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Three Companies Faked Millions of Comments Supporting 2017 Repeal of 'Net Neutrality' Rules (yahoo.com) 77

Three companies "supplied millions of fake public comments to influence a 2017 proceeding by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to repeal net neutrality rules," announced New York's attorney general this week.

Their investigation "found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent," as well as "widespread fraud and abusive practices" Collectively, the three companies have agreed to pay $615,000 in penalties and disgorgement. This is the second series of agreements secured by Attorney General James with companies that supplied fake comments to the FCC... As detailed in a report by the Office of the Attorney General, the nation's largest broadband companies funded a secret campaign to generate millions of comments to the FCC in 2017. These comments provided "cover" for the FCC to repeal net neutrality rules. To help generate these comments, the broadband industry engaged commercial lead generators that used advertisements and prizes, like gift cards and sweepstakes entries, to encourage consumers to join the campaign.

However, nearly every lead generator that was hired to enroll consumers in the campaign instead simply fabricated consumers' responses. As a result, more than 8.5 million fake comments that impersonated real people were submitted to the FCC, and more than half a million fake letters were sent to Congress. Two of the companies, LCX and Lead ID, were each engaged to enroll consumers in the campaign. Instead, each independently fabricated responses for 1.5 million consumers. The third company, Ifficient, acted as an intermediary, engaging other lead generators to enroll consumers in the campaign. Ifficient supplied its client with more than 840,000 fake responses it had received from the lead generators it had hired.

The Office of the Attorney General's investigation also revealed that the fraud perpetrated by the various lead generators in the net neutrality campaign infected other government proceedings as well. Several of the lead generation firms involved in the broadband industry's net neutrality comment campaigns had also worked on other, unrelated campaigns to influence regulatory agencies and public officials. In nearly all of these advocacy campaigns, the lead generation firms engaged in fraud. As a result, more than 1 million fake comments were generated for other rulemaking proceedings, and more than 3.5 million fake digital signatures for letters and petitions were generated for federal and state legislators and government officials across the nation.

LCX and Lead ID were responsible for many of these fake comments, letters, and petition signatures. Across four advocacy campaigns in 2017 and 2018, LCX fabricated consumer responses used in approximately 900,000 public comments submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Similarly, in advocacy campaigns between 2017 and 2019, Lead ID fabricated more than half a million consumer responses. These campaigns targeted a variety of government agencies and officials at the federal and state levels...

LCX and its principals will pay $400,000 in penalties and disgorgement to New York and $100,000 to the San Diego District Attorney's Office.

Thanks to Slashdot reader gkelley for sharing the news.
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Three Companies Faked Millions of Comments Supporting 2017 Repeal of 'Net Neutrality' Rules

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  • by rabbirta ( 10188987 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @11:41AM (#63518871) Homepage
    Worked at an intelligence firm.
    We'd use thispersondoesnotexist to get a face
    Then we'd make fake socials for this fake person (linkedin, twitter, whatever we think they'd use [the fake person/persona])
    Finally, we'd post everywhere we could about our competitors product being bad and ours being good.
    We'd keep links to these posts in a spreadsheet to track our progredss.

    Telling y'all first hand, shills are real. Use your brain. Come to your own conclusions.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 13, 2023 @11:48AM (#63518887)
      > Use your brain. Come to your own conclusions.

      That is what people who still deny the 2020 election results think they're doing.

      If your brain is really bad at thinking, coming to your own conclusion and being spoon-fed is the same thing.
      • by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @01:34PM (#63519079) Homepage

        Use your brain. Come to your own conclusions.

        That is what people who still deny the 2020 election results think they're doing.

        And all those anti-vaxxers during the pandemic carrying signs saying "Facts not fear ..."
        All the while when it is they who do not listen to facts, and it is they who spread fear ...

    • Telling y'all first hand, shills are real. Use your brain. Come to your own conclusions.

      You just admitted to being a shill. Why should we believe anything else you have to say!

  • by BeanBagKing ( 1151733 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @11:49AM (#63518891)
    ~200k each, I'm sure that'll make them think twice before ever trying this again!
    • by firewrought ( 36952 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @11:56AM (#63518913)

      No kidding. The fede need to do a full investigation, seize business records, press RICO charges against the C-suite, and go after any firm that hired them.

      • by Xenx ( 2211586 )

        and go after any firm that hired them.

        There would be a tougher battle on that one. The summary specifically said the companies were hired to find people, not fake people. I'm not saying the hiring companies were ignorant of the reality, only that it's a lot harder to prove they were aware going in.

    • by Grokew ( 8384065 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @12:07PM (#63518935)
      If you as an individual did something similar, you would be thrown in jail for at least 20 years. A company does it, and they just get a slap on their wrist. Just cancel the darn company, liquidate their assets and throw the desicion makers in prison for a while. I, mean , Corporations are "people" right?
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        They do that in Japan. The company can be sentenced to stop trading for a period of time, or completely. They usually make it a period of time so that the innocent employees don't get screwed. Employees get paid during the sentence.

