Commentary

Most FCC Commenters Favor Open Internet

More than one million people recently submitted comments to the Federal Communications Commission about net neutrality, setting a new record for the agency.

Observers are still crunching the data, but one theme is emerging: Most people who sent in comments say they want an open Internet.

The Sunlight Foundation, which analyzed the 800,000 publicly available comments, said today that only a tiny proportion of commenters -- less than 1% -- expressed a clear opposition to net neutrality regulations. What's more, two out of three commenters voiced disapproval for paid prioritization -- which would allow broadband providers to charge content companies a premium for faster delivery.

Earlier this year, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed new net neutrality regulations that would explicitly allow “commercially reasonable” paid prioritization. The FCC voted in May to move forward with that proposal by soliciting feedback.

Many of the public comments came to the FCC via form letters -- which makes sense, considering the high number of advocacy groups that ran letter campaigns online. Free Press, Daily Kos, the Nation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are among the organizations that urged people to ask the FCC to preserve net neutrality principles.

But even when people sent in form letters, they weren't “identical,” the Sunlight Foundation reports. “Many submitters [took] the opportunity to personalize their comment beyond what was supplied by the campaign's template language,” the group says.

The Sunlight Foundation also reports that many individuals eschewed form letters in favor of writing original comments, according to the Sunlight Foundation. “While form letters do appear to make up the majority of the comments, it’s actually surprising how many of the submitted comments seemed not to have been driven by form letter writing campaigns,” the organization writes.

The group adds that more people wrote their own letters than is “typical” in high-profile matters. “It could be an indicator of a genuinely higher level of personal investment and interest in this issue, or perhaps this docket drew organizers who employed different 'get out the comment' techniques than we have seen in the past.”

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