NY AG's office says fake comments, including 8.5M funded by largest US ISPs, accounted for ~18M of the 22M+ net neutrality comments received by the FCC in 2017
The New York attorney general's office released a new report detailing the effort — The New York attorney general's office issued …
Context & Ripple Effects
New York’s inquiry had already documented friction with the FCC over access to records and prompted the state to seek a delay to the 2017 vote over allegedly stolen identities in public comments. The new report quantifies the alleged manipulation at a far larger scale and identifies funding tied to the largest U.S. ISPs.
The investigation also expanded to subpoenas of trade groups, businesses, and advocacy organizations. Later related coverage says three accused companies agreed to penalties, showing the inquiry moved beyond a disputed comment count into enforcement.
First-order effects
- The report puts the credibility of the FCC’s 2017 net-neutrality comment record under direct pressure by attributing roughly 18 million submissions to fake activity.
- The largest U.S. ISPs implicated as funders of 8.5 million comments face a public accountability finding from New York’s attorney general, while the FCC faces renewed scrutiny over its handling of records and submissions.
Second-order effects
- Organizations that use mass public-comment campaigns face greater legal and reputational exposure when identity verification and sponsorship disclosure are weak; New York’s investigation had already reached trade groups and advocates through subpoenas.
- The report strengthens the case for regulators to treat comment-system integrity as part of rulemaking procedure, rather than relying on raw submission totals as evidence of public support.
Third-order effects
- If state enforcement continues to uncover coordinated fabrication, federal consultation processes may shift toward stronger identity, provenance, and sponsor-audit controls, making large-scale astroturfing harder to present as grassroots participation.
- The episode points to a more contested division of oversight: state attorneys general can investigate conduct surrounding federal rulemakings when the federal agency’s records practices are challenged.
The trend: Public-comment systems are becoming an enforcement and governance battleground, with verified provenance increasingly important to the legitimacy of federal rulemaking.