Can the government stop fake comments on its rules without alienating citizens? – By Jessie Bur (Federal Times) / Jan 30 2020
Federal agencies have struggled to ensure that the comments they receive from the public on proposed rules not only come from real people, but also that the agency isn’t being spammed with the same comments over and over again.
According to experts that spoke at the General Services Administration’s Public Meeting on Mass and Fake Comments, the challenge that agencies will face in combating comments submitted by bots or people using someone else’s identity lies in making sure that interested citizens don’t have too high or a barrier to prove themselves legitimate for submitting comments.
“We want to be very careful to not amend the tool in such a way that cracks down on something that’s completely normal, permissible, constitutionally valid and a positive way to engage with government. There are some problems in there. There are abusive comments, certain questions about what agencies need to respond to. But I think to me those seem to be surmountable,” said Patrick Hedren, vice president of labor, legal and regulatory policy at the National Association of Manufacturers.
According to Michael Fitzpatrick, head of global regulatory affairs at Google, there are tools that eRulemaking sites like Regulations.gov can use to ensure that the person submitting a comment on a proposed rule is actually a human being, and not a bot using artificial intelligence, such as a captcha that requires users to identify pictures or letters.
But that method can also have its downsides.
Continue to article: https://www.federaltimes.com/management/2020/01/30/can-the-government-stop-fake-comments-on-its-rules-without-alienating-citizens/
