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Pearl Jam Hit By AT&T Censorship
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-08-09
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A webcast of Pearl Jam's Lollapalooza performance suffered some censorship at the hands of AT&T's content monitor.
 | | Pearl Jam Hit By AT&T Censorship |  |
That content monitor had some issues with Pearl Jam's ad-libbed vocals for Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall." Pearl Jam talked about the blocking of those on-the-fly lyrics:
During the performance of "Daughter" the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" but were cut from the webcast:
- "George Bush, leave this world alone." (the second time it was sung); and
- "George Bush find yourself another home."
This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media.
Censorship shouldn't be a concern. After all, as Pearl Jam pointed out, the public has been assured this kind of arbitrary blocking, feared by net neutrality advocates, just wouldn't happen:
Even the ex-head of AT&T, CEO Edward Whitacre, whose company sponsored our troubled webcast, stated just last March that fears his company and other big network providers would block traffic on their networks are overblown..
"Any provider that blocks access to content is inviting customers to find another provider." (Marguerite Reardon, Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: March 21, 2006, 2:23 PM PST).
But what if there is only one provider from which to choose?
Pearl Jam plans to post the uncensored version of the song from the webcast on their website. AT&T blamed the problem on a mistake by the content monitor. Pearl Jam fans are calling it censorship in great numbers on the band's message board.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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