        • Do you have any references for that? Sounds like an excellent idea, but Google just turns up stories on stock trading firms ordered to stop for awhile.
          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Not off hand, sorry. It gets reported in Japanese newspapers and on their websites, but they seem to be really bad at SEO so are hard to search.

    • by sjames ( 1099 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @04:55PM (#63519353) Homepage Journal

      They should be charged with millions of counts of identity theft. Surely doing it to disrupt the process of democracy is just as bad as doing it for financial fraud.

    • Now that they've settled with the state, could some enterprising lawyer start a class action suit on behalf of the people who were impersonated?

  • by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @11:50AM (#63518897) Homepage

    Their investigation "found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent,"

    Next time they ask you, this is why big companies shouldn't have all your personal data.

    The problem goes way beyond whether you, personally, think you have "nothing to hide" or want to receive "targeted advertising".

  • Identity theft. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @11:58AM (#63518919)
    Surely the identity theft of millions of people should result in millions in fines, and jail time for the perpetrators?
  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @12:00PM (#63518923)

    A guy posted on Twitter [techdirt.com] asking the FCC how it was possible his dead mother wrote in to oppose net neutrality. And he wasn't the only one whose dead relatives wrote in to oppose net neutrality.

    • by Vlad_the_Inhaler ( 32958 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @12:27PM (#63518969)

      It was known at the time that a large number of the submissions were faked, but Ajit Pai made the executive decision to treat them as genuine.
      $615,000 is ridiculously low and a clear indication that whoever set the penalties does not care either. Those behind this have to be prosecuted for fraud, and Ajit Pai should also be facing serious consequences.

      • by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @01:07PM (#63519033) Homepage Journal

        When people attain significant political power, neurological changes [psychologytoday.com] occur. These are hardware-level changes that happen to human brains, and change how humans think, act, and evaluate the moral value of actions.

        It happens to them all.

        The end result is that they all see "commoners" as little more than beasts. They pay lip service to concepts like individual freedom, rights, equality of justice, etc., because they must pay such lip service in order to maintain their states of power. But not a one of them believe it. They can't. The brain damage has already occurred.

        So, when serfs accuse their leaders of wrongdoing, even if said leaders are provably guilty this feels entirely inappropriate to them. As if cows accused farmers of wrongdoing for leading some of them to the slaughterhouse. Cows have no business making such accusations of humans, and similarly, commoners have no business making such accusations of their leaders.

        So they don't punish each other. They don't hold each other accountable for crimes against commoners. Well, sometimes, if the crimes are extreme enough and/or get enough publicity such that they must hold someone accountable or risk losing their own positions of power, they will. Or if the crime actually harmed other potentates, then they will stand up and punish. But these are rare extremes, because for the most part they all agree that the proper place of commoners is to submit to the will of their leaders (even when said commoners are harmed by this), because they all have experienced this brain-changing effect of holding power.

        Our only defense against this is to apply political leverage consistently and broadly to disempower those who do evil things to us. Rock-solid moral or legal arguments have no effect. Only numbers have any effect. If we don't rally, it doesn't happen, and that's that.

        • by sjames ( 1099 )

          Note that the study made no attempt to determine if the brain changes or attitude changes came first.

        • ... change how humans think ...

          It's important to remember that top-level leaders don't have regular contact with reality; They don't conduct fact-gathering, don't talk to the captains and lieutenants, don't decide what the unknown variables are, don't choose the preferred goals: If their minions do that badly, their grasp of reality will be bad.

          That distance from 'real people', does make the populace look like ants. It's why voters must fight tooth-and-nail to keep their power to protest and power to to 'petition the king'. Once, th

      • I'm glad you mentioned Ajit Pai...

        Now, how bad was Ajit Pai? Let's remember that Trump made his presidency all about un-doing everything Obama did. Well, Obama nominated Pai for FCC Commissioner in 2011, but he was so horrible that Trump nominated him for FCC Chairman in 2017. Think about that a minute.

    • If you believe some guy rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, then I don't see why dead people can't make comments on FCC items.

  • by jm007 ( 746228 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @12:10PM (#63518939)

    ok new-fangled-AI-generator, gimme 1 million unique comments defaming my competitors

    because we will no longer be able to just tell from reading them whether they're legit or not... similar to how now visual AI generated content can be indistinguishable from something a human could only do not long ago... we humans will weaponize it

    with scarcity, will trust and truth become even more valuable? and somewhat ironically, we have to rely more on tech to determine/verify/validate these things, with commercial and political turds thrown in just for a bit of flavor

    seems like both the cause and cure come from the same place

    no answers from me, but I do think we're on the cusp of something really big in human history and like most things, it will have both good and bad aspects

    • by swell ( 195815 )

      Finally, a useful comment after all the whining.

