The FCC hosted a public hearing in Boston on February 25th to discuss the future of the internet. In the weeks leading up to this event, several pro “Net Neutrality” organizations educated and encouraged the people of Boston to attend and voice their opinions on the issue directly. The hearing is part of the ongoing investigation into Comcast’s practice of restricting peer to peer internet traffic over their networks.

Clearly Comcast and other anti-net neutrality corporations like AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner don’t want the FCC to decide in favor of net neutrality, this would stifle their profit margin by disallowing them, in the near future, to charge content providers extra to “guarantee” their content is accessible over their networks in a timely manner, if at all.

With such an important matter on hand, hundreds of citizens showed up to the hearing only to be denied entry. Why? Because the limited seating within was filled almost ninety minutes before the hearing began. Closer inspection of the many people inside Ames Hall revealed them to be mere “seat warmers” who showed no interest in the hearing itself by falling asleep shortly before the event began! One blogger from SaveTheInternet.com quoted one fellow having said he was, “just getting paid to hold someone’s seat.” The same fellow went on that he had no idea what the meeting was about.

With several sources accusing Comcast of paying disinterested people to sit in to prevent truly concerned citizens from speaking, Comcast finally reported having paid people to hold places in line but never admitted having paid people to fill seats to prevent anyone from attending.

Clearly Comcast doesn’t want the FCC to rule in favor of net neutrality, but net neutrality should be standard practice in a country that claims to promote free speech and equal rights to all citizens. This is a prime example of what one blogger says is “big corporations using its financial resources to marginalize the public from the policymaking process.”

Technorati Tags: Comcast, FCC, free speech, net neutrality, Save The Internet