Carrie Fisher’s Name also Possibly Faked for FCC Pro-Repeal Comments: Save Net Neutrality
What is net neutrality? A lot of people, especially in the last few days, have explained it better than I ever could. However, the most famous examples come from John Oliver back in 2014 and last May. Basically, the ruling from 2015 under the President Barack Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) held that the internet was to be considered a public utility. This used to prevent internet service providers (ISPs), such as Verizon and Comcast, from creating a two-tiered system for those consumers who could pay more for a so-called “hyperspeed” lane and a normal lane. It prevented establshing a la carte access to internet services.
Ajit Pai, stealer of “The Harlem Shake” for truly terrible web videos, is the current FCC chairman (and former Verizon counsel) who insisted that removing the regulations set up in 2015 would somehow help keep the internet more free and open. However, the glib, misleading statements he’s given in interviews have overlooked incidents where pre-regulation, ISP providers tried to interfere with tech company services. Verizon was caught twice trying to “throttle” Netflix for more money to support its streaming services in 2014. Previously, in 2011, companies like Verizon had also attempted to try and push the poorly-named-in-retrospect ISIS pay system by not allowing Google Wallet on the smartphone plans and apps. If these companies have tried before, then they will try again. After all, the only thing post-repeal that will keep the internet as is would be the “promises” of the ISP providers not to start creating slow lanes and different pricing rates on the internet. As John Oliver once implied, the cable companies tell us the time frames their installers will be by to fix out cable too. They never come betwen eight a.m. and noon, do they?
So, yes, I trust them to keep their promises to “keep the internet as is” about as much as I think the cable guy will actually show up near time. After all, if these ISP companies were going to repeal the regulation and then do nothing, why spend over 26 million dollars on lobbying to keep it all the same? This suspicion also seems to be earned as Comcast has already appeared to alter some of its promises about fair internet practices to customers in the last few days.
Ajit Pai’s video has been removed from Youtube because of copyright infringement. However, you can still get a feel for this condescending masterpiece from Stephen Colbert’s monologue. However, it basically was filled with talking down to millennials about how they’ll be able to still “drive memes into the ground” and “Instagram their favorite food.”
Tee-hee cause millennials.
The truth is the internet is crucial for a free market, as a way for small businesses of all kinds to compete, profit, or even exist (Seriously, when was the last time you found a new place or service without a Google search). It’s also a resource for students. I don’t know a single college that doesn’t require the bulk of assignments to be submitted electronically these days. Moreover, starting in elementary school, access to fast internet that allows students to search all available resources and watch instructional videos important to learning. If you start throttling the internet, students from families who can’t afford faster services or who have to rely on only the speed public libraries can afford will be left behind even further than their peers from wealthier families.
Then there’s the First Amendment. About twenty states, led by the New York State’s Attorney, Eric Schneiderman will sue the FCC over the repeal ruling. They have so far mentioned a big reason for the suit were the possibly faked FCC comments on the FCC complaints site (more on that below). More importantly, though, I wonder how this ruling could be even considered constitutional. The first amendment protects free speech and the press, of course, which could be in danger if your ISP decides you should get faster/easier access to only the type of news sources they prefer. However, I suspect besides profit, the biggest motivation behind President Trump and his regime’s desire to end net neutrality is control over the right for citizens to peaceably assemble and to be able to redress grievances with the government. Revolutions like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, as well as other calls for social change, derived tons of steam and power from Twitter and other social media platforms. They allowed activists to find each other, to plan, and to draw attention to news that the mainstream media often fails to cover. If you allow for the ISPs to slow access to social media sites or to charge extra for Twitter…etc. as an add-on, suddenly a useful tool for creating rallies and protests is eliminated.
Again, you can see how the constitutionality of this ruling is mind-blowing. Then again, since Trump has caused a constitutional crisis since the alleged obstruction of justice resulting from Comey’s firing, nothing should really surprise anymore.
This brings us back to the original pretext for Attorney General Schneiderman’s suit: the faked comments. Allegedly, millions of the comments on the FCC page “supporting” the repeal of net neutrality are faked and many also appear to be from Russian IPs. Of course, that means that tens of millions more comments were likely real from frustrated consumers who wanted to keep the internet free. The University of Maryland found that 75% of Republicans wanted to keep net neutrality and that, on average, 83% of all Americans wanted to prevent a repeal of regulations.
It seems that these faked comments were possibly created to make the repeal of net neutrality appear more popular than it actually was and to bolster support for the pending FCC ruling. The subsequent investigation into these allegedly fake comments has already revealed some telling results. For example, Mackenzie Astin, son of the late actress Patty Duke, reportedly found repeated comments with the same wording attributed to his mother, who died in 2016.
The attorney general of Pennsylvania (one of the states involved in the coming suit) has a site set up to help people search for their name to make sure fake support for the FCC isn’t being recorded in their name.
Go here :
This site will allow you to search by your name (it’s time consuming and I suggest you add your street name or state in the search line like “John Smith Annapolis” to find yourself faster). So far, support for the FCC has come from Bart Simpson and Brad Pitt as well as such staunch defenders of justice as Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne (aka Superman and Batman, if you’re not that into comics). However, there also appears to be some identical comments in support of the FCC and repealing net neutrality in the name of Carrie Fisher. This may be a possible grotesque theft of a dead person’s name akin to that of the alleged impersonation of Patty Duke.
What’s amazing about these comments is that they’re worded in legalese to start with. As we know, all concerned consumers always uses dispassionate legal terminology that reads like a contract clause when venting their frustrations. Second, you’ll notice that these comments are identical. Having been a teacher, I can tell you that mathematically doesn’t happen, let alone with complicated legal jargon. These are just the same comment (and identical to some from Batman and Bart Simpson) copy-pasted into “fresh comments.” Third, you’d think maybe the Russian clickbots would try a little harder. This is just insultingly transparent and lazy.
Anyway, as the cases are being built by the states and these almost 24 million comments are investigated, it will be fascinating to find out who else (fictional, impersonated, or dead) will pop up among them. After all, who else has been forced to support of the FCC rollback in perfectly executed legal terminology and doesn’t yet know it?
Sarcasm aside, there are things we can do to help save the internet still:
First, go to the site above from the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office and ensure you identity wasn’t compromised to promote net neutrality repeal. If it was appropriated use the PA Attorney General’s form to let them know about the identity theft. It will help them build their case.
Second, Senator Chuck Schumer has already promised that the Democrats will organize a vote from congress on net neutrality reinstatement and overruling the FCC. Please, please, call your congress representative and both of your senators. You can find the way to contact them here (while the internet still works). Use this site to contact your congress person and here for your senators. Refinery also breaks down strategies for contacting your representatives.
Third, you can sign petitions and get congressional attention through efforts here at Battle for the Internet.
Please don’t let up. If you want to be able to communicate with friends, Netflix and chill, organize for change, do your homework, start a business or a million, other useful things that aren’t just “killing off memes,” then you need to keep fighting or in six months or in a year, the internet will be a very different and arguably worse place.
The images used are not property of Legendary Women, Inc. and we do not profit from their use.
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