Thread by @doctorow, Trump made a lot of terrible senior appointments, but few so bad [...]

Trump made a lot of terrible senior appointments, but few so bad as @ajitpai, the Verizon lawyer turned FCC Chairman who presided over a grossly, lavishly fraudulent repeal of his predecessor& #39;s Net Neutrality order.

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The public comments docket for the 2017 Net Neutrality repeal attracted a record number of responses - 22 million! - and the vast majority of them were obviously fraudulent.

https://www.gravwell.io/blog/discovering-truth-through-lies-on-the-internet-fcc-comments-analyzed

2/">https://www.gravwell.io/blog/disc...

Discovering truth through lies on the internet - FCC comments analyzed

The Gravwell analytics team ingested all 22 million+ comments submitted to the FCC over the net neutrality issue and pulled out some interesting findings.

https://www.gravwell.io/blog/discovering-truth-through-lies-on-the-internet-fcc-comments-analyzed

Millions of them were attributed to name/email address pairs from publicly available breach data. Millions more were random strings with followed by " @pornhub.com." Almost without exception, they supported the telecoms industry& #39;s position that Net Neutrality should be killed.

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Among Big Telcos& #39; most ardent supporters were many dead people:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/evg3xw/dead-people-are-posting-anti-net-neutrality-comments-to-the-fcc-website

And">https://www.vice.com/en/articl... multiple sitting US senators who said their identities had been stolen:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xeqqz/two-senators-say-their-identities-were-stolen-during-net-neutrality-repeal

4/">https://www.vice.com/en/articl...

Two Senators Say Their Identities Were Stolen During Net Neutrality Repeal

A pair of Senators have written the FCC asking why the agency failed to prevent their identities from being stolen during recent efforts to dismantle net neutrality.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/evg3xw/dead-people-are-posting-anti-net-neutrality-comments-to-the-fcc-website

When millions of REAL people wrote in support of Net Neutrality (in response to @iamjohnoliver& #39;s call to arms) Pai fraudulently claimed the FCC had been compromised by a DDoS attack, not wanting to admit how popular Net Neutrality really was.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3195466/fcc-should-produce-logs-to-prove-multiple-ddos-attacks-stopped-net-neutrality-comments.html

5/">https://www.csoonline.com/article/3...

FCC should prove DDoS attacks stopped net neutrality comments

Fight for the Future says the FCC should produce its logs to prove its claim that "multiple DDoS attacks" silenced net neutrality comments.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3195466/fcc-should-produce-logs-to-prove-multiple-ddos-attacks-stopped-net-neutrality-comments.html

Pai took no action to investigate the fraudulent comments supporting his neutrality repeal, not even in response to bipartisan letters from Congress:

https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/press-releases/merkley-and-toomey-call-on-fcc-to-address-identity-theft-and-fraud-in-public-comments-

Instead,">https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/pres... Pai announced that he was going to treat every comment as real:

https://www.vocativ.com/431065/fcc-ajit-pai-net-neutrality-bots/

6/">https://www.vocativ.com/431065/fc...

FCC Is Honoring Fake Anti-Net Neutrality Rants Left By Bots

Chair Ajit Pai is considering everyone's voice in his bid to dismantle internet freedom — that may include fake people's

https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/press-releases/merkley-and-toomey-call-on-fcc-to-address-identity-theft-and-fraud-in-public-comments-

The New York Attorney General& #39;s office was moved to open an investigation into the fraud, which Pai personally obstructed:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wj9y3w/new-york-attorney-general-expands-investigation-into-bogus-net-neutrality-comments

But">https://www.vice.com/en/articl... the investigation went on, and today, the NY AG released its findings:

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/oag-fakecommentsreport.pdf

7/">https://ag.ny.gov/sites/def...

New York Attorney General Expands Investigation Into Bogus Net Neutrality Comments

Dozens of ISP-linked lobbying organizations have been subpoenaed in expanded probe.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wj9y3w/new-york-attorney-general-expands-investigation-into-bogus-net-neutrality-comments

Unsurprisingly - but importantly - the NY AG found that 18 million of the 22 million comments the FCC received were fake, that the fake comments favored the Net Neutrality repeal, AND THAT THE FRAUD WAS A PAID OPERATION ON BEHALF OF TELCOS.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/6/22422818/net-neutrality-rollback-ajit-pai-telecom-broadband-new-york-attorney-general

8/">https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/6/...

FCC’s net neutrality rollback overwhelmed by bogus industry comments, investigation finds

A multi-year probe found over 18 million fake comments

https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/6/22422818/net-neutrality-rollback-ajit-pai-telecom-broadband-new-york-attorney-general

The AG& #39;s made the attribution after it flipped the companies that engaged in the fraud - Fluent, React2Media, and Opt-Intelligence - and let the off with a $4m settlement in exchange for ratting on their Big Telco clients.

9/

Pai claimed repealing Net Neutrality would spur broadband deployment, fixing America& #39;s high priced, slow broadband, among the worst in the OECD. Instead, investment was cut as telcos raised prices and paid billions to shareholders.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6430695/Net-Neutrality.pdf

10/">https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents...

Pai left millions of Americans with slow broadband (or no broadband at all) even as the pandemic moved all education, employment, healthcare, and family life online. He is one of history& #39;s great monsters.

11/

Naturally, he& #39;s just been given a cushy private equity job at Searchlight Capital Partners.

https://nypost.com/2021/04/26/former-fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-joining-private-equity-firm/

12/">https://nypost.com/2021/04/2...

Ajit Pai becomes latest ex-FCC chairman to join a private equity firm

Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said he will join a private equity firm — becoming the fourth of the last eight top US communications regulators to do...

https://nypost.com/2021/04/26/former-fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-joining-private-equity-firm/

THANKFULLY, his successor, @JRosenworcel is a hard-fighting public advocate who has signalled her intention to rein in America& #39;s lavishly fraudulent broadband profiteers and wants you broadband measurements to help her do so:

#fly-my-pretties">https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/ #fly-my-pretties

eof/">https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/1...

ETA - If you& #39;d like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here& #39;s a link to it on http://pluralistic.net"> http://pluralistic.net , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

#pais-lies">https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/06/boogeration/ #pais-lies">https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/0...

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