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osewalrusDuring the fight over net neutrality, someone submitted millions of fake comments supporting repeal of net neutrality and repeating anti-NN talking points. Some where obviously fake, such as those from "Luke Skywalker" and "Boba Fett." But others were in the names of real people, who subsequently denied filing the comments.
Buzzfeed traced them back to a single source by matching the address information of block submitted comments that included known fraudulent comments with addresses exposed through specific data breaches and back to their submission source. Guess what, it was a conservative shop whose business is undermining public proceedings by submitting fake comments.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jsvine/net-neutrality-fcc-fake-comments-impersonation
Buzzfeed deserves a lot of credit for this reporting. This took a load of work, with the FCC stubbornly resisting any investigation.
We need a law to address this. I will hopefully write a blog post on this eventually. But this is a serious problem and we need a rule for how agencies address this.
Buzzfeed traced them back to a single source by matching the address information of block submitted comments that included known fraudulent comments with addresses exposed through specific data breaches and back to their submission source. Guess what, it was a conservative shop whose business is undermining public proceedings by submitting fake comments.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jsvine/net-neutrality-fcc-fake-comments-impersonation
Buzzfeed deserves a lot of credit for this reporting. This took a load of work, with the FCC stubbornly resisting any investigation.
We need a law to address this. I will hopefully write a blog post on this eventually. But this is a serious problem and we need a rule for how agencies address this.
