Comcast Attempts To Censor Website Designed To Help People See Through Its BS

Here’s an amazing example of why net neutrality is so important. It should be clear as day by now that the only entities to benefit from the barring of net neutrality rules are the companies that sell us access to the Internet and the politicians who are paid off to support them. These same companies have no technical limits on how to skew our access to the Internet, but as it stands right now, no real interjection is allowed. Lax rules could ruin that, however.

Consider the simple fact that companies like Comcast are fighting tooth and nail against rules encompassing the subject of “neutrality”. Comcast isn’t content with neutral. It wants control over the Internet, what people pay, and what its customers see. This latest case is explicit proof of that.

Website Comcastroturf isn’t just hilariously named, it serves the purpose of aiding regular Joes and Jills to find out whether or not “someone” submitted anti-net neutrality comments to the FCC without their knowledge. Unfortunately, if you have a truly generic name like I do, it’s going to be hard to figure out whether or not you’re actually that person, although the location data could help (if it’s even accurate, that is).

If you search for any name that happens to cough up an answer, what you’re going to see is that the exact same argument (a copy / paste blurb) is seen all over the place. All 15 “Robert Williams” have the exact same complaint, word for word, and every other name I inputted that gave a result delivered the same thing.

What an incredible coincidence…

In response to this website’s meager abilities, Comcast sent the webmasters a cease and desist order, insinuating that the site infringes on its copyright. I can’t help but wonder if anyone at Comcast has ever heard of the Streisand effect, because as it stands right now, more people than ever know about this website, as a direct result of its pointless complaint.

This is why we need net neutrality, plain and simple. Companies should not be able to control what we see online, compartmentalize the Internet, or be able to block content that isn’t favorable. Title II classification is integral to securing an open web.