>

WOW 😮!!  That’s 2000 people from the entire country?  Was the FOX Nation included?
Despite a coordinated astroturf campaign they only managed to generate 2000 negative comments for a nation of 332 million? Not exactly a "flood".
Sad. Low energy. >

Comcast spent about 10k flooding the FCC with millions of fake complaints about net neutrality. This was really low effort. >

Did they really? That's fucking crazy if so. >

Is there a non paywall article on this >

Pro tip. Use textise.net to view most paywalled articles. But, it depends on how the page is coded. Don't expect WSJ or Bloomberg to work with this trick. But for most it does. 
Also, pay for good journalism. Even if it's just the New York Times. I subscribe to about five. I'd go broke if I subscribed to all the good ones :(
*Edited for clarity >

Your local journalists thank you for that second part. It's a really tough job, and people who would never walk out on the check at a restaurant are often happy to circumvent paying for content they clearly value. >

I really miss my local paper. It shut down a few years ago and now I don't get to read about the ridiculous shit my neighbors did when I wasn't paying attention. >

A study came out a few years ago showing that Americans in towns and cities without local newspapers pay substantially more for public services than people with them. An investment in a local news subscription is offset to some extent by less corruption and graft. >

How is 2000 people a “flood”? >


Over a thousand people flooded the section with identical comments opposing debt relief.

Not to mention, nothing says "astroturfed" quite like a bunch of identical comments. Wonder who's funding this—Mercer, the surviving Koch brother, and Thiel all come to mind, but I'm sure there're a lot of people I'm overlooking >

acting like it's people and not a script is probably the first mistake lol >

Cable companies did the same thing with net neutrality and the FCC comments. It was effective, until John Oliver set his audience loose on the comments and they crashed the FCC servers so hard the FCC tried to claim it was a denial of service attack. Lol >

I mean, that’s just a manual DDoS.
/s >

DDoS requires an attack.  In this case, it was thousands of people using the website as intended but the government never planned for that amount of public engagement in their website design. >

I should have included a /s. My bad. >

Them on student loans: Pay your debt.
Them on the debt limit: We're not gonna pay our debt. >

Them on PPP loans: forgive them, for my friends. >

Them on government bailouts to the tune of billions of dollars to the banks, auto industry, Wallstreet, etc over the last decade with literally zero oversight or accountability of how the money was spent by rich executives:  "oh that was totally justified" >

Actual names on the list:
Frank Oz
Jerry McGuire
Frank Tootsalot
Mia Mea
Fred Flinston >

Hey, take it easy! My uncle-in-law is named Fred Flinston! >

Your uncle is a jerk for signing that thing. >

Should've said he's a yabba dabba douchebag. >

Dammit. Your upvote should arrive in 0-3 business days. >

2000? that's a trickle, not a flood. A mere drip. Some cat videos get more comments, and those comments are probably from real people. >

These type of public comment periods usually get no comments or a handful at most, which is why the article calls it a flood. >

You’ve made your point. Multiple times >

Sorry, I just kept seeing the same sarcastic comment and was correcting the misconception. >

For the curious:
On the public comment site I searched "I am writing to oppose this regulation" and it provide over 1600 comments. I sorted oldest to newest and skimmed over several, and then sorted newest to oldest and did the same. There appears to be two different versions of copy and pasted comments that say effectively the same thing. They don't support any effort to change the student loan debt system. That's kind of weird because nothing is perfect, but whatevs. There were 1,994 comments when I visited the site.
More searches showed about a hundred more very similarly worded comments that were probably just amended versions of the cut and paste comments. That had common themes of "I didn't take on the debt" and "I worked to pay my way through college." At least these commenters actually put some effort into their comments. 
One comment said something to the effect of, "I worked real hard as a waitress to pay for my college." Sure, in the 1960s I guess.
One commenter said something to the effect of, "I'm retired and my kids and I didn't take on this debt." Must be nice. I have no kids and I have no complaints of the property taxes I've paid to support your kids' (presumably) public school education. I might begrudge you somewhat on the debt your generation (and mine) is leaving to the generations following me to pay for wars and corporate bail outs (bailouts, COVID era PPP loans, certain age subsidies, and so many other federal fiscal programs that so lopsidedly and directly benefit the already wealthy).
A not too through glimpse through some of the remaining approximately 250 or so comments suggests they are a mix of pro, con, and mixed opinions that are original compositions rather than copied as part of an obvious (Facebook?) group effort. >

Thank you for this breakdown. >

Thanks for noticing. >

The Republican Party is the party of pure evil. Full stop. >

The republican party lacks empathy.

