AT&T Issues Formal 'Censorship' Apology 98
netbuzz writes "AT&T this evening has issued new terms of use language that it hopes will cap a firestorm of protest over the original version that appeared to give the company freedom to pull the plug on anyone who had the temerity to criticize AT&T or its affiliates. Whether you believed that threat to be real or overblown, the new language would seem to put the issue to rest."
Pearl Jam webcast was censored by AT+T (Score:4, Interesting)
http://pearljam.com/news/index.php?what=News#195 [pearljam.com]
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http://pearljam.com/news/index.php?what=News#195 [pearljam.com]
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http://pearljam.com/news/index.php?what=News#195 [pearljam.com]
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Re:Big Company == Arm of the Government (Score:4, Insightful)
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Unfortunately, the only option politicians are pushing (surprise, surprise) is for taxpayers to foot the bill by using taxpayer money to finance campaigns and banning other sources. What we really need to do is limit campaign *spending*. Politicians
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AT&T respects your right to free speech (Score:1)
Seems to me like they don't respect your right to free speech at all. If they can shut you down for any violation of law (perhaps something as innocuous as downloading images that violate your community's standards or post intent to do harm to the President in an online forum), then they respect the law, not your rights.
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In fact they may not be going far enough, shutting down accounts is a temporary nuisance, if they see criminal activity, they have an obligation to society to bring it to the government's attention. Look, if you don't like the laws, get out there on the soap box, and fight to change them. Until then you will hav
Re:AT&T respects your right to free speech (Score:5, Funny)
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Whoa there, somewhere an FBI monitoring program is going ape shit...
Yeah, the message poster should have checked the "Post Anonymously" box
Re:AT&T respects your right to free speech (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it's a novel concept in our brave new world, but a service provider should just provide service, and leave the monitoring/policing to separate entities whose responsibilities cover those aspects. Otherwise, we all might as well get chipped with GPS locators and audio/video recorders and route everything to your nearest friendly community overlord.
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I know it's a novel concept in our brave new world, but a service provider should just provide service, and leave the monitoring/policing to separate entities whose responsibilities cover those aspects. Otherwise, we all might as well get chipped with GPS locators and audio/video recorders and route everything to your nearest friendly community overlord.
Yeah, people would never, ever [nseries.com] allow that.
Seriously, if you want to have a private conversation, ban cell phones from the premises - even turned-off phones are a liability.
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Then whose job is it to provide security? Just because some of us don't want to pay for proprietary software licenses, does not mean we need to leave the vast portion of the population defenseless against the scammers and worse that lurk on the net. We all know about these dangers, we laugh when we get 419 spam, others aren't so knowledgeable.
The solution can't just be education, if we tried that we would have 6 billion IT pros
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Re:AT&T respects your right to free speech (Score:4, Interesting)
So that's the solution? Let most human beings fall victim to the predatory few? What about people who don't have access to technological education? What about people whose only offense was having a credit card?
Furthermore, what about the artists and programmers whose only crime was releasing their work to the public?
Look I don't think corporations should act as police, as the mods and responders seem to think I do, what I am saying is that while we all have benefited from the Internet being a modern day Wild West, we are benefiting off the backs of the rest of humanity.
What if it was the physically strong exploiting the mentally strong, as opposed to the other way around?
Re:AT&T respects your right to free speech (Score:4, Insightful)
As a result if such laws if someone is a sexual predator or even accused in error, their life and those of all of their family members is effectively brought to a lower standard of life.
So that's the solution? Let most human beings fall victim to the predatory few? What about people who don't have access to technological education? What about people whose only offense was having a credit card?
Where are you trying to go with this? People without access to technological education often don't have technological access. If people wanted to learn, they'd ask someone who knows. I am not some computer genius but it isn't hard to find someone else who is and ASK them. If you don't want to ask, you don't want to learn. Idealistic morals won't do jack for reality sessions.
Moot point. People already do fall to the predatory few in millions of different fashions. You can try to claim idealistic societies all you want but in every situation "predatory" which can simply mean "superior" situations basically succeed.
The physically strong wouldn't be able to exploit the mentally strong indefinitely, those situations incite rebellion. Look at dictatorships aka tibet or china for examples of that. Tanks may kill people but they don't stop conscious thought.
