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.

Filed Under: content filtering, copyright, filters, net neutrality
Companies: at&t