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Fraudulent public comments stacked deck for FCC repeal of net neutrality, according to a Pew study — and Patty Duke’s son

Was the big controversy in the contested repeal of net-neutrality rules actually in the stack of comments that flooded the Federal Communications Commission ahead of the narrow vote?

The flurry of interest from the John Smiths, the John Olivers and even the actress Patty Duke (dead nearly two years) would appear to suggest something was amiss as it got down to the wire for the planned rollback of the Obama-era regulation — an annulment that had the founders of the internet, including Vint Cerf, crying foul.

The FCC on Thursday, by a 3-2 vote along party lines, rolled back rules barring internet service providers from discriminating against any lawful content by blocking websites or apps, slowing the transmission of data based on the content itself, or creating an internet fast lane for premium-paying companies and consumers and a slow lane for those not paying a premium rate.

Opponents of Obama-era net-neutrality regulations argued that ISPs should have the right to prioritize traffic and charge for their services as they wish. Most Republicans and internet providers including Comcast CMCSA claimed a victory for freedom, arguing that regulating the internet as if it were a utility is overreach.

Read: Three stock winners, three losers in net neutrality ruling

And: Why the end of net neutrality isn’t the end of the internet

But a fair amount of criticism arose around the 22 million public comments — enough to get Pew Research Center to take a look and issue a report.

Pew associate director Aaron Smith said several things popped out within those comments, especially the ones in favor of rolling back the regulation, including that 94% of the comments “were submitted multiple times, and in some cases those comments were submitted many hundreds of thousands of times.”

In addition, fully 57% of comments used temporary or duplicate email addresses, and seven popular comments accounted for 38% of all submissions, Pew found.

Thousands of Fake Comments on Net Neutrality: A WSJ Investigation (4:48) On federal government web sites, public comments can influence the outcome of regulations affecting millions of people. A WSJ investigation has identified and analyzed thousands of fraudulent posts on issues such as FCC net neutrality rules and payday lending. Video/illustration: Heather Seidel/WSJ.

There’s nothing new about organized campaigns attempting to wield influence in this way, said Pew, but the tide of sketchy comments around the net-neutrality campaign took the practice to a new level.

Just ask Mackenzie Astin, a son of Patty Duke:

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