> Uggggghhh, this isn't an attack upon democracy any more than being spammed on Reddit. It isn't corrupting a vote for office or legislation. It is, however, an easily corrupted online comment system that is merely informative and not in any way asserting an outcome or action.
Actually, since the FCC proposal specifically called for soliciting public comments to inform the decision, those comments can be seen as influencing the outcome, since lawmakers were expected to read and consider them.
It is an attack on Democracy in a very roundabout way (roundabout because this wasn't an election, it was regulatory action put in place by officials that were put in place by elected officials). But in any case, citizens were asked for what they thought in a way that affected an outcome they would have to legally abide, and it appears that their voices where stifled. That actually is a fairly obvious attack on Democracy in general, even if it's only an attack on our Democracy at a distance.
As you stated, the purpose is to inform, not vote or poll. The content of a comment is informative or it's not. How is it relevant that it was posted by a bot? How was any commenter stifled?
Officials were already aware of the range of possible opinions. The distribution of those opinions among the general public is informative, and bots were used to intentionally distort reality.
Notice and comment is required by the Administrative Procedure Act for rule-makings, not so the agency can solicit peoples' opinions, but to gather relevant legal and policy arguments and data.
In fact, if an agency said "we picked rule A because that is what the most people wanted," that would probably be an error that could warrant reversal of the rule in court. The whole point of agencies is that they're experts insulated from the political process. Their job is to analyze the law and the data to reach a reasoned conclusion (e.g. by conducting a cost-benefit analysis). Courts will reverse an agency if they engage in fallacious or erroneous reasoning. Deciding that an option is better because it is more popular would be such an error.
> Notice and comment is required by the Administrative Procedure Act for rule-makings, not so the agency can solicit peoples' opinions, but to gather relevant legal and policy arguments and data.
That's interesting. So does "we got a lot of comments from people noting how they've experienced what looks like monopolistic behavior in isolated instances that might inform whether can can expect this behavior to increase/decrease if we rule for/against the action?" count as or towards a policy argument? Legal arguments I can see being fairly specific, but policy (to my mind at least) is much more open to interpretation. Or is there some specific legal definition of policy argument they must adhere to here?
The problem is the comment box is easily stuffed. If you really want to turn this around why do you think quantity of anonymous comments is worthy of consideration?
No, you first. You claimed it wasn't a big deal. Explain why it's not a big deal that these large complained were flat out settling the identities of people to make it appear like they had support.
Actually, since the FCC proposal specifically called for soliciting public comments to inform the decision, those comments can be seen as influencing the outcome, since lawmakers were expected to read and consider them.
It is an attack on Democracy in a very roundabout way (roundabout because this wasn't an election, it was regulatory action put in place by officials that were put in place by elected officials). But in any case, citizens were asked for what they thought in a way that affected an outcome they would have to legally abide, and it appears that their voices where stifled. That actually is a fairly obvious attack on Democracy in general, even if it's only an attack on our Democracy at a distance.