ATT’s Censorship is a Reminder We Need Net Neutrality

Pearl Jam has always been outspoken politically, so it’s no surprise that they were critical of George Bush during a Lollapalooza broadcast. When AT&T censored the lyrics “George Bush, leave this world alone” and “George Bush find yourself another home”, Pearl Jam posted to their website in protest. Here’s the YouTube video:

Apparently this wasn’t an isolated incident and Pearl Jam’s anti-Bush comments weren’t the only political comments ATT has censored. Over at Wired Blogs, a company spokesman admitted they’ve censored others in the past.

It’s not our intent to edit political comments in webcasts on attblueroom.com. Unfortunately, it has happened in the past in a handful of cases. We have taken steps to ensure that it won’t happen again.

So much for their previous statements on not filtering information.

Lawrence Lessig has chimed in with a good commentary on how the incident applies to network neutrality. He hopes this event can be a rallying cry for net neutrality advocates to speak up again.