Contributed by: evilscientist
From what I\'ve seen in the press, it would appear that telephone and internet provider Telus, has entered the censorship game. A little background, Telus is in the midst of a labour dispute. After four years of contract talks, a strike has broken out, and someone has put up a pro-union web site. What Telus has done, is blocked the website from anyone who uses Telus as an internet provider. This poses several nasty questions about Telus. First, what other sites has Telus blocked or will block? Are political parties who hold opposing viewpoints to the CEO of Telus\' being blocked? Perhaps this site when they find out I\'ve said something critical about them. The problem with censorship is that once someone starts, the trust in that person goes down because what else are they keeping you from seeing. Not only that, how long have they been doing it?
Censorship is anathema to democracy. Now Telus is a private company so free from the restraints we put on our governments about such issues, but as the primary provider of telephone service (a near monopoly in fact) it is in a position of public trust. By censoring views that oppose it, it is breaking that trust. From this point on, I won\'t be able to trust them for anything regarding communication. How do I know that I\'ll be able to send or receive email from people who use them as an ISP, and have that mail get through unchanged? How do I know they\'re not blocking me from calling who I choose? At this point I\'m seriously considering changing my local and long distance phone service to another provider. Perhaps if enough people do that, Telus will get the message, though I think it\'s unlikely they would, even if they lost all their customers.
Evilness
http://www.evilscientist.ca/article.php?story=20050726160903494