hide the fact that he takes massive campaign contributions from the ISPs he's supposed to regulate and has always voted to further their interests. Heck, he's a former Verizon lawyer.

In the same comment section we have some people saying this should be an elected position and others saying he's taking campaign contributions. Think about that for a sec.

This NN battle is my favorite example of people having the exact backward solution to a problem they think exists. The last guy we had, Wheeler, wanted the FCC to have complete and ultimate power to control the internet. His solution to this was to regulate it as a utility and say he needs to have all this power so we can make sure NN is enforced.

Now Pai comes along and thinks the govt shouldn't have all that power. He's trying to give the govt LESS power over the internet. Fewer rules means easier innovation, lower barriers to entry, and it's more open to everyone.

The wool over everyone's eyes is when they called this 'Net Neutrality' - a truly genius name. it automatically makes everyone think it's fair. It's like the govt saying they're promoting 'childhood safety' but they neglect to tell you that the way they plan on making kids safe is by making bicycles illegal.

Lack of a 'neutral internet' isn't even a problem. There has NEVER been a lawsuit because some company had their business hurt due to throttled internet.

Saying we need NN by regulating the internet is to give the govt a bunch of overbearing and unnecessary power to fix a problem we don't even have.

 

[Evernessince]

In the same comment section we have some people saying this should be an elected position and others saying he's taking campaign contributions. Think about that for a sec.

This NN battle is my favorite example of people having the exact backward solution to a problem they think exists. The last guy we had, Wheeler, wanted the FCC to have complete and ultimate power to control the internet. His solution to this was to regulate it as a utility and say he needs to have all this power so we can make sure NN is enforced.

Now Pai comes along and thinks the govt shouldn't have all that power. He's trying to give the govt LESS power over the internet. Fewer rules means easier innovation, lower barriers to entry, and it's more open to everyone.

The wool over everyone's eyes is when they called this 'Net Neutrality' - a truly genius name. it automatically makes everyone think it's fair. It's like the govt saying they're promoting 'childhood safety' but they neglect to tell you that the way they plan on making kids safe is by making bicycles illegal.

Lack of a 'neutral internet' isn't even a problem. There has NEVER been a lawsuit because some company had their business hurt due to throttled internet.

Saying we need NN by regulating the internet is to give the govt a bunch of overbearing and unnecessary power to fix a problem we don't even have.

Wrong, Wheeler wanted to regulate ISPs like Telecommunications comapnies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#United_States

FYI ISPs have been receiving title II benefits since before the change. They have been receiving public money and collecting broadband extension taxes for some time now and have failed to deliver on the promises that come with that money, all the while their profits have soared.

"Now Pai comes along and thinks the govt shouldn't have all that power."

Yes, he thinks the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION shouldn't have power over ISPs, companies who strictly deal with communication /facepalm.

"Fewer rules means easier innovation, lower barriers to entry, and it's more open to everyone. "

No. You must have missed the last 10 years where Verizon, Comcast, and Charter have cornered their regional markets and you are fine with taking away even more rules. Yeah, I'm sure these companies will totally let competition startup /s. Since when has removing rules that force fair competition ever played out in the advantage to the small guy? The answer is never.

"There has NEVER been a lawsuit because some company had their business hurt due to throttled internet. "

lol, what?

https://www.polygon.com/2017/2/9/14548880/time-warner-lawsuit-new-york-league-of-legends-netflix
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...mcast-netflix-preview-of-coming-media-battles

There have already been thousands of lawsuits against these companies for abusing their regional monopolies. Communities can't build out their networks, internet services are being throttled, and they have grosely violated privacy rights thousands of times. Did you suddenly forget that Comcast was using it's own customers internet service, devices, and electricity to serve "free" wifi?

 

[Evernessince]

10 M comments listing the same physical address. WTF? How could whatever entity did that figure that they would not be found out? Oh, wait - they were probably all generated by Verizon figuring that Pai would be dumb enough to accept them.

I find it very interesting that the results came out as they did especially since a telecom industry lobby group funded the study. I wonder if the company that performed the study was approached by those who paid for it in an effort to sway the results in favor of the industry?

The big question now is how does this affect any future action that the FCC/congress might take? I do not trust Pai to do the will of the people especially since our lovely congress made it a law to repeal NN. I'll keep my hopes up, but not too far.

It won't affect Pai at all. This is the Trumpian era, where you can ignore any details you don't like, even unbiased fact only websites like politifact, where they literally only publish data.

 

[Bubbajim]

Considering the critical nature of this agency and it's wide spread impact on the American public, this is one position I think should be an elected position. There is little doubt this bum would be voted out of office on the first pass ......

