When a democratic process becomes a spam target

Regulations.gov is a public feedback platform where citizens can comment on how laws affect them. It's democracy in action. But it's also drinking from a firehose, which Aaron Meyers was asked to fix.

In the US, there’s a platform for public comment. Canada has one too: the Canada Gazette, “the official newspaper of the Government of Canada.” These platforms are how the government tells citizens how laws are turning into regulations. But they’re also online, which means they’re a target for special-interest groups, automated campaigns, and even impersonation.

Comments aren’t votes. But that hasn’t stopped visible, coordinated feedback to controversial regulations from overwhelming the system. Aaron Meyers was part of a team brought in to modernize the feedback platform—and then told he couldn’t touch the data, or the process, since both were protected under the statutes.

So the team had to get creative. In this episode, we learn how Aaron hardened a system that’s been online for decades, and what it might mean for Canada’s recently-online equivalent service.