“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
Quotation: Captain G. M. Gilbert, the Army psychologist assigned to watching the defendants at the Nuremberg trials

The Nazis that are loudly out among republicans right now shows how this quote still applies. >

Humanity sure would improve a lot if we started acknowledging conservatism as an umbrella ideology for evil rather than a legitimate political ideology of differing opinion. It was literally born out of the French Revolution as a way to keep as much power/wealth in the hands of the arbitrary/undeserving, ie nobility. It was created to maintain status quos of inequality. How’s it’s ever been considered a valid political ideology within DEMOCRATIC (rather, claiming to be democratic) institutions and nations is beyond me. It literally aims to conserve systems of monarchy and nobility, rather than embrace democracy and equality. >

I’m sure we’ll learn from the consequences soon only for our great grandchildren to forget this shit all over again >

I wonder if those same people believe republicans efforts to overthrow the government is also unjust. >

[online petition of 425,000 people supporting something human]: [thrown in garbage]
[online petition of 2,000 people against something human]: Oh dear! We need to fix this! >

"Nearly." Meaning "Less than." 
Truly incredible, really newsworthy numbers right there. >

When 1 or 2 comments is normal, this is quite odd. >

2000 bitter hate-filled people. >

Hey hey i may be bitter and hate filled but… 
What was the third thing? >

Wow that’s an infinitely smaller number than the 10s of MILLIONS who signed up for the forgiveness on the DOE website in October. 🤷🏻‍♂️ >

Yes, but these are the people/bots/lizards/whatever that are putting in an effort to be heard. It's the same as the people that show up to yell at school board meetings. It's important to make your voice, or in this case comment, heard so it doesn't get drowned out by this type of nonsense. >

I’ll never understand how it’s ok to bail out companies for trillions but it’s not ok to bail out students for a few billion. >

Socialism for the rich, cold hard capitalism for the rest of us. >

I wonder how many of those comments were identical. >


from the article: 
"nearly 2,000 commenters, in what appeared to be a coordinated campaign, submitted the exact same comment opposing Biden's student-debt relief plans." >

Too bad those lizards were not as upset about the $2trillion gift to the hyper rich. >

“People” >

Must have been some busy troll farms. >

What GOP donor(s) funded it? I’m guessing DeVos. >

Russian bots? >

Republican bots >

potato potato >

Is potato >

A man stole all my money but I don’t want him arrested because I want him to rob other people >

In Iowa, our governor has been pushing that bullshit school vouchers program.  Just passed the legislature Monday.  I’ve talked to no one in this state who thought that was a good idea, but they refuse to listen to their constituents.  While she’s giving private schools $8k a year, she sued to stop $10k in student loan forgiveness.  And they wonder why younger people are leaving this shithole state. >

Nearly 2000 with IPs coming from Russia, and Iran. >

You don't think people oppose this here? I am for it, but I know many people that don't think this is a great idea, democrats included. They think there are better ways of doing it, like limiting or getting rid of interest. Every time someone disagrees with something that doesn't automatically make them a russian asset. >

You're right. It's a garbage article from a garbage websight. But there are probably hundreds of thousands of people here who hate this "socialist" entitlement. And others who, like you, agree the problem needed fixing, but disagree this was an ideal way to do it.... ignoring the stupid argument about "socialism."  Most important, the one-time loan forgiveness probably does absolutely nothing about the continued astronomical cost of higher education.
To clarify, I'm not 100% opposed to the forgiveness. But I am skeptical about details in the implementation. >

Why is the article garbage? There were almost no comments and then all of a sudden 2000 mostly negative comments overnight? I would have thought Reddit would care since so many here complain about student debt and want to see positive changes. Whatever, I guess. >

2000 identical comments, they are clearly done maliciously and statistically probably by bots.
ETA- it's literally the same as the anti-vax morons flooding vers with false statements about vaccine injuries. >


2000 identical comments, they are clearly done maliciously and statistically probably by bots.

