More than 90% of the record-cracking 21 million comments collected by the Federal Communications Commission from both parties of the debate are actually pre-written form letters, while millions are contrarily suspicious in origin, according to a new statement released Tuesday.
The study appears from the firm Emprata LLC, endorsed by Broadband for America, a lobbying organization for the telecom industry but the firm told News that its supporters didn’t touch the data, results or methodology. Overall, though, the report acknowledges that “general opinion is against” repeal of the government’s contemporary open internet rules, as the FCC’s Republican leader, Chairman Ajit Pai, lately has intended to do.
Doubtlessly, the conclusions are sure to stir new debate on Wednesday, just as the window for remarks closes at the FCC. That’s because Pai, in the end, must support his plans for net neutrality based on the submissions he gets and he has then made clear that there’s no “statistical threshold” that might guide his next move. Still, the report itself is impossible to parse, given that net neutrality advocates and opponents alike have tried to Fill the system with comments that promote their cause.
Start with the 21 million total remarks in the agency’s territory. After a sentiment analysis, the FCC held about 13 million comments that help the current net neutrality protections, according to the Emprata report, and it got about 8.6 million remarks in support of Pai’s push for repeal. The firm analyzed data received by the FCC until Aug. 22.
But large swaths of those remarks are “form letters,” the firm got. Those are pre-written remarks drafted by groups on both sides of the debate.
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