Ajit Pai admits Russians created half a million comments on net neutrality

[Lynarii]

I find it hard to care about Russian emails on this one. The 'public consultation' process was explicitly designed to be screwed with so that it could be ignored and Pai could do whatever he wanted. You can't really get angry at the Russians if there was a sign on the door saying "Welcome Russia, please come in!"

It's not like they, or anything else to do with that process, actually influenced the decision in any way, shape, or form. It was decided well in advance of any of that.

[Post]

What a convenient way to try and look like less of an asshole. It didn't work for Hillary and it's not going to work for this guy.

[Sky High]

yeah.. sure buddy.

[Soeroah]

Still bewildered nothing came of all those near-identical comments being posted thousands of times using dead people's names or living people's names, who later found out "they" had supported something they don't support.

You'd have thought that would be an enormous scandal, but I guess Trump did something that week.

[bladeXcrasher]

After he is done screwing the American consumer I am sure he will get a cozy job at one of the telecoms most likely verizon paying millions as a reward for a job well done.

He'll make bank for some telecommunications lobby group, it's what these turds do.

[The Stormbringer]

Nope, he's still an intolerable, highly punchable douchebag.

[Coldfrostzero]

I find it hard to care about Russian emails on this one. The 'public consultation' process was explicitly designed to be screwed with so that it could be ignored and Pai could do whatever he wanted. You can't really get angry at the Russians if there was a sign on the door saying "Welcome Russia, please come in!"

It's not like they, or anything else to do with that process, actually influenced the decision in any way, shape, or form. It was decided well in advance of any of that.

So your argument is that they had an open forum to voice an opinion and influence a decision, which was overwhelmingly done by fake emails against public opinion, and the decision was then made based on the fake emails sent and it was all just for show?

You might want to loosen the tinfoil hat there, buddy.

[Orbitus]

After he is done screwing the American consumer I am sure he will get a cozy job at one of the telecoms most likely verizon paying millions as a reward for a job well done.

Well, he was a "lawyer" for Verizon before his appointment, so, it wouldn't surprise me if he ends up back that direction as well.

[Dendrek]

I find it hard to care about Russian emails on this one. The 'public consultation' process was explicitly designed to be screwed with so that it could be ignored and Pai could do whatever he wanted. You can't really get angry at the Russians if there was a sign on the door saying "Welcome Russia, please come in!"

It's not like they, or anything else to do with that process, actually influenced the decision in any way, shape, or form. It was decided well in advance of any of that.

The point isn't that they directly interfered with the outcome. The point is that they went to those lengths in an attempt to.

[Easo]

This surely calls for investigation into repeal, does it not?
Especially about those 8 million emails... xD

They allowed 8 millions from generated fake emails? That seems like much bigger contribution.

Most likely Telecoms paid firms that in turn paid for bots rather then that being some kind of political campaign.

Ah, yes, Mr. Shalcker, who said that troll farms were an overblown issue. Stop shilling, will you?

[Powerogue]

They allowed 8 millions from generated fake emails? That seems like much bigger contribution.

Most likely Telecoms paid firms that in turn paid for bots rather then that being some kind of political campaign.

Regardless of the source it looks like corruption all the way down. How can we even entertain that we have any semblance of the original intent of our government when the "voice of the people" our government hears is nothing but bots and russians?

[Prokne]

Sounds like they are going to try to start blaming their bad policies and decisions on Russia. "Russian interference made us do it. We just did what we thought were real people wanted us to do."

Someone should find out everything that Russia wants the US to do and do the exact opposite every time.

[Deleted]

Ah, yes, Mr. Shalcker, who said that troll farms were an overblown issue. Stop shilling, will you?

Nah, in this case he's a realist, not brainwashed idiot spewing conspiracy theory.

If you ever ran a website that offers registration, you'd know that Russian bots are on top of spamming game. You'd get some spam offering spam services. They are the ones breaking complex captchas (though sometimes use cheap labor from India to pass through hard to break captchas). Law enforcement in Russia doesn't care about anything that's happening on internet, so these companies are making big buck while their competition in other countries has to deal with police.

