99.7% Of Original Comments Opposed FCC Repeal Of Net Neutrality
from the not-so-democratic dept
A new study has once again confirmed that the vast, vast majority of the public opposed the FCC's ham-fisted repeal of net neutrality.
Like most government proceedings, the FCC's net neutrality killing order's public comment period was filled will all manner of comments (both in favor and against) generated by automatic letter-writing campaigns. Like most government proceedings in the post-truth era, the net neutrality repeal was also plagued by a lot of shady gamesmanship by companies trying to disguise the fact that the government was simply kissing the ass of giant, unpopular telecom monopolies. But what happens if you eliminated all of the letter-writing campaign and bogus bot-comments?
A new report from Stanford University (pdf) did just that. It eliminated all automated or form-generated comments and found just 800,000 Americans willing to take the time to put their own, original thoughts on the net neutrality repeal into words. And of those 800,000 real people, 99.7% of them opposed what the FCC did:
"The unique comments are overwhelmingly in support of retaining the protections of the 2015 Open Internet Order. A manual analysis of 1,000 of these comments showed that 99.7% of the comments opposed the repeal."
That's not to say that form-letters opposed to the repeal should be ignored; millions of angry Americans voiced their concerns via form letter campaigns operated by (actual) consumer groups like Public Knowledge, Free Press, and the EFF. Previous analysis has indicated that even among these form letters, the vast majority opposed Ajit Pai's assault on meaningful consumer protections. Even studies funded by ISP-backed lobbying organizations have come to this same conclusion, making the FCC's claims that everybody supported its attack on net neutrality even more patently absurd.
Meanwhile, like countless surveys before it, the Stanford report also once again notes that this opposition was largely bipartisan in nature, coming from heavily "red" and "blue" districts alike:
"Polls have consistently shown that net neutrality protections are popular across party lines. This is supported by the geographical breakdown of the comments. While the highest number of unique comments come from traditionally Democratic urban districts, the average number of comments in all districts was 1,489, with an average of 1,202 in Republican-held districts"
Again, that's in stark contrast to claims that people "don't understand what net neutrality is" or that this somehow isn't an important issue to voters. Most Americans have pretty direct, first-hand experience of what it's like to deal with an apathetic broadband monopoly, whether it's AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, or Charter. As such, disgust at these companies is one of the very few things that bridges the country's deep, partisan divides. And most realize then letting Comcast abuse a broken, uncompetitive market doesn't end well for consumers or competitors alike.
Past analysis has suggested about half of the 22 million comments submitted to the FCC were likely fake, and somebody utilized a bot and hacked databases to flood the FCC with fake support for the FCC's plan. The GAO, New York State AG, and numerous lawsuits are still busy trying to get to the bottom of the obvious effort to try and drown out legitimate opposition with no real help from the FCC, which was eager to ignore the entire mess for what should be obvious reasons.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: ajit pai, comments, fcc, internet, net neutrality, public concern
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But what if...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: But what if...
These are labeled as unique comments.
I suppose in the end it depends on how much of your commentary was original and the tolerances of the algorithm.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: But what if...
did you include your address/zip or just state?
at the end is links to the datafiles by congressional district and state.
Look up the appropriate file, then search for your name, or hometown or something unique to your comments, and see if it's there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
FCC: Woohoo! 0.3% agree with us!
"Fear not, we have heard your overwhelming response loud and clear. We will do everything in our power to allow you to have complete freedom of choice in who and how you choose to get your TV and internet. No longer will the FCC or any government body step in. Let the free market prevail."
[hispers] "mmmuuahahahahahahahahahaha..."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: FCC: Woohoo! 0.3% agree with us!
I mean if I want to type 30% on a calculator that's what I'd enter?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: FCC: Woohoo! 0.3% agree with us!
[FCC walks into courtroom carrying bags of printed out letters. Dumps them on the desk of the pro-net neutrality team:]
"We have done the math and cannot ignore the 2,400 respondents who affirmatively stood behind our actions. Look at all of these letters! How can you ignore that we are doing the right thing for all of them?"
Pro-net neutrality team:
"We have dump trucks of letters going against you? Not four measly bags you made your interns print out in triplicate."
FCC:
"But you can't fit those dump trucks in here, so those letters do not count. WIN US!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: FCC: Woohoo! 0.3% agree with us!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: FCC: Woohoo! 0.3% agree with us!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
[your head]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: FCC: Woohoo! 0.3% agree with us!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: FCC: Woohoo! 0.3% agree with us!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: FCC: Woohoo! 0.3% agree with us!
That 0.3% of original comments was all comments that were informed and from people who can have an impact on the industry. The rest was obviously from people believing the misinformation.
So 100% of that 0.3% supported Pai's move, proving that it was the right deci$ion.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: FCC: Woohoo! 0.3% agree with us!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Incorrect
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Incorrect
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Incorrect
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If you just exclude the comments from real people who wrote their own comments but protected themselves from scraping criminals by using an ephemeral email address as illegitimate, and you treat every bot-subnitted comment as legitimate so long as its stolen credentials are valid, then suddenly the overwhelming oppositition magically turns into 70% support for PaiSP's Reinforcing Internet Fuckery order.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Neither one of mine are there.
