How Comcast Censors Political Content

[crikkett]

Now, I don't want anybody getting any bright ideas...

Published on Saturday, July 16, 2005 by http://www.AfterDowningStreet.org

How Comcast Censors Political Content
Or Why My Comcast Horror Story Is Better Than Yours


by David Swanson

<snip>
We didn't know it, but for the past week, anyone using Comcast has been unable to receive any Email with "http://afterdowningstreet.org" in the body of the Email. That has included every Email from me, since that was in my signature at the bottom of every Email I sent. And it included any Email linking people to any information about the upcoming events.

<snip>
Disturbingly, Comcast did not notify us of this block. It took us a number of days to nail down Comcast as the cause of the problems, and then more days, working with Comcast's abuse department to identify exactly what was going on. We'd reached that point by Thursday, but Comcast was slow to fix the problem.

During the day on Friday we escalated our threats to flood Comcast's
executives with phone calls and cancellations, and we gave them deadlines. Friday evening, Comcast passed the buck to Symantec. Comcast said that Symantec's Bright Mail filter was blocking the Emails, and that Symantec refused to lift the block, because they had supposedly received 46,000 complaints about Emails with our URL in them. Forty-six thousand! Of course, Symantec was working for Comcast, and Comcast could insist that they shape up, or drop them. But Comcast wasn't interested in doing that.

<snip>
By the time Comcast had passed the buck to the company that it was paying to filter its customers Emails, Brad Blog had posted an article about the situation and urged people to complain to Comcast.
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001602.htm

<snip>
Comcast effectively censors discussion of particular political topics, and impedes the ability of people to associate with each other, with absolutely no compulsion to explain itself. There is no due process. A phrase or web address is tried and convicted in absentia and without the knowledge of those involved.

<snip>
This state of affairs means that anyone who wants to stifle public and
quasi-private discussion of a topic can quite easily do so by generating numerous spam complaints. The victims of the complaints will not be notified, made aware of the accusations against them, or provided an opportunity to defend themselves. And if the complaints prove bogus, there will be absolutely no penalty for having made them.

And there is no public list posted anywhere of which phrases are not
permitted. This is a Kafkan world. This is censorship as it affects a
prisoner who sends out letters and does not know if they will reach the recipient or be destroyed.

[Caution]

1. Anyone who has ever worked for an ISP

will tell you that this is horseshit regarding Comcast censoring anything. Their e-mail was blocked as SPAM. These people are just being paranoid. Having had the job of protecting a mail queue from SPAM I can tell you it's a thankless job where some schmo will claim censorship nearly every time when they send out an email to 300,000 poor unsuspecting people.

[thecrow]

2. This is rubbish

I just tested it out with the link in the subject line AND with the link in the body.
Got both, no problems.
Are you just phishing for an assault on Comcast?

[DemReadingDU]

4. problem fixed now

it was a major issue last week

[crikkett]

5. the full article says it was fixed last week.

I might have snipped that part. I snipped a lot out because I'm not sure how long a post is allowed to be.

I'm not trolling.
(on edit: adding the part that scared me)

This state of affairs means that anyone who wants to stifle public and
quasi-private discussion of a topic can quite easily do so by generating numerous spam complaints.

[preciousdove]

7. No it is very effective censorship...

I sent out 40 newsletters to subscribers from a three week old address that nobody else would have used and was blocked by a similar system on AOL. It was critical information needed to try to pass some legislation in New York for sick people and I couldn't send it out to any AOL subscriber because of this system. Time sensitive. The legislation failed because they did not "hear from us".

I suspect a drug company hired a exCIA corporation to "handle" us and this is how they did it and if they can do it to little old us they can do it to anyone and it should not be allowed or at least there should be some repercussions for those who cry wolf in situations like this. People are dying here!

[holeinthedonut]

3. This kinds stuff is scarier then the corrupt government.

The dangers of unbridled censorship coupled with unawareness on the part of the sender or intended receiver are beyond calculation.

[EC]

6. We use Comcast here at work

and all of a sudden I get messages saying Democratic Underground is an illegal site and cannot be displayed, it comes up anyway, but I've never gotten that message before until about a week ago...

[Rich Hunt]

8. if someone wants to send me a news story about, say...

Viagra, or any prescription drug for that matter, it automatically goes into my spam filter.

Fortunately, I can see what spam I'm getting, so I can fish things out. I've had to do this from time to time.