Hey, Ma Bell! Leave Those Kids Alone!

There's an unfortunate Web story circulating at the moment, one which we should study for potential hints of how the Internet's future might shape up. Pearl Jam was the headliner for last weekend's Lollapalooza, and very unsurprisingly, Eddie Vedder had some critical things to say about the Prez. Parts of the weekend were webcast by AT&T, and for some reason, those comments were dropped out of the webcast. I write "for some reason" because AT&T insists it was all a big mistake. They were running the webcast on a delay to cut out any profanity, and the censors incorrectly cut out the wrong thing. Here's one description of the situation:

Following a rendition of Pearl Jam's song "Daughter" during the show at Chicago's Grant Park, Vedder transitioned into the Pink Floyd classic, singing the Bush lyrics to an enthusiastic crowd that shouted "No more war!" and held up homemade anti-war signs.

The first time Vedder sang "George Bush leave this world alone," the lyrics were transmitted to users on AT&T's Blue Room Web site. The second two anti-Bush verses were cut.

Pearl Jam has video on their Web page to check it out yourself. I suppose that you can believe no one was acting to cut out the presidential criticism on purpose if you want to. But it sure is quite a coincidence that no other parts of the show would get cut out. And an e-mail went out today to Wired, the Sun-Times, and other outlets claiming that similar political cuts plagues AT&T coverage of the Flaming Lips and the John Butler Trio at June's Bonnaroo Festival. So far I haven't seen confirmation of that charge, but it unfortunately sounds believable.

This incident brings more attention to the issue of net neutrality. Although critics of net neutrality point out that this censorship actually has nothing to do with that issue, in reality it's all about the implications. Internet service providers such as AT&T are arguing that they should have more control over net access, that they should be allowed to give preferred treatment to some sites over others. Despite all the protestations by AT&T, their treatment of Pearl Jam here just shows how we can expect corporate ISPs to treat equal access if the concept of net neutrality is abandoned. How many more "mistakes" will take place if ISPs are granted the power to choose what we can easily surf to and what might be more difficult?

It's also worth noting that AT&T is providing the Internet service for all you folks who own iPhones. Don't be surprised if criticizing the Prez is more difficult on an iPhone than you might expect.