When John Oliver urged viewers of "Last Week Tonight" on May 7, 2017, to file net neutrality comments to the FCC's website, the system was soon overwhelmed. Traffic, in fact, increased by 3,116%. But the next day, the FCC issued a press release blaming the slowdown of the system on denial of service attacks -- or "deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC's comment system with a high amount of traffic to our commercial cloud host."

The Federal Communications Commission lied to members of Congress multiple times in a letter that answered questions about a "DDoS attack" that never happened, an internal investigation found. The FCC made false statements in response to a May 2017 letter sent to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). Pai sent a response to Wyden and Schatz the next month but apparently didn't make the false statements himself.

Back in May 2017, John Oliver did a bit on net neutrality that concluded with a call for viewers to visit the FCC website (via gofccyourself.com) and urge it to preserve net neutrality. (A fruitless effort, as it turned out.) The FCC website was subsequently slammed, but the agency said that it was the result of a DDoS attack that prevented people from leaving comments, and not an overwhelming influx of angry This Week Tonight fans.

Former CIO "provided inaccurate information" about comment outage, Pai says.

In a move that was almost assuredly designed to garner less than normal attention, this week in the middle of summer the FCC quietly announced that it would now be taking comments from the public about the upcoming T-Mobile/Sprint merger. But not only that, in addition to comments, the FCC will even let folks file formal petitions if they are so inclined...

Congress may soon vote on a new bill that would set net neutrality down as a matter of law rather than a set of rules to be changed every few years by the FCC. The “21st Century Internet Act,” introduced by Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO), would ban blocking, throttling, paid prioritization, and eliminates all questions of jurisdiction. The bill, announced online and at an event in Washington, DC today, would modify the Communications Act of 1934 (greatly built upon by the 1996 Telecommunications Act) and add a new “Title VIII” full of stipulations specific to internet providers.

AT&T has managed to derail a looming California net neutrality proposal groups like the EFF had called the “gold standard” for state-level net neutrality laws. More than half the states in the country are now eyeing some form of state-level net neutrality laws after the FCC’s historically-unpopular decision to eliminate federal rules late last year. But Senator Scott Wiener’s SB 822 went even further than the discarded FCC rules by placing...

The Trump FCC will take aim in July at a longstanding media ownership limit designed to protect local news outlets and opinion diversity from monopoly power. The move comes as FCC boss Ajit Pai is already under investigation for being far too cozy with the companies he’s supposed to be holding accountable to the public.

By now it's abundantly clear that the Trump FCC's repeal of net neutrality was based largely on fluff and nonsense. From easily disproved claims that net neutrality protections stifled broadband investment, to claims that the rules would...

Last week e-mails obtained by Freedom of Information Attack revealed that Ajit Pai's FCC completely made up two different DDOS attacks in an attempt to downplay public opposition to the agency's net neutrality repeal. The fake DDOS attacks stemmed from periods when the FCC's website failed both times HBO Comedian John Oliver discussed net neutrality on his popular show (here's the first and second bits). Whereas the FCC website failed due to the volume of angry users trying to contact the FCC, the agency tried to claim these floods of outraged consumers were actually malicious attacks.

It’s the dawn of a new era in America, one without any net neutrality protections—unless you happen to live in Washington state. On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of federal net neutrality protections officially went into effect. The end of those rules triggered a new state law in Washington that was passed in March, but would only go into effect once the federal rules changed. The Washington law prohibits telecom providers from blocking content or devices, throttling traffic, or participating in paid prioritization.

The FCC made false claims about DDoS attacks on their website following two John Oliver pieces on net neutrality. The FCC pushed these claims to the press who published them. The FCC then cited these news articles as evidence that the DDoS attacks actually took place.

Congress is less than 50 votes from passing a measure that would restore net neutrality rules to the internet. The motion, which passed the Senate on May 16th, would use the Congressional Review Act (or CRA) to undo Ajit Pai’s December order, effectively restoring the net neutrality protections passed in 2015.

Turns out, Ajit Pai was serious last year when he told lawmakers that the FCC didn't want anything to do with cybersecurity. This past April the Associated Press reported "For the first time, the U.S. government has publicly acknowledged the existence in Washington of what appear to be rogue devices that foreign spies and criminals could be using to track individual cellphones and intercept calls and messages."

The US government has formally asked whether it should reassert its control of the internet's administrative functions, effectively reversing a handover to non-profit organization ICANN two years ago. "Should the IANA Stewardship Transition be unwound? If yes, why and how? If not, why not?" reads one of 23 questions that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has put into a formal notice of inquiry [PDF] published on Tuesday in the Federal Register.

AT&T has given up its years-long quest to cripple the Federal Trade Commission's authority to regulate broadband providers. Just weeks ago, AT&T said it intended to appeal its loss in the case to the US Supreme Court before a deadline of May 29. But today, AT&T informed court officials that it has decided not to file a petition to the Supreme Court and did not ask for a deadline extension.

The FCC remains under heavy fire for its mindless assault on popular net neutrality protections. But the agency has also been facing widespread, bipartisan criticism for the FCC's decision to gut decades-old media consolidation rules.

Thirteen members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce called out Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai for his “evasive responses” and “outright refusal to respond” to their concerns about net neutrality and other topics. The letter sent Tuesday asks that Pai respond to their questions by June 4. “While we appreciate your continued willingness to testify before our Committee, we are concerned that you have been unable to give complete responses to verbal questions, questions for the record...

The Trump FCC has routinely been accused of being far too cozy with the companies the regulator is supposed to be holding accountable. From the FCC’s historically-unpopular attack on net neutrality to its defense of prison telco monopoly overcharging, being a genuine consumer ally isn’t something the agency is likely to be accused of anytime soon. But the FCC has found itself under particularly-heavy fire for its efforts to dismantle decades-old media consolidation rules—simply to help aid Sinclair Broadcast Group’s planned $3.9 billion merger with Tribune.

As Mignon Clyburn left the Federal Communications Commission, the longtime telecom regulator worried that the FCC is abandoning its "prime directive" of protecting consumers. "I'm an old Trekkie," Clyburn told Ars in a phone interview, while comparing the FCC's responsibility to the Star Trek fictional universe's Prime Directive. "I go back to my core, my prime directive of putting consumers first." If the FCC doesn't do all it can to bring affordable communications services to everyone in the US, "our mission will not be realized," she said.