电信公司在FCC的收件箱中填入了850万个针对网络中立性的虚假评论

作者:糖果
发布时间:2024-03-13 03:30:09 (1月前)
来源:theregister.com/2021/05/06

Broadband companies in 2017 launched an $8.2m campaign to repeal America's net neutrality rules that spent $4.2m to sway policymakers with millions of fake comments. But only their hired guns are being held accountable.
宽带公司在2017年发起了一项820万美元的运动，以废除美国的网络中立性规则，该规则花费了420万美元来动摇决策者的数百万条虚假评论。但是只有他们雇用的枪支被追究责任。
Net neutrality, the proposition that broadband service providers should handle internet traffic without bias, has been bitterly opposed by broadband service providers because utility pricing tends to be less profitable than the premium charges gatekeepers can impose. Supporters of net neutrality argue that broadband companies should not be able to distort the competitive market to favor firms that pay them fees.
网络中立性（宽带服务提供商应无偏见地处理互联网流量的主张）一直受到宽带服务提供商的强烈反对，因为公用事业定价的利润往往不如看门人所征收的溢价费用。网络中立性的支持者认为，宽带公司不应扭曲竞争性市场，以偏向向其付费的公司。
After the Trump administration appointed Ajit Pai to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in 2017, Pai set about to repeal net neutrality policies and the broadband industry proved keen to see that happen. His repeal went through but has been complicated by a 2019 appeals court decision that affirms the ability of states to implement their own net neutrality rules, which three states have passed into law and others have done through Executive Orders or have proposed new laws.
在特朗普政府于2017年任命阿吉特·派（Ajit Pai）担任联邦通信委员会主席之后，派（Pai）开始废除网络中立政策，而宽带行业也渴望看到这种情况的发生。他的废除获得了通过，但因2019年上诉法院的一项裁决而变得复杂，该裁决肯定了各州执行其自己的净中立规则的能力，其中三个州已通过成为法律，其他州已通过行政命令执行或提出了新法律。
New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday issued a report [PDF] on her office's (OAG) multi-year investigation of the broadband industry's net neutrality repeal lobbying effort. It describes, among other things, the OAG's settlement with three lead generation companies – Fluent, Inc., React2Media, and Opt-Intelligence. These firms have been held responsible for a substantial portion of the fake comment deluge, which was directed at the FCC and at lawmakers.

"Americans' voices are being drowned out by masses of fake comments and messages being submitted to the government to sway decision-making," said Attorney General James in a statement.

"Instead of actually looking for real responses from the American people, marketing companies are luring vulnerable individuals to their websites with freebies, co-opting their identities, and fabricating responses that giant corporations are then using to influence the policies and laws that govern our lives."
纽约总检察长莱蒂蒂亚·詹姆斯（Letitia James）周四发表了一份报告[ PDF ]，该报告涉及其办公室（OAG）对宽带行业的网络中立性废除游说工作的多年调查。它描述了OAG与三家领先的公司-Fluent，Inc.，React2Media和Opt-Intelligence的和解。这些公司对虚假评论泛滥的很大一部分负有责任，这些言论是针对FCC和立法者的。

检察长詹姆斯在一份声明中说：“美国人的声音被大量向政府提交以影响决策的虚假评论和信息所淹没。”

“营销公司并没有真正从美国人民那里寻求真正的回应，而是诱使易受害的人与免费赠品一起访问他们的网站，选择他们的身份，并编造出一些大公司随后用来影响统治我们生活的政策和法律的回应。 。”
Fleabite fines, but telcos in the clear
The three firms must pay $3.7m, $550,000, and $150,000 respectively, for their duplicity and are required in future marketing efforts to present consumers with disclosures, to avoid submitting consumers' messages to the government without informed consent, to monitor subcontractors to make sure they behave, and to disclose their role in any future campaigns to the government and public.

It’s back: America's net neutrality advocates begin push to return to pre-Trump internet protections
California’s net neutrality rules good to go after judge boots Big Cable’s lawsuit
US govt drops challenge to California’s net neutrality law, signals shift to once again safeguard connections
Senators, net neutrality advocates rail against looming lame-duck confirmation of new FCC commissioner
These lead generation companies used various deceptive techniques to capture people's personal information and entice them to submit it, like websites offering gift cards and other incentives. The websites were interleaved with forms to submit comments to the FCC in a way that was generally done without consent.

The broadband companies that, through their lobbying group, Broadband for America, hired these firms, however, are not being penalized. "The OAG has not found evidence, however, that the broadband companies that funded and organized these lead generators had direct knowledge of fraud," the report says.

Nonetheless, the report says the conduct of the broadband companies and their lobbying firm is troubling. It notes that the broadband companies' campaign organizers "ignored several significant red flags as to the authenticity of the comments," and it calls out the lack of oversight of these lead generation companies.

The OAG report says that the broadband industry could not obtain grassroots support for the net neutrality repeal because the public was largely against it. So the telecom companies hired firms that ended up submitting 8.5 million fake comments to the FCC opposing net neutrality.

