People Whose IDs Were Stolen In Bot Push Against Net Neutrality Demand FCC Probe

Several victims of imposters who used their names to send messages opposing net neutrality are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to investigate the acts.

The 14 victims are also calling on the FCC to inform up to 450,000 others whose names might also have been hijacked in the sham campaign — and remove the faked comments from the commission’s messages site.

Thousands of identical comments opposing net neutrality were sent to the FCC, according to the activist group Fight for the Future, which helped arrange the group letter to the FCC. Spam bots attached to names snatched in data hacking are believed to have generated the comments.

Both the GOP and Democrats, along with 80 percent of Americans, support net neutrality, which would follow current FCC regulations to continue to allow internet users access to everything on the web regardless of a consumer’s service provider. Yet the Trump administration wants to restrict access in a drive toward increased commercialization of the internet and higher fees for consumer access to information and “fast lane” charges for content providers.

The 14 victims also want the FCC to share any information from an investigation into who is responsible for the hijacking operation.

“We are disturbed by reports that indicate you have no plans to remove these fraudulent comments from the public docket,” they wrote to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “Whoever is behind this stole our names and addresses, publicly exposed our private information without our permission, and used our identities to file a political statement we did not sign onto. Hundreds of thousands of other Americans may have been victimized too.”

Trump picked Pai to champion his war on net neutrality. HuffPost has contacted the FCC for comment.

Fight for the Future has established the Comcastroturf website, where people can check to see if their names have been included in the spam campaign.