Comcast Gets Hard Up At FCC Meeting 163
alphadogg notes a story over at portfolio.com claiming, and presenting evidence, that Comcast paid people off the street to take up room at yesterday's FCC hearing in Massachusetts. Comcast acknowledges that it paid people to hold places in line for its employees. But Save The Internet claims that people were bussed in by Comcast and then took up almost all available seats in the meeting room 90 minutes before the meeting opened, blocking scores of interested people from attending. Such tactics are not unheard of in Washington DC, but how appropriate are they in a regional meeting on a college campus?
Sounds like our ex-mayor (Score:4, Interesting)
just like OOXML! (Score:5, Interesting)
Desperation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Who cares where it is located? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why in Massachusetts? (Score:0, Interesting)
Why in Massachusetts? Is the FCC purposely trying to make sure that the tech companies effected by a lack of net neutrality couldn't make the meeting?
Seriously, this seems like a move designed to try and prevent companies like Google, Yahoo!, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo - all companies that have a vested interested in offering online services - can't participate without sending someone on a cross-country trip.
But the cable companies in the area doubtlessly could send local people.
Why Massachusetts? Why not a state with a tech industry? I guess the cable companies really are desperate to stack the deck in their favor.
Getting paid to sleep through an FCC hearing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly, someone should open an investigation as to how many hundreds or thousands of $$$$ of cash were paid. I'll bet Comcast doesn't have 1099s for the people they paid, which they probably illegally did with CASH...
Bribery is illegal... Comcast should be penalized. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Why in Massachusetts? (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, I don't know about Y!, but Google, Apple, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo all have branch offices in that area.
Re:Astroturfing? (Score:5, Interesting)
What I want to know is how much one could get per hour as a professional "warm butt"--and what sort of requirements for participation there may or may not be. Are you contractually obligated to applaud, shout, and carry on? Or can you just sit and read a book?
What if you speak out against those who pay you? "I'm here because Comcast paid me to be here, however I support net neutrality."
FalconRe:Astroturfing? (Score:3, Interesting)
It was Comcast that was reported as paying people to stuff the hearing.
P.S.: No, this isn't an ethical approach, whether in Washington DC or elsewhere. But if it isn't illegal, then immoral companies will do it. Especially if they have no rational grounds to forward in favor of the decision that they want to have reached.
Re:Astroturfing? (Score:4, Interesting)
A wal-mart employee that protests has a fair chance of facing increased scrutiny leading to firing for some sort of jusitifiable, but trivial, violation. When the protests are outsourced to independents, the employees reduce their risk (but increase their costs since they have to pay these people).
Furthermore, despite their rhetoric, unions are about improving the situation of union members, not the population as a whole. So it may seem hypocritical to outsource the protesting, but if the end result is better for union members then so be it.
This IS the FCC, after all (Score:4, Interesting)
(1) provide broad- and net-cast of the proceedings, and
(2) provide for text and voice reception to the panel for questions from the audience, local and remote, and
(3) provide a moderator whose job it is to see that the relevant questions are answered, or else specifically and overtly note that the relevant questions were non-answered with misdirection through irrelevant and worthless answers.
Announce that this is how it's going to run, and I'll give 10 to 1 that Comcast will refuse to participate. Announce that independent testing has confirmed they've lied about their "packet shaping" blockage of P2P traffic, and I'll raise it to 100 to 1.
Any day now one or another of these traffic blocking ISPs is going to blame participation in the goobermint's wire tapping program for the "unavoidable periodic slowdowns of certain types of traffic due to redirection of 'traffic of interest'" for analysis by the spooks. It's a lie that they all know will be recognized a such, but will be allowed to slip by the sheeple since it's for catching the terrorists who might want to blow up the Grand Canyon or some such.
NSA:
War Is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
We're Running a Little Behind
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Well... no. (Score:4, Interesting)
The people Comcast brought in were paid to do something they won't feel good about themselves for. People don't like that feeling, and rationally, you'd expect them to get mad at the person who paid them, but the way this ACTUALLY works is that the people rationalize their misbehavior by siding with the people who paid them.
So Comcast just bought themselves a bunch of irrational supporters. You can guess that 20% of the people they bussed in who actually think about this ever again will be anti-Comcast. The rest who think about it will support them, in a subconscious effort to not make themselves a bad person.
A pity. I'd like your scenario a lot better.