The vote to repeal net neutrality is happening this week, and the issue remains to be rife with controversy. There are recent reports that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) docket itself is flooded with comments from people that had presumably stolen identities.
The issue was discussed by Democatic FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in a recent interview with The Verge. Rosenworcel confirmed that the net neutrality issue has recorded over 23 million comments on the docket. She added that this is "very exciting" because the public is enthusiastic about wanting their concerns on the issue be heard.
"They're petitioning Washington and telling them they care about these matters, and they're asking for people in Washington to listen," Rosenworcel said, referring to the general public.
At the same time, the sheer amount of comments was troubling. The FCC as well as the New York Attorney General found out that about a million of these comments were made by people with stolen identities.
Worse, the New York Attorney General felt like he was being blocked from investigating the issue. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai claimed that the docket is locked from access because of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. However, the claim is unconfirmed and is still subject to investigation.
Rosenworcel was concerned because the case was not just about net neutrality anymore — now, it was also about identity theft. She summed up the issue succinctly: "We have a mess on our hands."
In any case, repealing net neutrality seems to be the outcome when the vote commences this week. FCC Chairman Pai will lead an expected 3-2 vote in favor of repeal, together with fellow Republicans Michael O'Rielly and Brendan Carr. Democrats Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn are expected to vote for maintaining current rules.
Current net neutrality rules allow for a more "open" internet. Repealing them would, in effect, make it easier for internet service providers to control how information is delivered to the clients. They can throttle data, favor certain addresses, or even block access to competing sites outright.
