GNG News Guy
02-26-2008, 04:40 PM
http://i.dslr.net/urls/90/13090.gif (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Did-Comcast-Hire-Public-Standins-For-Neutrality-Hearing-92178)
The Save The Internet Coalition, a coalition of consumer advocates like the Consumers Union (authors of Consumer Reports) and the Free Press, is claiming (http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2008/02/25/comcast-blocking-first-the-internet-now-the-public/) that Comcast bussed in a large number of disinterested individuals to yesterday's public FCC hearing at Harvard on network neutrality and traffic shaping. The group is claiming Comcast paid these individuals so those seats would not be filled with interested, question-asking participants. Many didn't even know what the meeting was about:They arrived en masse some 90 minutes before the hearing began and occupied almost every available seat, upon which many promptly fell asleep. One told us that he was just getting paid to hold someone s seat. (audio (http://www.freepress.net/docs/paid_to_hold_seat.mp3)) He added that he had no idea what the meeting was about. Many of this early crowd had mysteriously matching yellow highlighters stuck in their lapels. We also photographed them outside the venue being handed papers by an organizer who had been seen earlier talking with several of the Comcast people at the hearing.
Attendees say those who weren't napping cheered for Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen, who spent the day deflecting criticism of Comcast's decision to throttle upstream BitTorrent traffic via forged TCP packets.
read comment(s) (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Did-Comcast-Hire-Public-Standins-For-Neutrality-Hearing-92178)
The Save The Internet Coalition, a coalition of consumer advocates like the Consumers Union (authors of Consumer Reports) and the Free Press, is claiming (http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2008/02/25/comcast-blocking-first-the-internet-now-the-public/) that Comcast bussed in a large number of disinterested individuals to yesterday's public FCC hearing at Harvard on network neutrality and traffic shaping. The group is claiming Comcast paid these individuals so those seats would not be filled with interested, question-asking participants. Many didn't even know what the meeting was about:They arrived en masse some 90 minutes before the hearing began and occupied almost every available seat, upon which many promptly fell asleep. One told us that he was just getting paid to hold someone s seat. (audio (http://www.freepress.net/docs/paid_to_hold_seat.mp3)) He added that he had no idea what the meeting was about. Many of this early crowd had mysteriously matching yellow highlighters stuck in their lapels. We also photographed them outside the venue being handed papers by an organizer who had been seen earlier talking with several of the Comcast people at the hearing.
Attendees say those who weren't napping cheered for Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen, who spent the day deflecting criticism of Comcast's decision to throttle upstream BitTorrent traffic via forged TCP packets.
read comment(s) (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Did-Comcast-Hire-Public-Standins-For-Neutrality-Hearing-92178)