Live data from Hacker News

More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

hackernoon.com

31–40 of 343 posts

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#32
post #8

I'm glad that this is being brought up. However, duplicated comments are not necessarily faked. For instance, there are many times centralized campaigns that people can sign onto for sending messages. The messages from those, while identical, are proper and what the individuals believe. This happens on both sides of issues. So, please continue to investigate, but be careful you don't interject your own biases into yo…

The messages the post points out to are not duplicates, though. They have a very similar meaning, but uses entirely different wording so that they won't appear duplicates. In other words, someone went through the trouble of trying to cloak the fact that they're duplicates.

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#33
post #2

Just like the election, I wonder if the people behind this care if they get caught as long as they get what they want first. There doesn't seem to be much precedent for overturning laws or elections that were subject to misinformation campaigns.

>Just like the election

This seems far worse than what happened with the election. The hacked emails at issue in the election were real, and they revealed bad things that the Clinton campaign was involved in. I have always found it laughable that the complaint seems to be “we lost because the Russians uncovered the bad things I was doing, and it’s not fair that people found out about them”. If the emails had all been about how she was going to bend over backwards to help the American people, perhaps it wouldn’t have been such a problem for her.

In this case, the data being given to a comparatively minuscule group of “voters” (the FCC) was fake, and intended to completely misrepresent public opinion. To the extent that the FCC cares about public opinion, this is worse than simply exposing the actual misdeeds of a political candidate and her henchmen.

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#34

I don’t believe that botnet activity has been limited to one side, based on how reddit has looked this last week. Example of suspicious postings: https://www.reddit.com/r/Frisson/comments/7engpr/image_reddi...

How are those suspicious? It's an issue redditors care a lot about. A lot of those posts were done by moderators in their respective communities and don't appear to be copied and pasted content. It looks from the screengrab like you upvoted them too...

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#35
post #2

Just like the election, I wonder if the people behind this care if they get caught as long as they get what they want first. There doesn't seem to be much precedent for overturning laws or elections that were subject to misinformation campaigns.

>Just like the election This seems far worse than what happened with the election. The hacked emails at issue in the election were real, and they revealed bad things that the Clinton campaign was involved in. I have always found it laughable that the complaint seems to be “we lost because the Russians uncovered the bad things I was doing, and it’s not fair that people found out about them”. If the emails had all been…

Given that the FCC resisted efforts to investigate, I wouldn’t be surprised if the FCC was complit in the fake messages (so they could claim they were in line with public opinion)

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#36
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I posted this last week and stand by it... A small counter suggestion. I know we all tend to be introverted but...go visit your reps. Visit them in DC, visit them in their offices in your area. Most will be home this week for thanksgiving and almost all will be home over the holiday break. Email them to schedule a meeting or call. Make them explain this to your face. I tried this and after five emails have meetings w…

> I tried this and after five emails have meetings with my rep and both my senators scheduled less than a week out. Good for you. I'm going to go back to eating my leftover turkey and continue black friday/cyber Monday shopping. Maybe I'll check my Tesla Model 3 preorder status.

You created a new account to demoralize the GP?

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#37
post #34

I don’t believe that botnet activity has been limited to one side, based on how reddit has looked this last week. Example of suspicious postings: https://www.reddit.com/r/Frisson/comments/7engpr/image_reddi...

How are those suspicious? It's an issue redditors care a lot about. A lot of those posts were done by moderators in their respective communities and don't appear to be copied and pasted content. It looks from the screengrab like you upvoted them too...

Yeah. Mass conformance is never suspicious.

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#38
post #32
post #8

I'm glad that this is being brought up. However, duplicated comments are not necessarily faked. For instance, there are many times centralized campaigns that people can sign onto for sending messages. The messages from those, while identical, are proper and what the individuals believe. This happens on both sides of issues. So, please continue to investigate, but be careful you don't interject your own biases into yo…

The messages the post points out to are not duplicates, though. They have a very similar meaning, but uses entirely different wording so that they won't appear duplicates. In other words, someone went through the trouble of trying to cloak the fact that they're duplicates.

> The messages the post points out to are not duplicates, though.

There were two separate categories from the article. This is text from the article, "The vast majority of FCC comments were submitted as exact duplicates or as part of letter-writing/spam campaigns."

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#39
post #2

Just like the election, I wonder if the people behind this care if they get caught as long as they get what they want first. There doesn't seem to be much precedent for overturning laws or elections that were subject to misinformation campaigns.

>Just like the election This seems far worse than what happened with the election. The hacked emails at issue in the election were real, and they revealed bad things that the Clinton campaign was involved in. I have always found it laughable that the complaint seems to be “we lost because the Russians uncovered the bad things I was doing, and it’s not fair that people found out about them”. If the emails had all been…

I'd love to see Trump's emails. But, very curiously, wikileaks didn't release anything negative about Trump. Only seeing one side's dirty laundry is the problem. Don't kid yourself that only one side had it.
Post reply on HN