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January 12, 2016 10:00 pm

India Telecom Regulator Pooh-Poohs Facebook's Orchestrated Lobbying Campaign

theodp writes: After India's telecom regulator asked a local company to temporarily stop Facebook's Free Basics service amid questions about whether it violates net neutrality, Facebook launched a controversial lobbying campaign, encouraging FB users to write to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which oversees the country's Internet policy, urging the service be preserved. As of Jan. 7, the deadline for accepting comments, the regulator said it had received nearly two million comments from accounts affiliated with the site, including the domain names "@supportfreebasics.in" and "@facebookmail." But many of these comments, the regulator said in a statement, are "basically template responses and the content are identical in nature." TRAI's we-ain't-buying-it response to the orchestrated flood of millions of comments (from both sides) differs markedly from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, which recently told the Court (PDF) it couldn't possibly comply with a Judge's six-month deadline to address issues with the OPT STEM Extension Program because it was overwhelmed by "the approximately 50,500 comments" (about what the average Slashdot reader reviews in a day!) from individuals urged on by the White House and other organizations. By the way, among the comments received by DHS was one from NAFSA — the lobbying powerhouse that represents 3,500 colleges and universities — calling for DHS to have OPT extensions expanded to include all fields of study (PDF).

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