这三家公司必须分别支付370万美元，55万美元和15万美元的双重责任，并且在未来的营销工作中要求这三家公司向消费者提供披露信息，以避免在未经知情同意的情况下向政府提交消费者的信息，以监督分包商以确保他们表现，并在今后向政府和公众公开的竞选活动中公开其作用。

回来了：美国的网络中立倡导者开始推动重返特朗普之前的互联网保护
法官裁定Big Cable提起诉讼后，加州的网络中立性规则很好
美国政府放弃对加州网络中立法的挑战，信号转向再次维护联系
参议员，网络中立主义者鼓吹铁路反对即将来临的FCC专员的确认
这些领先的公司使用各种欺骗性技术来捕获人们的个人信息，并诱使他们提交个人信息，例如提供礼品卡和其他激励措施的网站。网站与表格交织在一起，以通常未经同意的方式向FCC提交评论。

但是，通过其游说组织Broadband for America雇用了这些公司的宽带公司并没有受到处罚。报告说：“但是，OAG尚未找到证据证明资助和组织这些潜在客户的宽带公司直接了解欺诈行为。”

尽管如此，该报告称，宽带公司及其游说公司的行为令人担忧。它指出，宽带公司的活动组织者“忽略了有关评论真实性的几个重大危险信号”，并指出缺乏对这些潜在客户公司的监督。

OAG的报告说，宽带行业无法获得废除网络中立性的基层支持，因为公众对此表示强烈反对。因此，电信公司雇用了一些公司，这些公司最终向FCC提出了850万条虚假评论，以反对网络中立。
Trouble on both sides
The investigation also found that 9.3 million fake comments were submitted in favor of net neutrality, 7.7 million of them created by a 19-year-old college student who used software to generate fictitious names and addresses. The OAG spotted another 1.6 million pro-net neutrality comments using fake identities but has not determined the source.

Between the time the FCC rulemaking proposal was unveiled in April 2017 and the close of the public comment period later that year, 22 million comments voicing an opinion about net neutrality were received by the FCC and 18 million of them were fake, according to the OAG report.

The OAG report argues that fake comments corrupt the democratic process by misrepresenting the popularity of initiatives, eroding public confidence in democratic institutions, and depriving people of their voice and identity.

The report argues that various reforms are needed to prevent such anti-democratic meddling. The recommendations include: rules that ensure advocacy groups obtain consent from individuals involved in their lobbying campaigns; making organizations hold their vendors accountable; strengthening laws on impersonation and deception; and implementing safeguards like CAPTCHAs against automated submissions.

There is, however, more than a bit of wide-eyed optimism in the notion that online consent can be better obtained when the internet has normalized accepting terms of use agreements that few people actually read or understand and when dark pattern manipulation remains rampant.

Holding companies accountable for the actions of their vendors has a nice ring to it, but it's hard to imagine tech companies embracing laws that might see executives being jailed because, say, a supplier employed slave labor. Much of the industry is predicated on shifting cost and responsibility to third-parties.

Many companies remain willfully ignorant of the actions of their contractors and suppliers and wouldn't have it any other way. Or they lobby for laws that classify workers as their contractors rather than employees because their business model doesn't include the cost of accountability.

Laws limiting impersonation and deception sound promising though they'd run up against an internet culture that has already made clear its opposition to linking online identities to government identity documentation.

And given that Facebook, a company with few financial constraints, removed more than 1.3 billion fake accounts in the last quarter of 2020, it may be naive to think that presenting a few pictures of traffic lights and crosswalks will be Turing-test enough to trip up democracy-subverting bots. ®
双方都麻烦
调查还发现，有930万条虚假评论被提交来支持网络中立，其中770万条虚假评论是由一名19岁的大学生创建的，他们使用软件生成虚构的姓名和地址。OAG使用伪造的身份又发现了160万个Pro-net中立评论，但尚未确定消息来源。

根据OAG的说法，从2017年4月FCC规则制定提案公布到当年晚些时候的公众意见征询期结束之间，FCC收到了2200万份表达对网络中立性意见的评论，其中有1800万份是伪造的报告。

OAG的报告认为，虚假言论通过歪曲倡议的流行性，破坏公众对民主制度的信心以及剥夺人们的发言权和身份，破坏了民主进程。

该报告认为，需要采取各种改革措施来防止这种反民主干预。这些建议包括：确保宣传团体获得参与其游说活动的个人的同意的规则；使组织对供应商负责；加强关于假冒和欺骗的法律；并实施CAPTCHA等保护措施以防止自动提交。

但是，有很多观点认为，当互联网规范了很少有人真正阅读或理解的使用条款时，以及当暗模式操纵仍然猖ramp时，可以更好地获得在线同意这一观点。

要求公司对其供应商的行为负责对我们有很好的帮助，但是很难想象科技公司采用法律可能会导致高管入狱，例如，供应商雇用奴隶劳工。该行业的大部分内容是将成本和责任转移给第三方。

许多公司仍然故意不知道承包商和供应商的行为，也不会采取其他任何方式。或者，他们游说将工人归为承包商而不是雇员的法律，因为他们的商业模式不包括问责成本。

限制冒充和欺骗的法律听起来很有希望，尽管它们违背了已经明确表示反对将在线身份与政府身份文档联系起来的互联网文化。

鉴于Facebook这个财务拮据的公司在2020年最后一个季度删除了超过13亿个虚假帐户，因此认为呈现一些交通信号灯和人行横道的图片足以进行图灵测试可能是天真的想法建立颠覆民主的机器人。®

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