So, you think you can say anything you want, any time you want over the internet or through text messaging? Not if AT&T and Verizon has anything to say about it.
Read the fine print of your ‘terms of agreement’ and you will find that either company, among others, can terminate your contract with them anytime they want at their discretion.
It is their equipment and they should have the right to refuse service to anyone.
My objection is their ability to access the content of those private conversations in order to determine if they are politically ‘offensive’ to their beliefs.
These corporations are business entities not political entities. If they want to enforce their political bias on their customers then we customers should be allowed to void our contract with them because we don’t agree with their political views.
Verizon blocked text messages from a national pro-choice group who wanted to send it to their customers.
When they were busted Verizon claimed it was a ‘glitch’ in their software and they felt really bad about it. A glitch? Right. A glitch that singularly prevented a pro-choice group from sending text messages to its customers. I’m not buying it.
In August, AT&T censored a live webcast of a Pearl Jam concert just as lead singer Eddie Vetter criticized President Bush. They also hid behind a faulty ‘glitch’.
Are these companies telling us that their multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art software is faulty?
Both companies have a history of handing over customer phone records to the National Security Agency. These events were not followed a scapegoat as mundane as a ‘glitch’, they were just flat out denied. As a result of being discovered, they are both pushing the White House for immunity from lawsuits.
The phone companies have placed themselves in a position to determine what we can and cannot say in our supposedly ‘private’ conversations. This is a very dangerous time to for freedom of speech.
Does this smack of Big Brother? You bet it does. Should we worry? Hell yes. Anything that deteriorates our right to privacy or our right to free speech or for that matter any right granted us by the Bill of Rights should be viewed with extreme suspicion.
No communications provider should put themselves in the position to censor or deny any speech we wish to participate in. They should not even have access to the content of our messages.
Network neutrality is an issue that should be supported by everyone or we will soon find ourselves restricted to what communication we can participate in. Also, we may find ourselves giving money to organizations that are practicing politics counter-productive to our own beliefs.
We need to protect our rights to free speech through every forum, including the internet and cell phones. Telecommunications companies are not culpable for what transmissions get sent using their equipment, therefore they should not be worried about what subject matter is transmitted.
One thing I do not understand is that since the very same people that run these companies and sit on their boards do not want their private conversations intercepted or censored, why should they facilitate the governments ability to do it to their own customers?
No comments:
Post a Comment