Amen to that! Pai is an absolute bafoon.

Amen to that! Pai is an absolute baboon! Corrected that for you (at the risk of sounding racist)!

Me-thinks he was going for buffoon!

 

[wiyosaya]

Amen to that! Pai is an absolute bafoon.

He doesn't really hide the fact that he takes massive campaign contributions from the ISPs he's supposed to regulate and has always voted to further their interests. Heck, he's a former Verizon lawyer.

In the same comment section we have some people saying this should be an elected position and others saying he's taking campaign contributions. Think about that for a sec.

This NN battle is my favorite example of people having the exact backward solution to a problem they think exists. The last guy we had, Wheeler, wanted the FCC to have complete and ultimate power to control the internet. His solution to this was to regulate it as a utility and say he needs to have all this power so we can make sure NN is enforced.

Now Pai comes along and thinks the govt shouldn't have all that power. He's trying to give the govt LESS power over the internet. Fewer rules means easier innovation, lower barriers to entry, and it's more open to everyone.

The wool over everyone's eyes is when they called this 'Net Neutrality' - a truly genius name. it automatically makes everyone think it's fair. It's like the govt saying they're promoting 'childhood safety' but they neglect to tell you that the way they plan on making kids safe is by making bicycles illegal.

Lack of a 'neutral internet' isn't even a problem. There has NEVER been a lawsuit because some company had their business hurt due to throttled internet.

Saying we need NN by regulating the internet is to give the govt a bunch of overbearing and unnecessary power to fix a problem we don't even have.

Wow! Talk about ignorance being bliss. Let's see. Little to no regulations lead to the sub-prime mortgage melt down. Now rules put into place to protect against that are being repealed essentially handing banks carte blanche in that area.

Rules protecting students against slime ball universities are being repealed essentially telling slime ball universities that they are free to charge lots of money to their students and not educate them in the least, and I think @Evernessince has it covered for the internet.

EDIT: And here is the latest and perhaps the absolute worst yet: http://www.ibtimes.com/political-ca...cal-plant-exploded-lobby-against-safety-rules
/EDIT.

How many more instances do we need to cite before the obvious becomes obvious?

The US, and even the world, is still recovering from the mortgage meltdown; is that not enough, in and of itself, to obviate the need for rules to keep human scum under control, or do we need more instances of everyone else paying dearly for the transgressions that these human scum have committed? It might make it cheaper for businesses to do business by having fewer regulations, a topic which is highly debatable; however, it is blatantly obvious, IMO, that everyone else pays dearly for businesses being free to do whatever they please to whomever they please whenever they want. As I see it, it is tyranny and despotism in its worst form.

Personally, I think that you have too much faith in humanity; would I not love to be able to support your faith, but the simple fact is that human scum exists and it will and most often does, whenever it can, stretch rules or lack of them to line its pockets with even the last atom of gold at the expense of whomever it chooses to defraud. How is that good for humanity as a whole?

 

[wiyosaya]

It won't affect Pai at all. This is the Trumpian era, where you can ignore any details you don't like, even unbiased fact only websites like politifact, where they literally only publish data.

You won't get any arguments from me regarding your assessment. I would not be surprised if Pai deems all the good comments fake and all the fake comments good.

Me-thinks he was going for buffoon!

LOL!

 

[Panda218]

Me-thinks he was going for buffoon!

You sir are correct! I can't spell for **** and my mobile allowed it

 

[Reachable]

With the appointment of Ajit Pai the intended function of the FCC is essentially neutralized. The federal regulatory agencies (FCC, FTC, FDA, etc) were instituted (with bipartisan support, I imagine {too young to remember} to be organs of democracy, to enforce the public's interest against the abuses of business. Since I've been paying attention, though, business interests had burrowed their way into all the agencies, so, typically, if there's a situation where it's the public's interest versus Industry X or Corporation X, all parties sit at the table and a 'compromise' is worked out. That's not the way it's supposed to work!

It's the same as if you're getting held up by an armed robber. A cop comes by, but instead of arresting the robber, he works out a compromise -- the robber gets to take your money but you get to keep your credit cards.

Now, under Trump, the cops and the robbers have become one and the same, and if that doesn't make you alarmed, it should.

 

[EClyde]

I don't want some government agency having anything to do with the internet...just leave it alone

 

[wiyosaya]

I don't want some government agency having anything to do with the internet...just leave it alone

Good luck with that. The money grubber companies are inserting that siphon hose into your pocket right now. They cannot just leave it alone because every bit is an added feature for which they can charge extra!