FCC stole identities for fake anti-Net Neutrality comments

[Fraze]

If you've done anything at all on social media the past few weeks, you've probably read about the Federal Communication Commission's latest attempt to dismantle net neutrality and usher in a world where ISPs can charge separately for access to different websites, and slow or block traffic to certain websites at their discretion. And somehow it managed to take an even more disturbing turn.

The FCC website has a lot of comments in favor of removing net neutrality, and it's come to light that many of those comments were faked - real people's names and personal information were stolen and comments posted in their names. When I say "many," I mean "possibly millions."

fortune.com/2017/11/29/fcc-and-net-neutrality-check-to-see-if-your-name-was-used-for-fake-comments/

The Attourney General of New York State is investigating this by way of croudsourcing. You can go here and search your (real) name to see if your identity has been used to post one of these fraudulent comments. If you find something, you can submit it on the same website.

So honestly this sounded like fearmongering when I first read it and I was all "Nah, stuff like that never really happens to me." Except... there it was:

Title II is a Depression-era regulatory framework designed for a telephone monopoly that no longer exists. It was wrong to apply it to the Internet and the FCC should repeal it and go back to the free-market approach that worked so well.

Posted on June 3rd, the comment has my full name (first and last) attached to it; and even creepier, the address of my first dorm in university. I last lived there more than nine years ago.

So yeah. If you live in the US you might wanna take a look.

[Crystal]

That. Is just all kinds of wrong.

[Breakingchains]

I'm disturbed by the fact that I have tried four major browsers plus mobile and cannot get the page to work.

I don't want to assume that my ISP is already blocking my access, but at this point we are at levels of suppression where I could believe it.

[Ian Wolf-Park]

Really? That's low, even for a regulatory board like the FCC.

[Nimras]

... 20 pages of my name. But thus far none of them seem to be me (addresses/states all wrong) other than the one I really did send in.

EDIT: Really disturbing is that one of the other "me" had signed it once with a heartfelt message FOR net neutrality, and now I've found at least 10 other "HER" (same name & address) with the same C&P "stick it to Obama and end net neutrality" message that were sent a month or so later.

[Gelquie]

...Wow, that's... that's really low. And I've been hearing of low things regarding the push to eliminate Net Neutrality. I haven't done my research on how deep this is and don't wanna jump to conclusions, but if this is true... Uh... Uhhhhh...

Anyway, searched my name, and it appears once, but the address is wrong. There are other people in the world with my name, so they probably really are mimicking someone else.

Guess this is another good reason for me to not post too much about my IRL identity online, even on Facebook. Especially on Facebook.

Breakingchains - I hope that's just a benign bug, but hard to know... If you really wanted to know, you could ask someone you trust to search your name for you. Doesn't have to be someone online if you don't feel safe about that, but it's a potential option.