Millions of Phony Public Comments Muddle FCC’s Net Neutrality Vote

The Washington Examiner covers Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s decision to move forward with Thursday’s vote to repeal Net Neutrality regulations.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is facing mounting pressure from supporters of net neutrality to delay this week’s vote to roll back the Internet rules because of fake or fraudulent public comments filed with the commission.

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For Jessica Melugin, an adjunct fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, moving forward with the vote is the right response.

“No one could argue with a straight face that there hasn’t been a healthy amount of public debate on the issue of net neutrality,” she wrote in a blog post. “While the sheer volume of press coverage, policy work, and ill-informed celebrity tweets is beyond question, the healthiness of the debate has been suspect. Some opponents of the rollback have resorted to using racist slurs against Chairman Pai and even harassing his family at their home.

“While the FCC has welcomed input from many interested parties, the public comments were never intended to be a direct democracy vote by the public at law.”

At this point, Melugin said, the only opinions that count are of those named to the commission.

“The same is true of the FCC commissioners that will vote later this month on rolling back harmful Internet regulations,” she said. “For now, the only opinions that count are theirs.”

Read the full article at The Washington Examiner.