On a recent Monday night in Brooklyn, five empty chairs stood on stage — one for each member of the Federal Communications Commission. A crowd had amassed in the room for a public hearing to send this message to the agency: Don’t hurt the open Internet.

Halloween came early to the FCC: Last night, word leaked that Chairman Tom Wheeler’s building a new Frankenstein proposal that’s not Net Neutrality (NOT Neutrality?).

Verizon is attempting to buy its way into the news cycle by creating a tech-news site. But there’s a twist: SugarString.com will ban reporters from writing any stories about Net Neutrality or U.S. surveillance programs.

Comcast is coming off a pretty tough week. First the dog ate its homework, then the quintet it was trying to impress was like “Talk to the hand, Comcast, because the FCC ain’t listening!”