Apparently, if there’s one topic people using the internet are prepared to discuss with the federal government, it’s the internet. The FCC has gotten more messages than anybody could possibly read as a comment window closed.
FCC press secretary Kim Hart told us that about 3.7 million comments were received by the Commission as of 9/15/14.
A large percentage of these comments are likely of the click and send variety. The way it works is that an activist organization with an interest in an FCC proceeding will compose a message stating their position, and will then ask visitors to their website to sign a pre-written message and then send it off to the FCC.
RBR-TVBR has seen this technique used extensively for indecency comments, and it was used widely at the dawn of the new millennium to protest former Chairman Michael Powell’s attempt to loosen broadcast ownership rules.
RBR-TVBR observation: We wonder if somebody will develop a way to count comments by their true source, separating originally-written comments from the click-and-send variety. It really would be helpful to know how many people are expressing their own opinions, knowledgeable of not, and how many are just following the instructions they received from a website they happened to visit.
