broadband for am
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trigger for public comments node?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AP seattle times</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Office of the New York Attorney General said in a new report that a campaign funded by the broadband industry submitted millions of fake comments supporting the 2017 repeal of net neutrality.</font></b></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Federal Communications Commission’s contentious 2017 repeal undid Obama-era rules that barred internet service providers from slowing or blocking websites and apps or charging companies more for faster speeds to consumers. The industry had sued to stop these rules during the Obama administration but lost.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The proceeding generated a record-breaking number of comments — more than 22 million — and nearly 18 million were fake, the attorney general’s office found. It has long been known that the tally included fake comments.</font></b></p><div amp-access="access" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One 19-year-old in California submitted more than 7.7 million pro-net neutrality comments. The attorney general’s office did not identify the origins of another “distinct group” of more than 1.6 million pro-net neutrality comments, many of which used mailing addresses outside the U.S.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A broadband industry group, called <b>Broadband for America, spent $4.2 million generating more than 8.5 million of the fake FCC comments</b>. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Half a million fake letters were also sent to Congress.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The goal of the broadband industry campaign, according to internal documents the attorney general’s office received, was to make it seem like there was “widespread grassroots support” for the repeal of net neutrality that could give the FCC chairman at the time, Ajit Pai, “volume and intellectual cover” for the repeal.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The agency is supposed to use the comments it receives, from industry and public-industry groups and the public, to shape how it makes its rules.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The FCC did not immediately answer how or if it has changed its commenting process, but the acting chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel, said in a prepared statement that “widespread problems with the record” of the 2017 proceedings “was troubling at the time” and the agency has to learn and improve the commenting process.</font></b></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The fake comments had high-profile victims. In 2018, two senators, Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Republican Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, said their identities were stolen to file fake comments for the net neutrality proceeding.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> “We were among those whose identities were misused to express viewpoints we do not hold,” they wrote to the FCC’s then-chairman, Pai, asking him to investigate the fake comments.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many expect the FCC to try to reinstate net neutrality rules once a third Democratic commissioner is appointed. The agency is currently split half Democrat and Republican, which makes undoing the repeal unlikely.</font></b></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Broadband for America’s website says its members include AT&T and Comcast as well as major trade groups for the wireless, cable and telecom industries.</font></b></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The campaign hired companies known as lead generators which created the fake comments, but that the attorney general’s office had not found evidence that the broadband companies had “direct knowledge of fraud” and thus they had not violated New York law, according to the report.</font></b></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, the report criticized the broadband industry group’s behavior as “troubling,” saying the campaign organizers ignored red flags and hid the broadband industry’s involvement.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lead generators copied names and addresses they had already collected and said those people had agreed to join the campaign against net neutrality, the report said. One company copied information that had been stolen in a data breach and posted online.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The attorney general, Letitia James, also announced agreements with three of the companies that were responsible for millions of the fake comments, <b>Fluent Inc., Opt-Intelligence Inc. and React2Media Inc</b>., that require them to change practices in future advocacy campaigns and pay </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">$4.4 million in fines. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The companies did not reply to requests for comment.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The attorney general’s office and other law enforcement agencies are still investigating ″other responsible parties,” according to the report.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding-inline-start: 0px; margin-block: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13.5px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AT&T, Comcast and industry trade groups NCTA and USTelecom did not respond to questions.</font></p></div><div amp-access="access" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="u-italic mv-40" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 40px; margin-bottom: 40px;"><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="u-bold" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tali Arbel</font></span></div></div></div></div><div><p id="BlogTitle" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p id="BlogTitle" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">related?</font></p><p id="BlogTitle" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no twt lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/gigi-sohn/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>'Infuriating': Telecom lobbyists spending big money to keep Gigi Sohn off FCC</b></font></div><div>