      It's clear that the problem being fussed over in TFS is of no significance in light of the coming AI Large Language Models. Anyone will be able to generate thousands or millions of comments to influence government, business, schoolchildren, voters or Slashdot readers. Amazon review manipulation will be childs' play.

      The perpetrators will include nation-states, corporations, religions, lobbyists, hackers and ordinary people with an agenda.

      There will be no obviou

  • because if not then learning this information is pointless.
  • Sounds like public comments need to have a space for an email address and/or phone number (for texting). The agency can then send a message saying "we recieved your comment. If you didn't send one, please report it here [link or how to report a problem]"

    In the digital age, one way communications without verification is just asking for trouble.

  • This sort of thing is almost always done by shell companies that can be dissolved, leaving the fines unpaid. Meanwhile, the broadband services who paid for it all go unpunished and will fund new shell companies the moment they need them.

  • This is treason, right? Subverting American democracy for profit and power is an attack on every American. This isn't a regulatory issue, this is a massive crime against the American people.
    • by ufgrat ( 6245202 )

      Based on this principal (and I'm not actually disagreeing with it), Fox News and most of their "hosts" would be in federal prison for a long time. Murdoch would be in front of a firing squad.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Not quite. But it should still get those behind it a few years behind bars. Some token fines are not going to accomplish anything except to encourage them to do it again.

    • First, they were defrauding the anti-NN companies which paid them to reach out to actual people for comments. This is like paying someone to pass out leaflets for you and they just toss them all in the dumpster and claim they did they work.

      Second, they weren't "subverting American democracy". Democracy is when the people vote on things, or indirectly, when the representatives they vote for vote on things. The people didn't vote for the FCC, it's not a democratic institution, it's an, albeit politically appo

  • I guess democracy does not matter much then. Some "peanut"-level fines are not going to do anything except encourage this despicable and repulsive illegal practice.

  • Fuck the proles (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sursurrus ( 796632 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @03:35PM (#63519253)

    Public opinion is as much an illusion today as the notion of The Proles rising up in _1984_ was to Winston.

    Rotten Tomatoes and Goodreads do not have even a shred of truth to them. It's straight up information warfare by those who have financial incentive. Amazon book reviews and IMDB are semi-curated and have some antigaming measures taken... but they're still pretty garbage.

    $600,000 is a ludicrously small amount of money in this context... basically a negotiated settlement that cuts off future prosecution that could follow the paper trail back to the actual ISPs TFS doesn't even name.

  • But you have guns to secure your rights! So that the government doesnâ(TM)t cross the line or allow others to⦠oh waitâ¦
  • by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Saturday May 13, 2023 @08:04PM (#63519589)

    This article goes on at length about how three (evil) companies tried to bork net neutrality but it says nothing about what these companies actually do. You would expect a company like Netflix or any other company whose route to the market is directly affected by net neutrality to chose a side. So why did these three companies choose the side they did? Follow the money, folks.

  • Given that the support for abandoning it was fraudulent, shouldn't it be immediately reinstated?

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The FCC doesn't have to pass or revoke a regulation based on the comments it receives. The comments are just to help them find out if anyone can do them harm depending on the decision.

      • by lpq ( 583377 )

        Can do them harm? How so?

        It seems if they have a bunch of comments in support or against something they are proposing, then make a decision after receiving those comments that aligns with those comments, finding out that most of the comments were fraudulent would seem to affect part of the basis for going ahead with the decision they made. At the very least I'd think they would want to reexamine the decision, but that's presuming non-partisan politics.

        If they don't at least make the appearance of reexami

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • That even with proof of widespread fraud *the decisions that were justified by these bullshit comments are still in place*.
    Neat, that's fines. Woo-hoo. THE FUCKING DAMAGE IS STILL DONE so we've accomplished nothing.

    This country deserves to slide into autocracy, I just hope I get to see some of the people who advocated the most get crushed under booted heel. Think Trump when he got elected... "hey thanks coal miners, now fuck off and die, you've served your purpose"

  • He was the worst thing ever to happen to the FCC. Under his watch this shit happened. You want to jail someone, jail this Bozo. Start at the top.
  • They should have paid $615.000 for EACH FALSE PERSONIFICATION.

    We would see the end of this SCAM.

  • For me, this is one of the most severe problems of our time and it is not being taken seriously enough. This is partly because most people fail to understand how this kind of fraud occurs, let alone its consequences. In recent years, important elections and polls in many countries have been influenced by social engineering tricks using stolen private data and online identities.

    Recently, I gave a presentation to a large group of people, demonstrating how social media and technology are being used to surrepti

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