This is what comes of privatizing "The Tubes." Via Slashdot.com, AT&T has some fine print in their policy that claims that it can suspend or terminate your online service, effectively cutting you off from the public Internet for "conduct" that "tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries."Hence, AT&T subscribers, you are not free to express any criticism or dissatisfaction that AT&T interprets as damaging to their name or reputation unless you want to risk being disconnected.
Last week Verizon pulled an about-face for refusing service to a pro-choice group based on no other reason than their political views. AT&T keeps their manipulation of attitudes on the down low in the fine print, so as not to draw attention to those occasions or draw fire at their company when they drop someone's service because they didn't appreciate that person's opposing point of view. They also would like to avoid adding more fuel to the Net Neutrality cause.
This is the kind of repression that comes with corporate privatization absent citizen-protective regulations. Make sure you read your fine print and oppose all AT&T's attempts to annex the web.
Do you have any examples of AT&T disconnecting service to a subscriber who criticized them?
ReplyDeleteDo you have examples of actually using your name and accepting responsibility for your comments in the comment section?
ReplyDeleteCan't answer the question?
ReplyDeleteI will answer questions here--even from anonymous commenters--that are honestly put. What I don't take too seriously are the baiting ones from a commenter who seems to return here daily just to troll regardless of the issue and who expresses little sense of personal responsibility.
ReplyDeleteI dare say the answer is you can't give a single example of AT&T terminating service under the condition you describe.
ReplyDeleteI dare say that they wouldn't have the policy if they didn't use it or intend to use it.
ReplyDeleteYet you dont or cant provide a single example?
ReplyDeleteI dare say the policy is in place for only the most egregious offenders and your concern is for nothing.
Do you have any examples of "most egregious offenders"?
ReplyDeleteI dare say the answer is that you can't give a single example of AT&T terminating service under the condition you describe.
Exactly, which means they are even less likely to terminate service under the circumstances you mention.
ReplyDeleteSince you have no evidence yourself that they are less likely to terminate under the circumstances of their own legal policy, the simplest explanation suffices: they intend to suspend or terminate the services of anyone whom they believe to be damaging their reputation. I take them at their word.
ReplyDeleteYou expect lofty goals from a company that colluded with Big Brother to eavesdrop on customers' personal calls and that is trying to privilege itself out of local control over media services.
And since you have no examples of them actually having done so though, I believe your post blows this out of proportion.
ReplyDeleteI don't have lofty goals for AT&T, but I also don't think they are satan.