</div><div>Julia Conley and Common Dreams May 01, 2022</div><div> </div><div>Consumer rights defenders are warning that telecom companies and lobbyists are taking advantage of the U.S. Senate's delay in confirming Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to pressure corporate Democrats to vote against the longtime public advocate.</div><div>
</div><div>"There's an unseemly amount of money being spent to promote disinformation about her," Greg Guice, director of government affairs for Public Knowledge, the group founded by Sohn, told MarketWatch this week. "These criticisms aren't based in fact whatsoever."</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>As Karl Bode wrote at Techdirt last week, former Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp's rural-focused non-profit group recently launched a $250,000 social media ad campaign targeting at least two Democrats who have not yet confirmed how they plan to vote on Sohn's confirmation</b>, even though it would give the party three of the five FCC seats for the first time in six years and would end the current deadlock.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>The group's ads are aimed at Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.)</b>, neither of whom have indicated how they will vote on Sohn's nomination and both of whom are facing reelection campaigns in November.<b> Politico has reported that Heitkamp is also running ads in West Virginia, where right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin was "undecided" on Sohn after meeting her.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Heitkamp's group, the One Country Project, is claiming that Sohn has been insufficiently committed to improving broadband access in rural communities, pointing to congressional testimony in which she said Congress has been "disproportionately focused on broadband deployment in rural areas."</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>As Chris Matthews wrote at MarketWatch, Sohn's testimony didn't "argue that the federal government shouldn't fund broadband deployment, but that the main hurdle for Americans accessing broadband in both rural and urban areas is affordability, not infrastructure."</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Heitkamp started One Country Project with "leftover campaign cash" to start her political action committee, Matthews noted, and counted AT&T and Comcast as two of her biggest donors when she was in the Senate.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>"Telecom monopolies are now terrified that the Sohn appointment won't just break 2-2 commissioner gridlock (they created) at the agency, it will mean the restoration of meaningful federal oversight over one of the least popular and least competitive industries in the Internet ecosystem</b>," wrote Bode at Techdirt.</div><div>
</div><div>Andrew Lokay, an analyst with independent policy research firm Beacon Policy Advisors, told MarketWatch that opponents of Sohn in the telecom industry appear to be "taking advantage of Biden's delay in nominating Sohn and the crowded Senate calendar in an attempt to sink her nomination."</div><div>
</div><div><b>Craig Aaron, president of media and technology advocacy group Free Press, accused the telecom industry and its allies of waging a "dishonest astroturf campaign" against Sohn and called the effort to derail the nomination of a strong net neutrality defender "infuriating.</b>"</div><div>
</div><div>In addition to One Country Project's efforts, the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)—which has long partnered with AT&T</span>—published an op-ed in the Arizona Daily Star earlier this month <b>accusing Sohn of having a "deeply problematic track record on media diversity issues."</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The group wrote that as a senior staffer at the FCC, Sohn "masterminded a plan to give Google a government permission slip to steal, repackage and monetize TV programming without paying one cent to its creators"—a move which angered "diverse creators" and lawmakers over "how her proposal would impact vulnerable, underrepresented communities."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In fact, Bode wrote, "the FCC's goal was to kill the cable box monopoly and save consumers about $20 billion annually in bullshit rental fees," adding that "framing it as a handout to 'big tech' is an intentional misrepresentation."</span></div><div>
</div><div>LULAC denied to MarketWatch that its opposition to Sohn has anything to do with its relationship with AT&T, and the company said it has not donated any money directly to One Country Project.</div><div>
</div><div>But as Bode argued, "Sohn's so popular, and the goals of telecom monopolies (less competition, more revenue, no oversight) are so viciously unpopular, they've been forced to fabricate flimsy complaints and <b>funnel them through proxy organizations</b> in a bid to derail the popular nomination."</div><div>
</div><div>"If Sohn's nomination is scuttled, it will come at the hands of Senators Joe Manchin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), or Mark Kelly, who will, not coincidentally, parrot the false justifications for opposing Sohn's nomination concocted by the telecom lobby," Bode added.</div><div>
</div><div><b>"It will leave a permanent and violent scar on the political and policy landscape,</b>" he added, "loudly advertising once again that the voice of the public (which overwhelmingly supports holding telecom and media giants meaningfully accountable) simply doesn't matter in our purported democracy."</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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