In search of uplink vendor

Thu Jan 12 21:56:38 UTC 2012

On 12/01/12 12:18 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Network IP Dog"<network.ipdog at gmail.com>
>> Isn't this Internet censorship?
> Repeat after me: It's not censorship unless it's imposed by a government.

The wikipedia definition seems more accurate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

" *Censorship* is the suppression of speech or other public 
communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, 
or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a 
government, media outlet, or other controlling body."

The key aspect that makes something censorship is that you can't easily 
get around the block by the "controlling body".  Obviously, if you do it 
yourself or ask someone to do it for you (e.g. ask your upstream to 
filter) it's not censorship.  If it's done by someone else, you have no 
say in the matter and no (easy and/or legal) opportunity to avoid the 
filtering, then it's censorship.

If Comcast or AT&T decided to filter/block requested data from reaching 
their customers (e.g. access to .xxx sites, access to torrents), we 
would all agree that this was censorship.

jc