Broadband companies paid for millions of fraudulent comments supporting the Trump-era repeal of net neutrality rules, according to an investigation in New York.
Nearly 8.5 million fake comments to the Federal Communications Commission and half a million letters to Congress were paid for by the nation’s largest broadband companies, said a report released on Thursday by the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Of the more than 22 million comments received by the FCC during its 2017 rule-making, the report said nearly 18 million were fake, including comments both in favor of and against net neutrality.
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The report said the companies banded together through an organization called Broadband for America, a nonprofit group funded by the broadband industry. Together, they hired companies known as lead generators to generate comments favorable to their cause.
“Although the OAG does not have evidence that BFA or its lobbying firm had direct knowledge of the fraud at the inception of the campaign, several significant red flags appeared shortly after the campaign started, and continued for months yet still remained unheeded,” the report said. “Emails obtained by the OAG reveal that all of these indications of fraud were seen and discussed by BFA’s lobbying firm. While BFA was aware of some of the same red flags its lobbying firm saw, it is unclear if the lobbying firm brought other red flags to BFA’s attention.”
James also said three of the lead generators, Fluent, React2Media, and Opt-Intelligence, entered into settlements with her office for $3.7 million, $550,000, and $150,000, respectively.
A Republican-led FCC voted in December 2017 to repeal net neutrality, which was adopted in 2015 under the Obama administration. The regulations were intended to ensure internet service providers treat all web content equally, preventing them from blocking, throttling, or interfering with web traffic. The repeal was effective in the summer of 2018 and upheld by an FCC vote in 2020.
“Instead of actually looking for real responses from the American people, marketing companies are luring vulnerable individuals to their websites with freebies, co-opting their identities and fabricating responses that giant corporations are then using to influence the policies and laws that govern our lives,” James, a Democrat, said in a statement.
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FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is a Democrat who opposed the agency’s decision to do away with net neutrality regulations in 2017.
“The public record should be a place for honest dialogue, but today’s report demonstrates how the record informing the F.C.C.’s net neutrality repeal was flooded with fraud,” Rosenworcel said in response to the New York report. “This was troubling at the time because even then the widespread problems with the record were apparent.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to AT&T, Lumen, Charter, CTIA, Comcast, Cox, NCTA, the Telecommunications Industry Association, and USTelecom, all members of Broadband for America, as well as Broadband for America itself for comment on the matter. Cox declined to comment.
