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NEW from me: NY AG Letitia James today announced $4.4 million in penalties against 3 companies hired by the broadband industry to generate fake public support for the FCC's controversial 2017 #netneutrality 
repeal: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqq7b/big-telecom-used-fake-and-dead-people-to-fight-net-neutrality-ny-ag-says
repeal: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqq7b/big-telecom-used-fake-and-dead-people-to-fight-net-neutrality-ny-ag-says
NY's AG found that the entire fake net neutrality comment campaign was spearheaded by Broadband for America ( @broadband4us), a non-profit lobbying vessel funded by the nation's biggest broadband providers.
It spent $4.2 million, nearly half its budget, on the effort:
It spent $4.2 million, nearly half its budget, on the effort:
This kind of "astroturfing" (using disinformation to generate fake grass roots support for unpopular, corporate-friendly policies) has occurred across more than 100 different policy efforts at numerous U.S. government agencies:
"Let corporations run amok" isn't something generally supported by the public. So industry repeatedly uses fake or even dead people, hired consultants, academics, and think tankers to create a sound wall of fabricated support for unpopular policies: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181001/14155040759/fake-comments-are-plaguing-government-agencies-nobody-much-seems-to-care.shtml
Going to repeat this until it sinks in: the net neutrality repeal didn't just kill "net neutrality." It effectively lobotomized the FCC's consumer protection authority quite broadly. It even attempted to ban states from being able to step in and fill the consumer protection void.
It's hard to overstate how cocky the broadband industry was here. This campaign even hijacked the identities of several senators:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/05/23/two-senators-say-their-identities-were-stolen-in-fake-net-neutrality-comments-to-the-fcc/
My name was also used to support the repeal (the Pai FCC told me there was nothing it could do):
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/1042876702862
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/05/23/two-senators-say-their-identities-were-stolen-in-fake-net-neutrality-comments-to-the-fcc/
My name was also used to support the repeal (the Pai FCC told me there was nothing it could do):
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/1042876702862
The NY AG's office did not respond to my request for comment as to why individual broadband providers were neither named nor penalized for their role in funding this massive disinformation effort.
Remember that former FCC boss Ajit Pai actively blocked law enforcement inquiries into who was behind this disinformation campaign: https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjzjv9/net-neutrality-fraud-ny-attorney-general-investigation
Pai's "punishment" for helping broadband monopolies lobotomize the FCC using bogus data and fake people was...cushy new posts at both the American Enterprise Institute and a private investment firm: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/ajit-pai-joins-american-enterprise-institute-and-a-firm-that-invests-in-isps/
so the TL;DR version: AT&T, Comcast and friends not only got the Trump FCC to lobotomize its consumer protection authority based on completely bogus claims that this would boost overall investment, they used marketing firms to generate completely bogus public support.