Yep, very likely. >

There are high schools with more than 2000 students. >

Does anyone have a link so I can post something positive on it? >

I wonder if those people were this up-in-arms over the PPP loans. No? >

Did they also oppose PPP loan forgiveness. >

Just gonna say the Bible says it’s a sin to lend money at interest.
Says it several times too, not just once >

Who gives a shit what the bible says? How is that at all relevant? >

Because most Republicans are "Christians" and try to use religion to support their misguided and bad faith agendas. >

jfc .... where does the article mention Republicans, or religion? >

Are you under the impression that a coordinated astroturf campaign of commentary on a Biden proposal was perpetrated by Democrats? >

The comments were identical to one another, how is that not evidence of a coordinated campaign? And no one was suggesting that their holy book drives them to do these things, they were suggesting using the holy book's words to highlight them as hypocrites. >

Wouldn't the hypocrites be the ones who took loans, against the wishes of their holy book? >

The Bible was never interpreted as forbidding the taking out of loans at interest, only forbidding believers from charging interest on loans. For a significant portion of Christian history the charging of any interest on a loan was equated to usury, and was a sin which would prevent one from being buried in hallowed ground or receiving the eucharist. This is why, during the medieval period, the Jewish populations of cities were the primary, if not only, source of loans. Jews interpret the Tanakh's prohibition against usury as applying only to loans between Jews, therefore they were a source willing to offer loans to Christians and the medieval monarchs of Europe took significant advantage of that. With the rise of capitalism and a more contemporary system of finance in the modern era, most Christian denominations revisited there prior perspective on interest. Though there are still sections of the catholic church which hold to that view that interest=usury. >

purely out of their own volition and personal beliefs >

In the grand scheme of things 2000 is a small amount. For absolutely any issue you come up with, you can probably scrounge up 2000 people that disagree. >

Imagine being upset about someone else’s money >

Pretty sure I could hire 2000 people/bots to make posts super easily >

Where was this energy when the government gave free money to banks, PPP loans, corporate kick backs, reduces taxes for the rich, endless subsidies to farmers for corn (we don’t need it! Maybe subsidize eggs) etc? Only when the average citizen gets some relief do these idiots care. Personally, I glad this kicked Biden into gear reforming the entire system. The relief of 10-20k would be nice, but is not going to help people much who have been on income based repayment like REPAYE or IBR for decades with an ever increasing balance. this helps a lot of people who have been struggling for years and years. Count all of our payments, stop compounding interest, REDUCE interest, and make forgiveness automatic once you reach the required payments.
Edit to remove REPAYE as I see the article includes most of these things under that program. I don’t know how this affects the IBR repayment plan. >

The crazy thing is I know very liberal people, who even think that they should be able to live comfortably without working at all, that opposed this because they never got their student loans forgiven. Really? I give up! >


The crazy thing is I know very liberal people, who even think that they should be able to live comfortably without working at all, that opposed this because they never got their student loans forgiven. Really? I give up!

I've noticed that there are plenty of 'liberal' people who don't realize that most of their opinions align more with conservatives, or at least moderates. >

The swarm tactic >

Couldn't even be bothered to come up with their own words for why they oppose, much easier to copy-paste big paragraphs because brain small. >

“People” >

Wait…only 2000 people, who won’t be directly affected, calling against a measure that would directly benefit millions? 
Even if you asume all those are legit signers… >

Wtf only 2000 with a coordinated response?? That’s a pretty shitty turnout, didn’t even crash the server for an hour. Amnesty international has been doing the his kinda thing (form letter) for decades and regularly gets way more than 2000 people to sign on and yet, mostly crickets, and they’re trying to free political prisoners! Why is this news? >

People, please post your comments on the federal register notice! The notice isn't just for your information; it's for public comment. Someone counts all of them and they won't be able to ignore the duplicates. It's not against the rules to post a form letter and there's not a way to check names. We regularly have to respond to nasty comments from a member of the public called Jean (or John) Q. Public even when they're nonsense. I'm not saying the counts of pro vs against matter for the outcome, but someone will have to tally and report it and, c'mom, does it ever look great when most of the comments on a reg are negative? >

“I oppose the emancipation of slaves because I was a slave, so everyone else should have to slave also.” >

This is my favorite comment here. 👍 >

If you verified those 2,000 people comments, I wonder how many are aware that they did this. >

Managed to find 2000 prostitutes to astroturf huh. >

Hopefully these fucking lemmings wake-up before they casually walk off a cliff. >

“Back in my day we worked HARD for 15 hours a week to completely pay for our college” >

It sounds so ridiculous but this is literally the hill my grandfather is trying to die on. He went to college in the late 50s and graduated with no debt because a part time job was enough to cover tuition.
Meanwhile, he has a 25 year old adopted daughter, and he's leaving her all his money in his will to make sure that she's "taken care of" when payments resume. So clearly he knows, but fuck anyone who's not in his immediate family, I guess. >

Republicans hate Americans >

Why do people have to destroy literally EVERYTHING? >

Nearly 20 million people at the mercy of 2000 trolls >


The comment begins: "My name is [NAME] and I am writing to oppose this regulation to 'cancel' student debt."
"This regulation is extremely reckless as it is economically unstable, totally unjust, completely illegal, and would only worsen the problem it claims to fix," it continues. "This student debt 'cancellation' is fundamentally unjust to anyone who chose not to attend college because of the cost, those who worked their way through college to avoid debt, and those who paid off their debt as they promised."