Then there is issue of open proxy servers. Due to same thing I mentioned above - lack of policing, there are plenty of computers in Russia with open proxies installed. Many use them to hide their actual origin. That means any company from US spamming those submission forms could easily use any of thousands of anonymous proxies in Russia and hide their origin. Since there is no law enforcement in Russia, nobody would ever check proxy server's logs (if they even have logs), so real origin will never become available and there is bonus of blaming Russia for everything that brainwashed masses will swallow without questioning.

[Orbitus]

Nah, in this case he's a realist, not brainwashed idiot spewing conspiracy theory.

If you ever ran a website that offers registration, you'd know that Russian bots are on top of spamming game. You'd get some spam offering spam services. They are the ones breaking complex captchas (though sometimes use cheap labor from India to pass through hard to break captchas). Law enforcement in Russia doesn't care about anything that's happening on internet, so these companies are making big buck while their competition in other countries has to deal with police.

Then there is issue of open proxy servers. Due to same thing I mentioned above - lack of policing, there are plenty of computers in Russia with open proxies installed. Many use them to hide their actual origin. That means any company from US spamming those submission forms could easily use any of thousands of anonymous proxies in Russia and hide their origin. Since there is no law enforcement in Russia, nobody would ever check proxy server's logs (if they even have logs), so real origin will never become available and there is bonus of blaming Russia for everything that brainwashed masses will swallow without questioning.

Shalcker ABSOLUTELY isn't a realist, he is a Fatherland defender. I mean, if I remember correctly, you are Russian, aren't you?

[cparle87]

Fun fact, Russia itself more or less has net neutrality, at least on paper.

Russia has a lot of rights and laws that look good on paper and give the appearance of proper government. It doesn't mean there isn't someone with the power to turn them off on a whim or just pretend they don't exist while they break them and then go 'wut? dindunuffin".

[Deleted]

Shalcker ABSOLUTELY isn't a realist, he is a Fatherland defender. I mean, if I remember correctly, you are Russian, aren't you?

Usually its true, but in this case he is realist. Even broken clock is right twice a day.

[Orbitus]

Usually its true, but in this case he is realist. Even broken clock is right twice a day.

So, the troll farms didn't have an effect on the 2016 election? Doesn't have an effect on things like policy in the US? Because I know Republicans like Devin Nunez wanted to release the FISA memo based on Russian Troll support. Turned out it was a big dud, like everything else it does.

[Deleted]

Russia has a lot of rights and laws that look good on paper and give the appearance of proper government. It doesn't mean there isn't someone with the power to turn them off on a whim or just pretend they don't exist while they break them and then go 'wut? dindunuffin".

Situation is much simpler. Its basic corruption. Police is prone to bribing, they are understaffed, badly educated and have tiny salaries and nobody to make them accountable. In worst case scenario cop just gets fired, papers signed 1 day before incident. Everything is ran on bribes. Everything. Its in core of russian mentality and no government can change that.

That makes it easy to blame everything on Russia. Because its known that Russia is fully corrupt, so even if there are genuine evidence (not that anyone would bother actually checking), its easy to wave off as corruption. US politicians use that to full extent for internal politics.

Ajit Pai is an asshole, so I don't buy his excuse for a second. What stopped him from checking data before? Oh I know, it wasn't convenient. Maybe even his patrons paid for those "Russian" entries. Never underestimate greedy morally bankrupt capitalists.

[Mellrod]

This surely calls for investigation into repeal, does it not?
Especially about those 8 million emails... xD

Fairly certain people have been working at restoring NN since it's repeal.

[Sliske]

The state of western politics: we spend all of our time worrying about Russia meddling with a few hundred thousand fake emails and no time at all talking about the fact that without a shadow of a doubt every single senator that voted against net neutrality was given a ton of money by big corporations.

Don't worry about people literally pay 2 winning your democracy. Nah, worry about 'russian bots' posting obvious propaganda messages that anyone with a brain can dismiss in a second. Those are the real threat, right? Not people that could, tomorrow, hand your local senator $5,000,000 and have them do whatever they want.