Comment: Net Neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites. This is a concept I would not expect Trump’s base to grasp even though it affects them directly.
[SIZE=7][B]Feds Investigating Millions Of Fake Messages Opposing Net Neutrality: Report[/B][/SIZE]
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai conceded that 500,000 fake comments urging the death of the popular system came from Russian emails.
By Mary Papenfuss
12/08/2018 09:14 PM ET
The Justice Department is investigating possible criminal activity linked to millions of fake or duplicated messages — many from Russian email addresses — sent to the Federal Communications Commission opposing net neutrality, Buzzfeed reported Saturday.
Of the 22 million messages sent last year to the FCC website, nearly 21 million were bots, organized campaigns or fakes, including many using stolen identities, according to a Stanford University study. Some campaigns also involved fake, automated comments, though others were legitimate. Talk show host John Oliver notably encouraged viewers to back net neutrality, triggering a deluge of comments that the FCC falsely claimed helped trigger a shutdown of its website, according to the study.
Of the total estimated 800,000 unique comments sent, 99.7 percent supported net neutrality and opposed a controversial push by the Trump administration’s commission head Ajit Pai to terminate net neutrality. Pai recently admitted that Russia meddled in the system and acknowledged that 500,000 of the suspect comments were linked to Russian emails.