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Umm, no. AT&T censoring a website was fundamentally wrong. It violates your (as in Americans) constitutional rights to free speech. That is something that is i

by froo 17y ago

Umm, no. AT&T censoring a website was fundamentally wrong. It violates your (as in Americans) constitutional rights to free speech. That is something that is interesting to read and discuss for the HN community. Sending pizza's to the operational centres of AT&T (which was one of the few topics currently on the site when I first looked) is not, sorry. It's an immature response to a serious problem.

vaksel 17y ago
people always bring up the free speech issue, here is a newsflash...all those rights you think you have, only apply to the government. Corporations are more or less free to do whatever.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  Not that black and white - note that telecommunications is often a government-granted (and mandated) monopoly. Some municipalities sign exclusivity deals with certain telecom providers, and certainly spectrum limitations and whatnot as granted by the government reinforces this. Private companies engaging in censorship runs afoul of the law if the government has a hand in them being there.
rosser 17y ago
This is a common misunderstanding -- probably committed more often by Americans than non-, though, so don't feel too badly. The fact of the matter is that private corporations (and that includes publicly traded such; ahh, the vagaries of English) are pretty much free to do whatever they want with the infrastructure they own, without running afoul of the Constitutional protections regarding free speech. That's not to say they won't suffer some well-deserved ire if they "censor" something, but the actual First Amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech..." (The elided bit in the middle of the quote is the part about religion, often called the Establishment Clause.) They're under no legal or other obligation to "not censor"; the Congress is. That doesn't mean AT&T haven't run afoul of any of the other Safe Harbor provisions they're subject to under US law, but that's not remotely about freedom of speech. The gist there, AIUI, is that if you block one kind of content, there's an implication that you have the ability to block arbitrary kinds of content, and so you're suddenly obligated to. (Someone who knows how the various Safe Harbor provisions is encouraged to correct any misstatements in the preceding.) EDIT: As potatolicious points out above, this isn't as black and white as all that; when government and industry climb into bed together, they tend to get their obligations and responsibilities all over one another.

by froo 17y ago

vaksel 17y ago

people always bring up the free speech issue, here is a newsflash...all those rights you think you have, only apply to the government. Corporations are more or less free to do whatever.

potatolicious 17y ago
Not that black and white - note that telecommunications is often a government-granted (and mandated) monopoly. Some municipalities sign exclusivity deals with certain telecom providers, and certainly spectrum limitations and whatnot as granted by the government reinforces this. Private companies engaging in censorship runs afoul of the law if the government has a hand in them being there.

rosser 17y ago

This is a common misunderstanding -- probably committed more often by Americans than non-, though, so don't feel too badly. The fact of the matter is that private corporations (and that includes publicly traded such; ahh, the vagaries of English) are pretty much free to do whatever they want with the infrastructure they own, without running afoul of the Constitutional protections regarding free speech. That's not to say they won't suffer some well-deserved ire if they "censor" something, but the actual First Amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech..." (The elided bit in the middle of the quote is the part about religion, often called the Establishment Clause.) They're under no legal or other obligation to "not censor"; the Congress is. That doesn't mean AT&T haven't run afoul of any of the other Safe Harbor provisions they're subject to under US law, but that's not remotely about freedom of speech. The gist there, AIUI, is that if you block one kind of content, there's an implication that you have the ability to block arbitrary kinds of content, and so you're suddenly obligated to. (Someone who knows how the various Safe Harbor provisions is encouraged to correct any misstatements in the preceding.) EDIT: As potatolicious points out above, this isn't as black and white as all that; when government and industry climb into bed together, they tend to get their obligations and responsibilities all over one another.