Telecoms Pay for Totally Shocking Analysis of Net Neutrality Comments. Today is the last day to submit comments on the proposal to kill open internet rules to the Federal Communications Commission FCC. Good luck with that, though. The public comment period has been complete disaster from the start, and a new study funded by big telecom suggests that the record setting 2. The report in question comes from Emprata LLC, a DC based data research company, and was paid for by Broadband for America, a big telecom lobbying group. News, reviews, previews, tips, and downloads for multiple platforms. Who is online In total there are 27 users online 2 registered, 0 hidden and 25 guests based on users active over the past 5 minutes Most users ever online was. Dota 2 is a freetoplay multiplayer online battle arena MOBA video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The game is the standalone sequel to Defense. That second detail is important, since the report ultimately claims that a larger proportion of the comments from verifiable addresses were in favor of repealing the open internet rules. On the flip side, Emprata found the vast majority of comments both for and against repealing the FCCs open internet rules consisted of form letters, with many coming from seemingly fake email addresses. These findings suggest that the protest against repeal is driven by bots and that more actual humans want the open internet rules repealed. Which certainly sounds like a conclusion that big telecom lobbyists would love. Weve also seen evidence of the opposite being true. It would be convenient for net neutrality advocates if the story was as simple as that. But as even the study itself admits, its very difficult to draw any definitive conclusions from the comments found in the docket. And its the FCCs fault. The agonizing wait is finally over. Today, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced his plan to dismantleRead more Read. The crux of the problem is the fact that the FCCs Electronic Comment Filing System ECFS has no way of authenticating individual users or comments. Thats why you had so many duplicate comments, comments from disposable email addresses, and comments that were just form letters from activist groups. Because any human or bot can simply fill out a form on the FCCs website and submit a comment, its almost impossible to tell which of these comments are genuine, to use Empratas word. And so, as with any large data set, there are a lot of different ways to look at the 2. FCC. Taken at face value, over 1. August 2. 2, when the Emprata study pulled the data, and a little over 8. If you scrape away the duplicates, those numbers whittle down to 1. Cash Explosion Double Play here. A9PPNNpm4/hqdefault.jpg' alt='Warcraft 2 Battle Net Edition Map Editor' title='Warcraft 2 Battle Net Edition Map Editor' />That means that some 9. Still, 1. 7 million to 2. Emprata did find a way to reverse that conclusion, claiming that more commenters favored repeal, by looking exclusively at comments with completely filled out email and home address forms. That feels like the researchers just adjusted their parameters to prove a conclusion, however. And other research has already shown that an anti net neutrality bot has filed tens of thousands of comments in favor of repealing the rules by using unsuspecting Americans email and home addresses. John Oliver even did a whole segment about it. So who knows what to believe. The evidence that anti net neutrality bots were posting fake comments back in May was bookended by claims that the FCC was hit with a cyberattack that led to more than 1. The FCCs chief information officer even claimed in secret internal documents that the commissions servers fell victim to multiple distributed denial of service attacks. Two months later, the FCC reversed its position and insisted that such documents didnt exist. But clearly something was askew. Warcraft 2 Battle Net Edition Map Editor' title='Warcraft 2 Battle Net Edition Map Editor' />What we do know is that many Americans do want open internet rules. If you look back to the initial battle to pass these open internet rules a few years ago, its easy to see that theres fervent public support for net neutrality. Some 4 million people filed comments regarding those rules and actually broke the FCCs website, though that record has obviously since been broken by the current fight against repealing the rules. A Sunlight Foundation study in 2. While one could argue that a nonprofit focused on open government could provide a biased analysis, its really tough to argue that the tables have turned so drastically in the past three years that the majority of Americans now oppose net neutralityespecially when a study funded by big telecom is suggesting you do so. Theres also behavior from the FCC as well as big telecom companies that makes the public support for net neutrality seem irrelevant. Luke Plunkett. Luke Plunkett is a Contributing Editor based in Canberra, Australia. He has written a book on cosplay, designed a game about airplanes, and also runs. Wage war across the galaxy with three unique and powerful races. StarCraft II is a realtime strategy game from Blizzard Entertainment for the PC and Mac. Warcraft2BattlenetEdition.jpg' alt='Warcraft 2 Battle Net Edition Map Editor' title='Warcraft 2 Battle Net Edition Map Editor' />In May, Trump appointed FCC chairman Ajit Pai said publicly that no numerical threshold was going to going to sway his plans to take a weed whacker to the open internet rules passed under Obamas FCC. Pai has also attacked pro net neutrality groups like Free Press and complained about a larger movement against free speech that stands to affect outlets like the Drudge Report. How that has anything to do with preventing internet service providers from throttling or blocking content is unclear. It is, however, clear that the current FCC chair cares less about the publics opinion on net neutrality and more about the disparate political interests of special interest groups. The Trump White House approves of Pais plan, and telecom companies like Verizon are already starting to throttle content, knowing that regulatory action from the FCC is unlikely. Sucks. A federal court dealt a deadly blow to net neutrality on Tuesday by striking down the FCCsRead more Read. So, if you care about net neutrality, you still have a few hours to submit comments to the FCC. The commissions chairman probably wont read it or generally care about what the public has to say. You can also vote in the next election. While the FCC is supposed to be a nonpartisan commission focused on doing whats best for the United States, weve seen the agency morph into a gnarly beast of a political machine in recent years. That means when youre voting for your next president, youre also voting for the next FCC commissioner who will tug the strings of regulations that dictate how the internet will work for the foreseeable future. Its not a perfect system. Its a clusterfuck, in fact. But at least we still have some semblance of a democracy in America. Just a little bit.