Lodge a complaint with Pai’s FCC!

Thanks, I needed a good laugh this morning.

You have to get this stuff on record in real-time so the adminstration after Pai's will have timestamped evidence to act on. Stop being so short-sighted and defeatist about this stuff, think strategically.

Well, yeah. But on the other hand, the complaint records aren't going to be deleted even under Pai.

The complaints likely won't go anywhere anytime soon. But when Pai's successor is working to repair the damage, there's a decent chance that one of the things they'll have to do is go through the agency's records to figure out what was ignored. Having a record of the complaint will at least give them options in the future.

So file the complaint, even if it's unlikely to matter in the short-term. :)

Why wouldn't they be deleted? They were stuffed with bot complaints, FCC could remove any and say it was a bot.

Federal record-keeping rules are pretty stringent. Generally speaking, you can't delete stuff. Especially important records. And public comments are a required part of federal rulemaking procedures--see 5 U.S. Code § 553(c) [0]--so they'd definitely fall into the "important" category.

In fact, the FCC's response to the bot activity was to point out that they aren't permitted to delete the comments, though a former FCC special counsel was quoted as suggesting that the FCC "might have an obligation under the Administrative Procedure Act to remove fake comments from its consideration."[1] But "removing fake comments from its consideration" isn't the same as actually deleting them, so I'd imagine that just means labeling them as "likely fake" and ignoring them in their deliberations. The same would apply to official FCC complaints. The FCC might ignore them, but they can't outright delete them without violating the law.

0. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/553

1. https://www.wired.com/story/fccs-broken-comments-system-coul...

So many comments to the FCC ignored. Complaints won't go anywhere, either.

Comments were collected. No obligation existed to treat them as a vote. Very few contained new information to the FCC, so they weren't valuable. The entire "millions of comments" nonsense is wholesale irrelevant, because the process doesn't exist for the purpose of voting or conveying public opinion.

Comments are collected in case there are scenarios the regulatory agency didn't consider. They considered them, and decided a way you didn't like.