Pretty sure they're not form letters, since they're 25+pages each. So, wonder why they weren't included.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"If it was an attached file, it wasn't included in the comments that were analyzed. That's an advanced method usually used by groups / companies. Sorry to have missed yours"
so, not a biggie, it was what I thought it would be.
And for anyone interested, here's my comment https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/10718674924132 (30 pages)
and my comment response (where I dismantle the claims of the 3 biggest form submissions, which is what a comment-response is for, commenting on other comments)
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/1083022614992 (22 pages)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Throw out all deemed "phony", then select a small sample...
Proves nothing.
Since Bode is apparently limited to run this OLD schtick forever, solely whining about the process while unable to instance any ill effects, I'll try to make a comprehensive list of objections:
It was NEVER a "vote", only required by law.
Millions of comments can only be sampled.
ONLY those highly interested even knew of it, until picked up for clickbait headlines.
Nerds are easily provoked, especially pirates who fear getting infringed content will be reduced.
The comment system was indeed overwhelmed, because assumed a few thoughtful people with perspective, not every nerd alarmed by lies of disaster -- as put out here at TD.
[Likely more in future. I'm distracted by one of Masnick's ongoing fears: that Google will have to obey a court and implement "right to be forgotten".]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Throw out all deemed "phony", then select a small sample...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not that I enjoy off-topic bullshit (as much as you might think), but I have a question here: What makes you supportive of forcing Google to remove links to legitimate factual information about a person because that person is embarassed by those facts?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Throw out all deemed "phony", then select a small sample...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This is irrelevant
And this isn't even in the area of establishing laws - this is a federal agency defining policies and rules. I.e., it's even further removed from voters than anything Congress enacts.
So it really doesn't matter what the "popularity" numbers among the voters are. The President isn't a representative of the people, he/she is supposed to guard the constitution, and enforce the laws.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This is irrelevant
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: This is irrelevant
Unless it's established in law, policies will always be at the whim of the admin in power at the time.
There are other ways to prevent the problems that NN was supposed to address. Though I'm not saying that the current admin is doing any of those - it would be great if they would address the issues through making sure that real competition and market forces are able to work.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This is irrelevant
These rules weren't.
In fact they made almost identical arguments that were made in 05 for the LAST time they took ISPs from Title 2 to Title 1.
And those claims were proven invalid by 10 years of title 1 activities.
Now you could claim exemption to that based on 'public interest', and thats where the content of the comments comes in - the comments were overwhelmingly in favor of the rules, thus that's what the public interest is.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This is irrelevant
The situation around FCC is more a question of "rule of law" (What can they do to legislate before they undermine the congressional vestage? Ie. The 2015 implementation and Pais retraction are both problematic from the constitutional view and even more so for the degenerate congress). FCC should never be a substitute for congress regardless... Additionally you still have to question the way such information-gathering is done when it results in such a cluster-beep of identity-theft and a large variety of frauds. If an agency goes rogue, it both violates "Elective democracy" and "Constitutional republic".
You are not able to bail FCC out on that account - the president should mostly stay the hell away from FCCs work since he is merely vested in enforcement.
Neither is their process irrelevant. That is where the president actually has a role: In clamping down on the illegal actions during the process!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
'The majority supports me!' '.3% counts as a majority?'
So it really doesn't matter what the "popularity" numbers among the voters are.
If for no other reason it does when Pai tries to defend his actions by claiming that he had widespread public support for the rule changes.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And still..
And the FCC not setting up testing locations to decide anything.
Its like "we all know whats happening." and "no body is listening"
so they both sides do NOTHING.
Or a large group thats responsible for monitoring and Making SURE things get done, is getting paid off, not to pay attention to whats happened.
Im still amazed that I get better Service/speed/prices in the middle of nowhere...then I would in a major metro.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"I want to believe..."
...but, no matter what criteria they might claim to have used to determine if comments were automated or form-generated, this is nearly a poster child for "cherry-picking the dataset."
Well, it *is* from Stanford, after all. Their academic standards have sunk so low, they probably wouldn't understand what they did wrong if you tried to explain it to them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
those that have anything other than the most minor of interests in the topic one way or another would be motivated to do more than just click a half dozen buttons. So call it a minimum barrier to activity.
If there was strong opposition, it'd show in a lot of opposing comments (which there were) while strong support would show in strong supporting comments. Additionally, by focusing on the non-form comments, you can then see what the general understanding of the topic is. In this case, from reading a few thousand, the majority seemed to be fairly well informed on both the generality and the overall specifics on the case at issue. This was not the case for a lot of the form submissions, especially the ones against which often veered into lunacy and irrelevancy.
In short, eliminating the minimum effort responses (and yes, they also excluded the high-end comments, by experts on the topic, see my comment above) is not only scientifically valid, it also gives a statistically better overview of general public sentiment and the depth of knowledge behind that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]