After AT&T censored criticism of his worship -King George Bush II; I propose an all out boycott of all of their products.

Do not buy their cell phones. Do not buy their web services. Do not buy into their brand. Furthermore; this should also be applied to their sponsored partners. If any television or radio broadcast accepts a commercial from AT&T -their other sponsers should know. I for one will not watch anything sponsored by AT&T.

I urge anyone who believes in the first amendment to do the same.

To a certain extent people are correct that this, being an AT&T sponsered event (the show was performed, after all, on the AT&T stage), gives them sort of a leeway on what they can broadcast. They after all, "own" it. But it also poses a much bigger issue as we move towards ad-supported bandwidth and the proliferation of Google/Gmail style subsidized services. At what point does the carrier have the discretion to cut off service, or limited the use of its network. And while they may not be a government entity, if they're effectively a part of an oligopoly (as the telecoms are), what does that mean for the use of those services?

The argument, of course will go, well, then pay for it and don't use ad-supported services. But what if, like the cellular market and its locked down phones and exclusivity, no one OFFERS that service. This is all future speculation, but it is something to ponder when one thinks about the new age of "free" services provided by the wonders of advertising.

In this case, AT&T was acting like a TV channel, or for that matter Salon - it (unless it's contractually prohibited from doing so) gets to choose what to broadcast. It's not blocking access to other people's content (last I checked, AT&T wasn't blocking access to Pearl Jam's website or to Eddie Vedder's wikipedia article, it's choosing what it wants to broadcast. If Pearl Jam doesn't like this, and wants to go out unedited, they need to either (a) put it in their contract that the broadcaster doesn't get to make edits, or (b) if the contract was signed by Lollapalooza, not be a part of that festival anymore, and just stream the content on their own.

This wasn't AT&T acting as an ISP, this was AT&T acting as a webcaster - the net neutrality debate is completely, 100% different. Net neutrality is, in essence, saying "AT&T can't stop me from calling Uncle Ed's house." In this case, you were able to call Uncle Ed's house, but Uncle Ed refused to put Aunt Sally on the phone - their phone, their call.

AT&T gladly obliged when the Bush Administration wanted to install that data mining computer on its premises - you know, the one which logs each and every call everybody makes.

No wonder they have been allowed to reform into Ma Bell so quickly.

What was I wrong about that you were right about that prefigured Pearl Jam censorship?

Neimon feels this blog post which includes an admission from AT&T lacks sufficient evidence to prove its point. I would hardly call AT&T's lame excuse a "plausible denial."

This sounds like something right off of slashdot, and that's what makes me skeptical. Were there any OTHER sections "accidentally " cut? I don't know, because no "journalist" has bothered evidently to do the, what was it now, oh yes, JOURNALISM.

Find the rest of the facts before you go ascribing motives to a faceless bureaucracy. Nail it down, or else there can always be a plausible denial. One stupid question would make this story rock. Instead it comes off as a paranoid 20-something whinefest, destroying even more credibility among the non-corporate-overlord set.

Get it right, god dammit. Do the work. Don't just blog your ass through the day. That's just sad, and I could do a metric buttload better. At least I can be entertaining.

It's ludicrous to suggest there was no censorship involved. One way or another, all communications giants are involved in censorship.

What's even more ludicrous is Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge saying "We hope the FCC and Congress take note." When are people going to fucking wake up to what's happened to the U.S. political system? The Democratic Congress says it's okay to spy on Americans without a warrant, and Gigi Sohn is still thinking the FCC and Congress gives a flying fuck about the public interest? Give me a fucking break.

The longer so-called "activists" cling to the illusion of a democratic republic, the longer it's going to take to dig ourselves out of this fucking hole. Let me remind you it's a hole dug not only by the villainous authoritarians of this country - of which both parties are very clearly complicit - but one dug even deeper by those who persevere in the clearly erroneous belief that "The Public" even exists in contemporary America. It does not. Wake the fuck up, dipshits.

P.S. That this story comes by way of Farhad Manjoo, who once made his living denouncing and ridiculing those of us on The Left who saw all this shit coming is really rich. Just how wrong do you have to be, Farhad Manjoo, before you're willing to admit your own complicity in the tyranny that grips America today? You, who never missed a chance to ridicule those who saw all this shit coming from a thousand miles away. Don't bother answering it. It's a rhetorical question, and, no doubt, you have a career to think of. What a fucking asshole.

This has nothing to do with net neutrality. This was an AT&T-created and sponsored webcast - it's not like they're out there deleting lyrics from people's websites, or blocking access to Pearl Jam's homepage.

It's much more akin to Pearl Jam's record label declining to put certain lyrics on an album. A good reason to get another webcaster/record label? Sure. Evidence that AT&T is trying to "censor the Internet?" Hardly.