Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/10/04/astroturf-by-comcast.html
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I wonder if it wouldn’t be less agonising just to dispense with the charade. This seems like an exercise in underlining how few fucks the FCC gives about the public’s opinion.
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Opinions, democracy… but what’s better for business?
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I don’t know, let’s ask Verizon/FCC what they think, right after we’re done talking with Exxon/State and DeVry/Education.
Christ, we’re only a Kodak/NSA away from a Disney World-esque sponsored government
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Why the hell did the FCC provide an API to submit comments programmatically? What possible reason could they have aside from intentionally allowing bots to post?
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I was wondering the same thing, especially in light of their intention to count every single comment, not matter how obviously fraudulent.
I guess they’ll be able to say that the comment process was inherently flawed because it was so vulnerable to manipulation from all sides. And therefore they’ve had to throw out all the comments.
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Blagojevich said it best, “I’ve got this thing, and it’s fucking golden. I’m just not giving it up for fucking nothing.”
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God. That guy. I went to Tokyo on business while all that was going on, and he was all over TV there. Inescapable, American drama!
I told people I was Canadian, rather than admit I was from the Chicago area.
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But her emails!
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Well if they had just TOLD us this before we could have spammed the living crap out of the FCC with pro Net Neutrality comments.
Haven’t they ever heard of transparency?
Jeez, it’s almost like they weren’t even interested in public opinion and just wanted to sell us up the river no matter what.
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They should reopen the comment period. We will then find out whose bots are better: liberals or conservatives.
I don’t know, but it’s not a bad thing in itself. APIs for government data and consultations can allow third parties to make more and better tools for civic engagement than governments might provide themselves.
There are various pro-net neutrality organizations that also have you fill out a form with your details that sent a default message to the FCC. I imagine those systems were also using the FCC’s API.
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You forgot the ™. It’s “But Her Emails™!” The phrase is probably ©Fox Inc. and/or Rupert Murdoch in perpetuam by now…
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I read this wrong on other sites. I thought they were saying pro net neutrality comments were being faked.
That would be the smart way to social engineer a win for big business. Just make it look like the tech savvy are idiot hacker wannabes.
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