In an obvious attempt to manage the crowd at the Federal Communications Commission’s hearing into its network-management practices, Comcast hired Cambridge, MA, locals to wait in line and take up seats, network-neutrality advocates and the meeting’s local host have charged.

FreePress, one of the organizations who petitioned the FCC to investigate Comcast’s practices, posted photographs of individuals sleeping in the seats and interviewed at least one person who said he was “just getting paid to hold someone’s seat.” that person said he didn’t know what the meeting was about.

A Comcast spokesperson confirmed to Conde Nast’s Portfolio.com that it had hired society to occupy seats, but said the public were just saving seats for Comcast employees. “Comcast informed our local employees about the hearing and invited them to attend,” Jennifer Khoury said. “Some employees did attend, along with many members of the general public.”

Workers Didn’t Show

Catherine Bracy, administrative manager of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for World

Wide Web and Society, which hosted the hearing, said the roughly three dozen seat warmers stayed during the event and many net-neutrality advocates were unable to observe the hearing.

“No employees came in to take those seats when the event started,” Bracy told the Associated Press.

That buttressed FreePress’ charges that Comcast tried to pack the room to keep out anti-Comcast observers. “The facts are these,” FreePress campaign director Tim Karr said in an e-mail forwarded by a FreePress spokesperson. “Comcast paid dozens of humans (not their employees) merely to occupy seats at a hearing.”

“In addition, they emptied their offices of citizens,” Kerr said. “We interviewed several of these paid society who said they knew nothing about the issue. Several dozen seats were filled by these disinterested public — many of whom promptly fell asleep. As a aftermath, citizens who came to the event with valid interests in…

Orginal post by Top Tech News