Sleepycatz

A few days ago, I wrote about how AT&T censored anti-administration lyrics from Pearl Jam’s webcast. The Chicago Sun Times is now reporting that this was not the first instance of AT&T’s squelching of music questioning the Bush administration:

AT&T’s Blue Room Webcast also had silenced comments during two performances at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee last June, cutting remarks by the John Butler Trio bemoaning the lack of federal response to Hurricane Katrina and comments about Bush and the war in Iraq by singer Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips.

“The sound did not cut out at any other time — only when someone was talking about George Bush or the government in a negative way…” AT&T did confirm that other, unspecified political comments have been cut from its Webcasts.

The Daily Swarm is also collecting anecdotes and evidence of further AT&T censorship. A number of the comments suggest that the practice is even wider spread then first thought.

As Jon Stokes pointed out, AT&T’s argument against Net Neutrality legislation has been simply “trust us.” AT&T’s actions have shown, many many times, that they cannot be trusted. It should concern all of us that AT&T — with the encouragement of the FCC — continues its unregulated, monopolistic, expansion. They have shown that they are more then willing to censor political content. Whether the censorship is done for either business or ideological reasons is still unclear, but AT&T has greatly benefited from the administration’s FCC board members. As I said previously, AT&T has completed most of the wall to censor content on the Internet, it is now simply beginning to filter at the gates now.