ISP-funded 8.5 million against neutral neutral comments
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The largest Internet US suppliers funded the campaign to create “8.5 million false comments” on the Federal Communications Commission as part of the fight against ISPs net neutrality rules in the Trump administration, according to a report on Thursday Letitia James New York State Attorney General.
According to the report, nearly 18 million of the 22 million comments were generated, including submissions for and against net neutrality. A 19-year-old posted 7.7 million comments in favor of net neutrality under randomly generated fake names. But funded astroturfing efforts broadband industry was noted for using the names of real people without their consent, as the industry hired third-party companies that falsified authorized records, the report says.
The New York Attorney General’s Office began the investigation in 2017 and said stone wall since then the FCC chair Ajit Pai, Moe he denied requests for evidence. But the office said it had found “millions of thousands of emails, planning documents, bank records, invoices and hundreds of millions of records” after years of obtaining and analyzing “the office said” that millions of fake comments had been sent. through a secret campaign funded by the country’s largest broadband companies, using lead generators to manufacture support to repeal network neutrality rules. ”
It was clear Before Pai completed the repeal In December 2017, millions of people — including the dead — were replaced in net neutrality comments. As well as industry-funded research found 98.5% of actual comments were against Paia’s deregulatory rule plan. Thursday’s report shows more details on how many false comments there were and how the broadband industry got involved.
“The broadband industry cannot actually rely on campaign-based support because people support strong rules of net neutrality,” the report said. “So he tried to fabricate support for the abolition of the broadband industry by creating a contract by paying companies to create comments.”
The report said the industry’s campaign was conducted through Broadband for America (BFA), a group umbrella that includes Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Cox and CenturyLink. Broadband for America also includes three trade groups, the CTIA, which represents the wireless communications industry; NCTA – Internet and Television Association; and the Telecommunications Industry Association. Verizon is not listed as an American broadband member, but is part of CTIA.
“The BFA hid its role in the campaign by hiring anti-regulatory defense teams — unrelated to the broadband industry — to be public faces of the campaign,” the AG report says.
Broadband’s “first funders” for the campaign against net neutrality include an industry trading group and three of the largest players in the U.S. Internet, telephone and cable market, with more than 65 million U.S. subscribers and a market value of about half a trillion dollars. says the report.
Comcast, Charter and AT&T are the largest members of American broadband. Comcast it has 31.1 million residential customers in the broadband, telephone and television categories. Letter it has 29.4 million such customers. AT&T It has 14.1 million Internet customers and 15.9 million TV customers, but it is unclear how many overlaps there are between these categories. DirecTV users do not live in AT & T’s cable territory.
The report cites Comcast, Charter and AT&T without specifically naming other providers. The only mention of these ISPs was in the following sentence: “Network neutrality refers to the principle of providing Internet service to your home, business, and mobile phone, such as AT&T, Comcast, and Charter (referred to as the Internet). should make a distinction in the content available on the Internet. “
Since the broadband companies used third-party vendors to campaign, the Attorney General’s Office said it found no evidence that the ISPs themselves had “correct knowledge” of the fraudulent behavior. Broadband companies spent $ 8.2 million in a campaign against net neutrality, including $ 4.2 million to send 8.5 million comments to the FCC and half a million letters to Congress, the report says.
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