Net Who-trality: Revisiting the FCC Fake Comment Scandal

Saturday, July 13, 2024: 10:00 am (Tobin 201/202): For many Americans, the term "net neutrality" will forever be linked with the millions of fake public comments submitted to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) website in 2017 ahead of the ...

Saturday, July 13, 2024: 10:00 am (Tobin 201/202): For many Americans, the term "net neutrality" will forever be linked with the millions of fake public comments submitted to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) website in 2017 ahead of the agency's rule reversal. But despite its recent reinstatement, several questions remain: Who submitted all of those fake comments? How do we know? And why does it still matter seven years later? Using examples taken from court documents, emails, server logs, and other data obtained from Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, this presentation will briefly summarize the history of net neutrality in the United States, detail the overlapping legal battles to identify the fake comment culprits, and explore the technical and ethical complications with using the resulting data to solve this mystery.

Jason Prechtel