Can you explain to me how you say we're benefiting off the backs of humanity specific to the internet? I don't really get where you're going with that. either.
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Somewhere, an evangelical conservative just died.
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10 Print "as usual, in a way, Darwin has the correct answer."
20 GOTO 10
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Unfortunately, if you want to leave it to "evolution", as far as "evolve or die" goes, we are the ones that will need to do it, not the unlearned.
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This is
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I've never seen an ISP do this yet, what makes you think they're actually going to start doing this anytime in the future?
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I've never seen an ISP do this yet, what makes you think they're actually going to start doing this anytime in the future?
He was probably referring to doing stuff like blocking port 25 to silence spam bots, or blocking the Windows file sharing ports to prevent worms. Many ISPs do this and similar stuff.
I would also argue that there are things that any responsible system administrator (particularly at an ISP) should do as a public service to the rest of the internet. For example, if your edge router allows packets to leave your network that have source addresses that are obviously forged (source addresses in IP ranges you
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Police's. You know, the people who get paid to "serve and protect" ? Possibly army's or secret service's, if we are talking about Threats with capital T.
I am d
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Frankly, if Americans minded their own business more, I think America would be a much better place.
Yes, that's why I imagine victims of rape, murder and thievery are so glad to have everyone look the other way whi
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But a 12 year old? 10? 8? Easy to tell she's not 18.
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Your example victims are all cases of illegal activities, morality plays no part there.
I believe you actually meant it's your "legal and moral duty to report illegal activities". I'm sure your "immoral" aspect was meant to qualify truly "must report" illegal activities from such travesties of justice such as going 66 in a 65 speed zone or crossing in the middle of a deserted street, which are also both illegal in many areas.
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And that follows... how? (Score:2)
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Yeah. One moment your eyes are open, people vote to throw out governme
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Is that not what our cell phones are for?
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Kiddie porn is a federal offense. PERIOD.
In fact, it is itself a federal offense to aid or abet the comission of a federal offense, and that includes turning a blind eye after you see it.
So, as long as AT&T looks the other way, they can let it go. But the minute someone at AT&T knows you're distributing kiddie porn, technically, they are now ON NOTICE that you are using their services to perpetuate a federal offense, which in turn puts THEM on the hook for ai
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If downloading speech is an unprotected "action", then free speech ain't worth much, since the govt can just forbid people from performing the "action" of viewing it. (there's no way you can view content from the internet without first downloading it)
Furthermore, to "speak" on the internet you need to perform any number of "actions", such as "push the on-button on your computer" and "upload the content to a webserver", if they can restrict these
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When a law starts being enforced by private companies, the citizen no longer has any recourse to violate a law that they feel unjust.
The ability to violate unjust laws and get them overruled through jury nullification is one of the cornerstones of the legal system - despite what some judges nowadays instruct their jurys.
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Seems as though every time we turn around, there's another example of how corporate entities are attempting to step in and become government and/or police.
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I wonder how coincidental it is that the President is at this very moment asking for retroactive immunity from any prosecution, criminal or civil, for AT&T that might arise out of their cooperation in the wiretapping of American citizens without warrants. Just the fact that Bush thinks this immunity is so
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So you're saying that AT&T has the right to charge you with a crime, judge you guilty, and sentence you to punishment...as long as it's restricted to withdrawal of personal (or corporate) communication?
Sorry, that's not the way "justice" is done. "Justice" means that lawyers fight it out in court.
I say "justic
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Re:AT&T respects your right to free speech (Score:5, Insightful)
This only works when there is an option. In many places in the US there is only one consumer provider of the internet. At that point, there is no check... It should take all of 30 seconds to find a few thousand examples on google.
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OK. Many places in Houston, Texas. In my apartment complex, cable is "in house" and has no internet. AT&T DSL is the only option. In the strip of hotels near the Bush Airport, DSL is not available
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Seems to me like they don't respect your right to free speech at all. If they can shut you down for any violation of law (perhaps something as innocuous as downloading images that violate your community's standards or post intent to do harm to the President in an online forum), then they respect the law, not your rights.
It seems like you are confusing right to free speech with some weird belief tha
Capitulation == Confirmation (Score:2)
Given the fact that AT&T seemed to think it necessary to "put the issue to rest", I'd say the threat was quite real.
