The Federal Communications Commission has been forced to admit that when it made the controversial decision last year to end so-called “net neutrality” the much touted public comment process was tainted by hackers, many of them Russian.

The New York Times and Buzzfeed filed a freedom of information request for information on the public comments surrounding the decision to end the rule that aimed to prevent broadband suppliers from favoring certain kinds of traffic.

The Republican Chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, fought any release of the information citing certain technical exceptions to the Freedom of Information Act.

But ultimately, some of the information has been released, and it is troubling. It shows that at least 500,000 responses supposedly from the public, came from Russian email addresses.

In addition, Democratic FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel revealed that up to 9 and a half million people had their identities stolen and used to make fake comments, which is a violation of both state and federal laws.

In addition, 8 million comments were traced back to something called “FakeMailGenerator.com.”

But more information on the public comment process is still secret and Chairman Pai is still fighting any release in the face of lawsuits from the Times and Buzzfeed.

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