Comments on: AT&T, not cool

By: Cat

Cat — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:37:20 +0000

Al Gore is on the Apple board and Steve Jobs was reported to have, behind-the-scenes, supported the campaign to stop Bush from getting re-elected.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:09:32 +0000

This is not a free speech issue, people. The right to free speech only applies to the government. Why don’t you actually read the First Amendment. “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” It doesn’t say “AT&T or any other private company shall sit back and take it up the rump when someone says something they don’t like when they clearly have the power on their own website to do what they feel like with something that they paid for.” If Pearl Jam had gone on stage and did a new song about how AT&T was an insanely corrupt company whose officers should all die horrible deaths, and AT&T deleted that, would we still have this fuss? When they put a movie on a national TV network, sometimes the network cuts out scenes so that the movie will fit into its time slot, but no one screams about NBC and its parent company, General Electric, trying to stifle the “free speech” of the director. Or maybe they would if the particular scenes were somewhat political…

By: Vic Anderson

Vic Anderson — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:34:22 +0000

Cut the neocom-collusive baby Bells, including ATT, off at the bills and save substantial costs by substituting disposable cell phones for land lines. It also thwarts Bushist Big Brotherism!

By: Sanjet

Sanjet — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:58:23 +0000

ATT didn’t organize and/or pay for the concert. It was a Lollapalooza concert (read the article) that they rebroadcast. When they transmit the concert over the web, a reasonable person assumes that they will transmit the WHOLE thing–otherwise, they are giving a false portrayal of an event. If ATT transmits a presidential debate and edits out one side, do you say, “Duhhh, they paid for it, they can do whatever they want…”? If you can’t understand the issue, don’t comment, dumbass.

By: JT First Nation Sioux

JT First Nation Sioux — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:05:09 +0000

All you foools loving at&t and defending them, get a clue. You and people like you have a very limited amount of time left on this planet. You folks gotta go, corporations gotta go or be transformed into public trusts of sorts. And hey Cjhuck even though your waiting for moderation your post is still seen douchey. Get a life a clue and pull your head out of the corporate ass before it’s too late. last chance, fix your issues or leave the planet in a box, you make the choice to follow the darkness and defend their minions? Then you deserve the Karma that comes your way.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:38:19 +0000

Chuck you are ignorant.

This statement “… this is not censorship by any means. att has a product to sell and they can decide for themselves what gets said and not said on website they own.” is completely wrong.

You don’t seem to even understand the law or what free speech actually is, so why are you commenting?

By: Andy Wendt

Andy Wendt — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:33:52 +0000

As much as people like to see conspiracies in all things political or jack booted thought police behind every act of censorship one should never discount the ever present possibility of incompetence.

By: chuck

chuck — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:29:48 +0000

why is my comments awaiting moderation… that is censorship (according to you above.)

By: chuck

chuck — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:28:33 +0000

this is not censorship by any means. att has a product to sell and they can decide for themselves what gets said and not said on website they own.
free speech is an idea put fourth by the government- if the government deleted the music then that would be censorship. this is a company deciding what is best for the product they own. i am sure if another person said something stupid about bill clinton or obama then att would do the same as they did with pearl jam.

By: Bugboy

Bugboy — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:38:20 +0000

Well, you could split hairs all day long with this free speech argument: who owned the signposts the original proponents of free speech posted their fliers on over 200 years ago? Was it public property? I’m guessing it was, but imagine for a minute that it was private property. What then? At what point does free speech become paid-for speech?

Was the Dixie Chicks playing to a UK crowd pleasing them with Bush bashing actually free speech? A crowd that paid dearly for the privilege of hearing those words? It wasn’t like the Dixie Chicks were standing on a street corner playing, not that they didn’t get railroaded by the country music industry for daring to speak their minds. But they prevailed in the end anyway, and that is where free speech wins, because as long as public sentiment is behind them they have support. That’s cold comfort when they were getting cut from all those country music station play lists. I don’t even want to guess at the financial loss the Dixie Chicks experienced from that exercise in Constitutional Rights.

Free speech is only a problem when the government begins censoring content, is the inference here that AT&T is representing government interests? In today’s corporatocracy I think the answer is yes.
But that’s what you get when you elect Republicans, how many times do we have to do this dance before the American Public gets this through their thick skulls?