WHY DID VERIZON BACK DOWN IN THEIR BID TO CENSOR PRO-CHOICE TEXTING?

As Wendy Melillo writes in the new issue off Adweek, the Bush Regime, and the dysfunctional proto-society that thrives on it, are threatening democracy with their mass media tactics and policies. They're not at the Myanmar level of repression yet... but so far they haven't been tested-- and "their tactics lately are equally threatening. If we think our speech is truly free, we are deluding ourselves."

Nothing illustrates the chilling effect of media consolidation more than Verizon Wireless' move last week to block the messages of the abortion rights group Naral, claiming it had the right to prohibit "controversial or unsavory" text from being carried across it network.

That Verizon reversed its decision the next day offers little comfort, since the company has not made its text-messaging policy available to the public and claims it still has the right to decide what messages can be transmitted in the future.

Verizon is among the carriers on the forefront of addressing this issue. How does the company draw the line between what's permissible and what isn't? Gun messages from the National Rifle Association might be fine, but abortion messages are out?

The TV and radio networks using the public's airwaves reserve the right to prohibit anything that is distasteful when it comes to sex, offensive content and advocacy issues. But they argue that they do this because they operate on behalf of the public. Cellphones are a different story.

The AdWeek story makes a great case for Net Neutrailty and attributes Verizon's backing down on blocking the text messaging from Choice groups to the vigilance and efforts of citizen activists and bloggers.

Verizon will have to invest some serious time and money to recover from the damage it just did to its own corporate reputation. Look at what the blogosphere thinks is the real reason Verizon made this decision in the first place.

Ouch. As for executives who don't think the blogosphere is important when it comes to corporate reputation, they fail to understand their customers.

Glad I could be of service.


UPDATE: BYRON DORGAN TO THE RESCUE?

Timothy Karr has a great wrap-up of the whole Vernon brouhaha from last week over at HuffPo and he agrees that the company's transparent damage control offensive isn't fooling anyone but "is just the latest example in a laundry list of phone company efforts to block, filter or interfere with the free flow of information on cell phones and the Internet." Karr points to John Dingell (D-MI), Ed Markey (D-MA) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) as 3 lawmakers who are taking this serious threat seriously. Dorgan: "Verizon may have reversed its initial decision in this case, and I'm glad they did. But the fact that they were willing and able to take their initial action is very troublesome. The network service providers often claim that the effort to ensure network neutrality is a solution in search of a problem, but this is fresh evidence that the problem is real and with us now. We need to protect network neutrality by law." Yep; couldn't agree more-- and people need to wake up to this before its too late the compromised legislators give in to big money corporate imperatives. Whether it's the entire Republican congressional caucus or rogue corrupt Democrats like Al Wynn (D-MD), this giant telecommunications companies can't be allowed to interfere with basic American freedoms that have evolved technologically.