Verizon blocks pro-choice text messages on the grounds that they're "controversial or unsavory." I, for one, eagerly look forward to the non-neutral internet future when Verizon DSL and FIOS users can get cut off from such unsavory matter.
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Savor It
27 Sep 2007 01:46 pm
Comments (9)
Matt, uncharacteristically 24 hours behind the times. Reversal and de facto apology made this morning.
Matt, uncharacteristically 24 hours behind the times. Reversal and de facto apology made this morning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/business/27cnd-verizon.html?hp
Seeing as text messaging is the single most common way of collecting on booty calls or otherwise hooking up, is there any way in which text messaging is *not* unsavory?
That Verizon ultimately reversed course this time doesn't change the fact that they attempted to censor information to their subscribers based upon a political agenda and even in reversal made clear that they have every right to do so.
The relevance of Matt's point has nothing to do with any subsequent change of heart.
Verizon subscribers should reconsider giving them their business. It's easy to dismiss this as a bleep but the implications are serious and the more Verizon suffers the less likely this will happen again.
Conservatives understand how to apply pressure -- work the refs -- in a way that high-minded progressives just don't understand to their detriment.
I agree, Jake, although I guess I really see the problem not so much as whether Verizon (or any other cell phone provider) is likely to do this again, I see the problem as the fact that they can. That is, I think this shows the need for regulation.
It's telling that Verizon even thought that they could regulate content. That's a sea change from the traditional position of telephone companies.
For decades telcos did not want anything to do with control of content. The telcos' job was to connect people so they could communicate. What they were communicating about was not a telco responsibility.
For a variety of reasons that was good policy. The technology wasn't there for telcos to monitor everyone's phone calls, and for legal reasons they wouldn't have wanted to anyway. If someone plots a murder over the phone, you couldn't blame the phone company for letting it happen.
That idea changed a bit during the heyday of 900 services. Telcos were just carriers, not content providers, but 900 become synonomous with porn and telcos took a PR beating from angry parents and politicians. Ultimately, it became less profitable and too much of a headache, and AT&T, for one, decided to get out of the 900 business altogether. They couldn't create a policy to discriminate against porn companies and allow 900 for others because it was a tariffed service and the regulatory environment didn't allow for it. They had to be content-agnostic.
In a few short years the world has changed. Telcos are now unregulated in many areas and tariffs no longer rule the day. Technology has changed greatly, especially wireless and Internet services. And telcos are not just carriers but also content providers, competing with cable companies and others, and the wall that once separated content from communications services is no longer there.
I think that wall needs to be preserved. Let telcos determine the content if they're providing the content. If it's somebody else's content, telcos should just stay out of the way and let everyone have equal access to it.
I sent an angry e-mail to "customer service" this morning (I'm quite certain the eloquence of my e-mail is what precipitated the sudden reversal...). Why do these companies make it so damned hard to find a place on their website to give feedback when they fuck up like this. I think we should implement a standard policy to place a large bright "OH NO YOU DIDN'T" button on each website that automatically forwards our (or at least my) angry tirades...
To corporate headquarters, I forgot to add before hitting "post". They always make "customer service" deal with corporate's stupid ass decisions, and now, ....
Comments closed October 11, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
They reversed themselves this morning, wisely enough.
Posted by Glenn | September 27, 2007 2:08 PM