Maybe these people that are upset others are getting help when they didn't should push for free college so they can get the thing they were denied instead of condemning those others to a lifetime of debt.
Just a random thought. >

Tax breaks for business owners are bullshit.  I would've started a business if not for the cost! >

Obvious astro turf is obvious >

Is this anti-student loan forgiveness Pro Gop voters in 2024 trying to block a progressive plan by Biden and Dems >

2000 people, in a nation of 330 million, is a “flood” these days? >

Now how many real people was it? >

Just call them bots, cause they were >

Probably all Republican interns. >

Looks like all the spam comments were the same. Should be pretty easy to filter out then!
Time to go submit my opinion, which will endorse freeing people from crippling debt and expand govt funding of colleges >

2000? I think we can take them. >

All evil Republicans 😈 >

I kinda love the idea:
“Awwww… I’m sorry!! Does student loan forgiveness make you feel sad? Here! Go yell and this website. I promise that your patriotic voice will be heard!” >

I wonder what combination of rotted GQP politician/evangelical fraud preacher/fascist conspiracy news channel gave out these talking points? Or was just their cult leader? Fools. >

A lot of idiots out there too >

More GOPerLord planted Astroturf. Seems those GOPerLords don't think their base has any kids who could get into college - a fair assumption considering the intelligence level of at least 20 of their elected reps. >

I did my part to comment in favor of debt relief. >

Check if your parents are there. Leave them to rot when they are old. Typical old got their fuck yours >

A lot of foreign IP addresses, I bet. >

That sounds suspiciously like dismal Donnie's word usage. Unnecessary intensifiers and all. >

How about we all just get naked and fight that seems like the best course of action. >

2000 people is not “flooded.” It’s a count of whack jobs >

Yes. 2k definitely real people. >

Had a lecture hall in college that was basically an auditorium and would split into smaller discussion sections later, room sat ~400 people. You mean to tell me nearly a whole day of freshmen Bio 100 lectures complained? We put up those numbers just over the online HW system, rookie numbers. >

Banks have been consistently oppose any reforms on bankruptcy laws. Heck they lobbied to change laws to make it difficult to clear debts after the bankruptcy.
Then 2008 financial shit hit the fan and the fuckers were bailed out left and right. 
Change the god damn law, student loan should be written off when a person cannot pay and file bankruptcy. >

They only got 2,000 comments? I could do that all on my own if I really wanted to so this is an absolutely piss poor attempt. >

The second someone looks into how legit those 2,000 comments are, they will be lost in a system "failure". >

Only 2000? We're making progress >

Republicans are the party of hate and bondage. >

Only way to counter this is for everyone to comment. >

The protesters have a point.  
I also think it’s unfair that so many people nowadays have their appendicitis eliminated by surgery, when people back in the good old days had to die of peritonitis.  If peritonitis didn’t kill you, it made you stronger.  And if it did kill you, it made your kids stronger for growing up orphans.  Now this country is full of a bunch of sissies who never had to fight through peritonitis.  Instead they just went to sleep while their appendix was eliminated on taxpayers’ or insurance premium payers’ dime.  We need to bring back ruptured appendices in order to bring back personal accountability and real masculinity.  
I know that if I died of a ruptured appendix, the first thing I’d want to do is make sure my children also got to die of appendicitis when it was their turn.  I don’t want them having anything better than I had.
I also heard that the cabal and the deep state only want to take out your appendix because it turns you gay.  Leave the appendix where God put it, and leave your gay agenda in the trash on the way out, libs! >

The comments amount to “I HAD TO DO IT THE HARD WAY, SO YOU SHOULD TOO!!” Wah wah wah >

