Friday, July 14, 2006
TheirSpace
I got a comment on this isen.blog post saying that its link to the Internet-is-a-Series-of-Tubes song (not the techno-tubes song, the folk-tubes song) was broken. I verified that it (myspace.com/tedstevensfanclub) was, indeed, dead. Apparently, according to this Wired News story, the take-down was Deliberate Censorship by MySpace.
Indeed, MySpace's terms of service state
MySpace.com reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject, refuse to post or remove any posting (including private messages) by you, or to restrict, suspend, or terminate your access to all or any part of the MySpace Services at any time, for any or no reason, with or without prior notice, and without liability.And as long as there's robust competition in application space, I don't have a problem. Personally, I'd be shopping for a service with less onerous terms.
Meanwhile, though, I wonder who complained? Apparently there's no trademark or copyright issues, and no question about profanity, obscenity, nudity or violence [UPDATE -- or failure to pay for Premium Service]. Could it be that MySpace censored this song because somebody didn't like its politics??? So far, MySpace isn't saying who complained or why, and their P.R. firm is, "looking into it."
Meanwhile, without explanation, the song is back up!
Technorati Tags: F2C, Freedom, Internet, Politics, Right2Communicate
Comments:
David
When I wrote about this yesterday I pointed out that this, while on the surface apparently trivial (very few hits on site etc), is potentially very important.
If the telcos and cablecos gain the ability to charge for premium packet delivery then they can structure their networks in such a way so as to ensure extremely poor "best effort" for non-premium packets.
Even worse they could just as easily ensure, as we saw with the cableco that blocked Vonage or when Telus blocked their subscribers from seeing some anti-telus sites during the strike,that any sites they didn't like for whatever reason would simply disappear to their users.
Consider the impact this could have on your elections if say the GOP cut deals with the big telcos to scratch their back if democracynow.org etc simply couldnt be reached in the leadup to the 2008 elections? Even if the FCC were to step in and force those packets to get through as far as I know there would be nothing stopping the telcos fdrom telling progressive organizations that if they want packet priority it will cost $x, where x is an amount that is unaffordable by that orgaization, then turning around and offering the same packet priority to right wing sites for a fraction of that price, thereby achieving the same effect.
Best Effort is open to definition.As you know there's many a way for a packet to hit the bit bucket without it being overly apparant from outside the network.
Post a Comment
When I wrote about this yesterday I pointed out that this, while on the surface apparently trivial (very few hits on site etc), is potentially very important.
If the telcos and cablecos gain the ability to charge for premium packet delivery then they can structure their networks in such a way so as to ensure extremely poor "best effort" for non-premium packets.
Even worse they could just as easily ensure, as we saw with the cableco that blocked Vonage or when Telus blocked their subscribers from seeing some anti-telus sites during the strike,that any sites they didn't like for whatever reason would simply disappear to their users.
Consider the impact this could have on your elections if say the GOP cut deals with the big telcos to scratch their back if democracynow.org etc simply couldnt be reached in the leadup to the 2008 elections? Even if the FCC were to step in and force those packets to get through as far as I know there would be nothing stopping the telcos fdrom telling progressive organizations that if they want packet priority it will cost $x, where x is an amount that is unaffordable by that orgaization, then turning around and offering the same packet priority to right wing sites for a fraction of that price, thereby achieving the same effect.
Best Effort is open to definition.As you know there's many a way for a packet to hit the bit bucket without it being overly apparant from outside the network.