Re:Capitulation == Confirmation (Score:5, Insightful)
All I have to say to that is: Yay internet!
Before the internet, disseminating knowledge about a company's possible practices (as opposed to their real ones) was very tough. Now, in a matter of hours, millions of people can be informed of a looming issue and speak out about it. This sounds like 'down the with corporations!' speech, but it's not. It's good for them as well, as they can now judge their customers attitude in hours as well, instead of implementing a disastrous policy and finding out a year later that it has ruined their business.
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Paging Lily Tomlin (Score:2, Informative)
This is a clever marketing ploy, but honestly, they don't care. They don't have to. They're the phone company.
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So they do have to care a little. Granted, cable companies are no gems when it comes to customer s
But... but... what about the children?!? (Score:4, Funny)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/02/1728217 [slashdot.org]
Now the only reasonable question is: does AT&T support child exploitation?
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This is a very Good Thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
When the policy is written down and the lawyers get involved, they fence in a square mile in order to protect an acre. This is done because they don't think anyone will notice and there doesn't seem to be any real cost involved, so it's just prudent to include a fat safety margin around the "real" policy. As long as the same personnel continue to administer the real policy there's no big problem. The damage comes a few years later when new people come in and see no reason not to use the whole square mile.
Consumer pushback makes it clear that there is a cost involved in being overprotective, and that there is a benefit involved in having a written policy that simply spells out, rather than overextends, the real policy intention.
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You can blame the lawyers if you want, but someone had to instruct them that they wanted to add the right to pull the plug on anyone or anything that "tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries."
That could not have been added by accidental over-lawyering, IMHO.
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They didn't mention criticism of AT&T corporation, or its employees, products, and services. I'm sure that was just an oversight, like the first draft was. They knew it wasn't political speech that people were expecting to be censored.
I also find the contrast of their new statement amusing. We respect our customers, buuuuuut we will immediate
Improving the Analogy (Score:1)
A better analogy (IMO) would be to fence in a acre (protection for a greater area) to protect a square mile.
Also, I'm assuming you meant a square-shaped acre not a square acre, as a square acre would
Original language (Score:3, Informative)
Change in Tone only; not policy (Score:2)
"(b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines"
It would be simple for them to adopt a guideline of "not defaming any organizatin with out massive proof or criminal conviction". Then, they can still shut down anyone who criticize at&t actions as defamation. The only check is public outcry such as these.
Now if only they'd apologize
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I wonder what their status is on middle justice? If they terminate your account, can they still charge you for it until the end of your contract?
And, of course, high justice is reserved to the monarch.
Read it carefully... (Score:2, Interesting)
"AT&T will not terminate, disconnect or suspend service because of the views you or we express on public policy matters, political issues or political campaigns."
If you wanted to interpret that language in the strictest sense, they've reserved the right to terminate you for expressing any views that *don't* concern public policy or politics.
Now, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but why be so specific about what they *won't* terminate you for talking
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He was actually quoting from the new policy:
He's right that it only says they won't terminate your account for three reasons. If you do anything else, it seems, they may terminate your account.
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Right, because a TOS can still be voided in a court of law if it's found to violate basic rights.
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For now ... (Score:2)
Until next week, that is, when they silently change the TOS again.
Actually, it won't be censorship. It'll just be inexplicable packet loss. They'll be working on finding the source of the problem.
Depends which threat you're talking about (Score:2)
The hypothetical threat of AT&T censoring someone for criticizing them, or the tangible threat to consumer rights from companies routinely putting in offensive to unconscionable language into boilerplate EULA/TOS contracts? Perhaps some citizen-friendly congresscritter might introduce legislation giving customers standing to sue over such offensive boilerplate, and collect damages if any term is shown in court to be unconscionable. That would compel companies to make such take-it-or-leave-it "agreements
Did they move it to the Acceptable Use Policy? (Score:1)
For all I know, they just moved their censorship provisions to the Acceptable Use Policy. They don't give a URL or cryptographic checksum for it, so they could claim later that any document at all is the Acceptable Use Policy mentioned in the original contract.
It bugs me when people include unavailable documents by re
Ok, it's a start (Score:2)
Now how about an apology for illegally spying on U.S. citizens?