Public Comments in the World of Massive Multiplayer Regulatory Proceedings

By the time the Federal Communications Commission’s ferociously controversial net neutrality draft Order was released on November 22, 2017, more than 22 million comments were submitted to the FCC through its new application programming interface (API). This avalanche of public input is impossible to navigate and interpret using human labor alone. Machine learning tools are uniquely suited to navigating and interpreting such a large amount of information. Their use, however, implies a new set of problems and rules of engagement for regulatory proceedings in a digital world. When considering this new world, we should keep a couple of facts in mind: Human judgment still matters. Algorithms must be targeted at solving the problems created by the large amounts of data.