Why We Need Net Neutrality

While I was in Chicago for Yearly Kos, Pearl Jam was playing Lollapalooza just down the street in Grant Park. Some lucky convention-goers could see and hear the concert from their hotel windows. AT&T webcast the event, and they decided to save our virgin ears from some of Eddie Vedder's political statements.

During the live Lollapalooza Webcast of a concert by the Seattle-based super-group, the telco giant muted lead singer Eddie Vedder just as he launched into a lyric against President George Bush. The lines — “George Bush, leave this world alone” and “George Bush find yourself another home” were somehow lost in the mix.

“What happened to us this weekend was a wake up call, and it’s about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band,” Pearl Jam band members stated in a release following the incident.

AT&T claimed it was an oversight and a mistake, but now a whistleblower has come forward and claimed it was official policy to censor speech on the webcast. (h/t Open Left)

A crew member who worked on a show webcast by AT&T confirmed that there was a policy in place to remove artists' political comments from shows before they were webcast.

"I can definitively say that at a previous event where AT&T was covering the show, the instructions were to shut it down if there was any swearing or if anybody starts getting political. Granted, they didn't say to shut down any Anti-Bush comments or anything specific to any point of view or party, but 'getting political' was mentioned."

The head of AT&T, Randall Stephenson, is on the record saying that "We're going to control the video on our network." And that's exactly what they've done in this webcast. The implication being that, if AT&T has control of the pipeline, they're going to monitor and meddle with content. That's why we need a free and open Internet where big telecom companies like this cannot throw their weight around and fundamentally change the uniqueness of the Web.

(hopefully you'll see this message at all!)