FCC Net Neutrality News: A Bot Is Flooding Commission's Website With Anti-Net Neutrality Comments

A recent flood of identical comments voicing opposition to the net neutrality rules passed under the Barack Obama administration posted on the Federal Communications Commission’s website appear to be the work of a bot, ZDNet reported.

The bot has thus far left about 58,000 comments — about 10 percent of the total 550,000 responses — all of which contain identical wording and appear to use the names and location of people without their permission.

Read: Net Neutrality Debate: FCC Says Comment Site Hit By DDoS Attack After John Oliver Segment

"The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation," the comment reads. "I urge the Federal Communications Commission to end the bureaucratic regulatory overreach of the internet known as Title II and restore the bipartisan light-touch regulatory consensus that enabled the internet to flourish for more than 20 years."

The comment has appeared with thousands of different names, postal addresses and zip codes attached to it — many of which appear to be real people.

It is unclear from where the bot is sourcing the information, but it is cycling through names in alphabetical order as it leaves the comments. One poster on Reddit suggested it was using information from Zillow.

ZDNet confirmed with several of the purported posters that they did not leave the comment to which their information was attached.

The apparent astroturfing effort has been highlighted in a number of Reddit threads where users have attempted to trace the source of the comment. One user suggested the content of the message was similar to that of a 2010 press release issued by the Center for Individual Freedom though the text is not an exact match.

Read: Net Neutrality Rules: Title II To Be Reversed Under FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's Plan

The FCC did not respond to International Business Times' request for comment on the apparent abuse of the agency’s comment system.

News of the bot-generated anti-net neutrality comments comes after the FCC’s site reportedly was hit by a DDoS or distributed denial-of-service attack that flooded the website and made it impossible for visitors to leave comments.

That alleged attack came shortly after John Oliver encouraged viewers of his HBO show Last Week Tonight to leave comments on the FCC site to encourage the agency to protect the current net neutrality rules.

However, the DDoS attack has been questioned by privacy advocacy group Fight for the Future, but given the context of the comment-generating bot, it is possible the DDoS attack was part of a concerted effort to prevent pro-net neutrality comments from being posted.

It would not be the first time the FCC’s site was subjected to an astroturfing campaign. A 2014 Vice News report found an anti-net neutrality lobbying group working for broadband companies hired a public relations firm known for its astroturfing campaigns to help generate opposition to the net neutrality rules.