AT&T Content Filtering Plans Actually About Helping AT&T Subscribers?
from the help-me-do-what-exactly? dept
We were confused over the summer when AT&T announced plans to follow the entertainment industry's request to have ISPs install filters to try to block the transfer of unauthorized content. It didn't make much sense for a variety of reasons. First, it's hard to see why AT&T should be involved at all in a business model issue for the entertainment firms. It's difficult to see the business advantage to AT&T. It's going to cost quite a bit to install those filters and it's likely to piss off plenty of AT&T customers -- especially once those filters start slowing traffic down and blocking perfectly legitimate material (and, yes, it will do both things). However, AT&T is now defending this decision before Congress by claiming that these filters will actually help consumers: "It's about making more content available to more people in more ways."That's quite a claim considering filters do exactly the opposite of that. The whole point of the filter is to make less content available. Saying otherwise is simply doublespeak. However, to be fair, I'm going to assume that the response from supporters of AT&T's position would probably be that what the AT&T exec means is that by filtering content it'll make entertainment companies more comfortable with putting more content online. That's a stretch, at best, and actually shows a huge incorrect assumption made by many people in this debate: that "content" is what comes from big entertainment companies. The fact is that content comes from all over these days -- some of it is professionally produced and some of it is not. However, what's valuable content on the internet is not the professionally produced stuff, so much as all of the other content... that often shows up as "communication." The internet doesn't need "broadcast" content to thrive. It's done just fine without it for years. On the other hand, the big entertainment companies probably do need to figure out the internet if they want to survive. It seems a bit backwards that the companies that need the internet the most, want the internet to change for them, rather than realizing they need to change for the internet.
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Filed Under: content filtering, copyright, filters, net neutrality
Companies: at&t
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DID ATT SERIOUSLY SAY THAT.. HAHHAA MORON. Well we have learnt that driving in reverse makes us go forward hhahahaa
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???
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Show me one person who can't conduct commerce beca
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Doublespeak...
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1984
War is Peace
Thoughtcrime is Death
The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation.
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Re: Doublespeak...
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
why doesn't AT&T just change it's name to Big Brother and get it over with?
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Easy enough
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Re: Easy enough
Where is my easy answer? Dial-up is not a viable option due to the fact that I am on call once ever few weeks. When a call comes in, the work is usually done from home (it's quicker, easier, and saves me tons of money on gas). Are you going to come to my area and and set up your own broadband company instead for a comparable price so that there are easy answers for people like me? Am I in the minority by living in rural America?
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Re: Easy enough
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Easy Enough...
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It doesn't matter...
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Re: ???
Off the top of my head a few legal uses that, on the ISP side, would be indistinguishable from illegal uses.
1. Downloads for open source projects such as OpenOffice, Mandriva, ubuntu, and NetBSD are offered over P2P, and is the recommended download method (saves the distributors in bandwidth, kinda important in gratis software)
2. World of Warcraft's auto-update tool (P2P using
BitTorrent protocol)
They might just as well go farther and ban IP, because ALL the protocols on top of it contribute to illegal actions.
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Control
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Freedom
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