Lol.
When the FCC opened comments regarding proposed rules for Net Neutrality they got so many comments (in the hundreds of thousands) that the server crashed several times.
Those comments, the vast majority in support of banning internet providers from providing preferential treatment for a fee, were completely ignored. This despite concentrated effort by entire communities of netizens to get people involved.
So why the hell should we care about a measly 2000 people when the outcome will actually benefit real people instead of corporate profit? >

2000 people? Damn I hope they all get a hobby. >

Lol fail thread >

All votes were from those that overcharged students for the loans.  Universities and Loan companies is my guess are part of the rejection.
Place the blame where it belongs and make sure those that abused have to pay up. >

I just want my teensy little $2,000 forgiven lol that’s ALL I want. I’ve paid $20,000 of loans already for a degree that I don’t even use, and I just would like a little bit of help. It’s not like I’m asking for a multi million dollar bail out >

Slaves protecting their master’s financial interests. >

Lol “people”. 
Hey ChatGPT “write a scripted email in support of the school loan bailout, and send it 3000 times to this web address”. >

It's bots and repubs who are against where their tax dollars go to help people. 🙄 >

Yeah, 2000 bots maybe. >

I hope everyone at least submitted their comment. >

Only 2,000.  Hardly an effort.  I could do that all by myself. >

Deadbeat, from Trailer Park Welfare to VANITY Fair, Connie. >

How bored and bitter do you have to be in order to get that upset about people getting a little help? >

More likely it's people with a vested interest >

No, whats totally unjust and should be illegal is private colleges charging a quarter million dollars for a community college equivalent degree and then the subsequent loan sharks who saddle you with debt for your whole life for one decision at 17 years old. That is what is wrong with the decision. >

Crab like, republicans pull down any poor person that wants to escape debt. >

People of this ilk are just such sad human beings. Imagine how miserable you must be to be so upset that others get relief from something. 
They have made horrible choices their whole lives and are bitter that others tried to improve themselves. >

The sheer audacity of this headline. >

2000 people wouldn’t flood a website >

Angelfire has entered the chat >

How many of those 2K were bots? >

2000 people is pretty dismal >

Why are there so many people who are so against letting people just learn and be educated without going into crazy debt? >

Because they didn’t get the benefit, why should anyone else. >

I really hate this kind of competitive spirit that's taken over our society. >

It’s funny, many of the people complaining are the same ones who want to Make America Great Again, you know back in the fifties when there were more social problems to help people. >

2000 whole people...
Man, in a country of 300 million, that's so significant! >

Lol A whopping 2k people! >

2000 is not a flood. My taxes bailed out the banksters, and they should have gone to prison. I have no issues with bailing out all students. Then make colleges, universities and trade schools free. The richest country can afford it. >

That's not a lot lol >

It's not unjust or illegal. Debts are forgiven day-in and day-out in commerce. I'm more interested in people who did not repay PPE loans because they didn't use the funds as required. >

The government isn’t “day in / out commerce”, you are thinking of private industry. 
Executive branch can’t negate those loans so it is in fact illegal.
This reality is well known in Washington but you can’t find it in the click bait crap that is posted here. 
This isn’t my first day on Reddit so go ahead and down vote these facts >

Banks >

Two thousand pieces of dried up dog shit. 
Or bots. >

This is the actual headline? Not dripping with bias or anything..... >

“I didn’t get loan forgiveness when tuition was a McDonalds summer job wage! WHY SHOULD THEY!!!” >

More than 18 million people applied when The Biden Administration setup the forgiveness application. That’s more than the population of 94% of states. >

A whole 2,000? Wow, Biden must be scared >

Wow a whole 2,000 >

Neatly 0.0000001% of the US population 😂 >

2000 people is less than the number of people that walk through the doors or 1 of 5 schools in my town’s high school district. Why are we constantly being held hostage by a vocal and often violent minority? >


Why are we constantly being held hostage by a vocal and often violent minority?

That's why it's important to make your voice heard. That's what these people are doing. You'd think the other side would want to do the same, but that's often not the case. But they'll definitely complain when something doesn't go their way despite putting in zero effort. >

"people" >

"Flooded" isnt a word I would use for 2000 people. >

Damn, nearly 0.00007% of the population said they hate this idea. Obviously we gotta scrap it and appeal to them. >

Why are they acting like 2000 is a big number? That’s absolutely abysmal. >

That’s pretty optimistic calling 2000 web hits a flood. >

lol 2,000...
That's like practically no one. >

How do 2000 people "flood" a web site? Unless it's hosted on a fucking twinkie, that is both a political and technical drop in the bucket and no one fucking cares.