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Radio News: Senators want delay of net neutrality vote because of fake comment investigation

Dec 04, 2017 10:50 pm
Harper Neidig reports at The Hill that 28 Democrats in the U.S. Senate are calling for a delay on the Dec. 14 vote at the Federal Communications Commission to repeal its net neutrality rules. Saying that the agency's public comment file is poisoned with millions of fake comments, the senators, including Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand from New York, want to delay the vote. “A free and open Internet is vital to ensuring a level playing field online, and we believe that your proposed action may be based on an incomplete understanding of the public record in this proceeding,” the senators wrote in a Dec. 4 letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “In fact, there is good reason to believe that the record may be replete with fake or fraudulent comments, suggesting that your proposal is fundamentally flawed.” So far, just one Republican senator, Susan Collins from Maine, has expressed opposition to rolling back the rules that keep an even playing field on the internet, rather than allowing fast lanes for those with more money to spend. On Dec. 4 New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel held a press conference about fake net neutrality comments. Schneiderman says the FCC is refusing to turn over evidence to his investigation of the millions of fake comments in the names of people both dead and alive that have appeared in the FCC's public file on the issue.